The Role of the Committee on Education in the Urban Education Initiative
The founding of the Committee is predicated on two tenets. The first is that scholarship in education will benefit from interchange among researchers working in different disciplines. In this sense, the new Committee follows a long and productive tradition at the University of Chicago.
The second and more novel tenet is that a well-orchestrated interplay between researchers and practitioners will foster outstanding new scholarship in education. Not all members of the Committee will engage in this interplay, yet the interplay will energize the work of the Committee. To understand how this can unfold requires a brief discussion of the Urban Education Initiative and how its efforts relate to educational research.
The Urban Education Initiative represents the joint effort of the Center for Urban School Improvement, the School of Social Services Administration, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, the Urban Teacher Education Program, and the new Committee on Education to create, test, and improve a new model for urban schooling.
Components of the Urban Education Initiative
- The Center for Urban School Improvement (USI). This sixteen year-old enterprise is perhaps the most ambitious attempt by a leading university to collaborate with educators in improving urban schools. USI has created two charter elementary schools and plans to start a high school in 2006 on the city’s south side and will launch two more over the next few years. USI will help to incubate up to fifteen additional new schools which will be operated by others on the south side over the next five years. It also assists a broader array of Chicago schools in the professional development of educators and assists in the University’s Urban Teacher Education Program.
- The School of Social Service Administration (SSA). To be successful, urban schools must contribute to the social and developmental needs of children of hard-pressed families. In some communities, schools are one of a small number of institutional resources available to families and can provide important opportunities for social and economic development. Schools can work with their communities to meet the developmental needs of children and families while benefiting from community support. The University’s School of Social Service Administration brings substantial experience and knowledge to meet this challenge.
- The Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR). For the past 15 years, CCSR has provided a wealth of information to inform educational policy making in Chicago. CCSR maintains the finest archive of data on student learning, school climate, and the conditions of teaching available to any urban school district in the US. CCSR also provides considerable analytic capacity to answer policy questions facing Chicago schools. CCSR serves nationally as a model for how large school systems can benefit from systematic data collection and policy analysis.
- Urban Teacher Education Program. Chicago UTEP offers you one of the most innovative teacher preparation programs in the country. Within fifteen months of your graduation from college, you can receive a Master's degree-paid for in part by UTEP–a teaching certificate, and a position in a University–affiliated Chicago Public School. You can then continue your professional development during your first two years in the classroom through the University's New Teachers Network. Chicago 's Urban Teacher Education Program prepares students in the College to become successful teachers in challenging urban elementary schools. Having experienced a rigorous University of Chicago education yourself, you are in a position to teach students most in need of your talents–children in Chicago Public Schools–and begin a career in the field of education reform.
The work of UEI will be pursued within a larger context of a broad array of public school improvement efforts across the University, including those sponsored by the Physical Sciences Division, the Harris School of Public Policy and the Department of Community and Government Affairs, in the Collegiate Scholars and CPS Scholarship programs, and at the Oriental Institute, Court Theater and Smart Museum, among others.
A Model for Urban Schooling
UEI will put to test the best available ideas about how children learn, how school professionals can be trained, how school and classroom organization can support learning, how social services can be integrated with academic instruction, and how incentives and resources can best support effective practice. Indeed, the overarching objective of UEI is to develop and test a distinctive “Chicago Model for Urban Schooling.”
The Chicago Model will consist of a set of protocols and standards of practice scientifically shown to substantially improve the academic learning of students from low-income urban families and to increase their chances of graduating from four-year colleges. It will be designed to facilitate replication in other urban settings and to stimulate emulation by other leading universities. It will be formulated in and implemented by the University’s charter schools. Its effectiveness will be rigorously evaluated by University researchers. And this research will be used to both refine and improve the Chicago Model as well as disseminate it to other researchers, practitioners, and policy makers across the country.
This vigorous attempt to improve practice will reveal the limitations of accepted ideas and approaches while generating new questions and fresh insights from which academic research can benefit. The Committee will work with USI, SSA, and CCSR to develop an ambitious research agenda aimed at testing the best available ideas about how to improve urban schooling and the efficacy of the model and its components. Education experts at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) will provide significant assistance in developing and implementing this research agenda.
A Shared Vision and a Stimulus for Inquiry
UEI will soon develop a monograph entitled “The Chicago Model for Urban Schooling Part I: Primary Schools.” The monograph will explicate UEI’s central ideas about the instruction in reading and mathematics and, building on CCSR’s work, the essential supports required to enact such instruction. These supports include the development of the professional capacity of prospective and incumbent educators; the establishment of effective school organization and leadership; the fostering of a student-centered learning climate; the mobilization of appropriate resources and incentives; the establishment of parent and community ties and trust; and the delivery of social services in school settings.
The text of this document will be broadly accessible, but the document will have extensive footnotes evaluating the evidentiary basis for every key proposition stated in the monograph. We expect that some propositions will find strong support in the available scientific literature, while others will reflect judgments made under substantial scientific uncertainty. The Committee will promote deliberation about the state of current knowledge, articulate key unanswered empirical questions, give voice to alternative viewpoints, and engage in a research agenda that can, over time, reduce uncertainty about the key issues and important elements of the Chicago Model.
The Committee will engage a broad range of faculty and students, inside and outside of the University in these deliberations. The monograph will likely become a “living document” because new evidence and insights will emerge, compelling revision of earlier editions. We expect this document to be widely read and debated as educators across the nation pursue school reform in other cities.
