School district consolidation is one of the most widespread education reforms of the last century, but surprisingly little research has directly investigated its effectiveness. To examine the impact of consolidation on student achievement, this study takes advantage of a policy that requires the consolidation of all Arkansas school districts with…

The mixed methods quasi-experimental study aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of interdisciplinary teacher teams on sophomore on-track graduation rate. Employing a mixed methods approach, quantitative data from an Early Warning System were combined with qualitative teacher survey data collected from a Chicago suburban…

School district consolidation is one of the most widespread education reforms of the last century, but surprisingly little research has directly investigated its effectiveness. To examine the impact of consolidation on student achievement, this study takes advantage of a policy that requires the consolidation of all Arkansas school districts with…

We describe the levels, trends, and patterns of school closure and restructuring in the United States from 1991 to 2019 across all sectors using a near census of K-12 schools. Focusing on the years with the best available data, 2014-2018, we find that the annual closure rate of charter, private, and traditional public schools (TPS) were 5.1, 2.9,…

This descriptive study investigated the transformational redesign method of school improvement as implemented in the 2014 cohort of Michigan Priority schools. In Michigan, schools appear in a top-to-bottom ranking published by the Michigan Department of Education according to their proficiency achievement percentile; each year the schools falling…

To contribute to the debate about the reorganization of public-school supply, we analyze a reform introduced in Colombia in 2001 that merged independent schools into a single institution. Specifically, we estimate differences in achievement, dropout rates, teacher characteristics, and technological infrastructure between sites belonging to…

"Disrupting Disruption" shows how three racially and ethnically diverse school districts--Union NJ, Union City OK, and Roanoke City VA--have defied the demographic odds, boosting overall graduation rates while shrinking or eliminating the opportunity gap. These districts resemble many others in their student population. What makes them…

Policymakers and educators need to reimagine the American school experience in order to better improve student achievement. What's more, nearly half of all first-year college students require remediation in English, costing taxpayers roughly $1.3 billion. There are promising practices and research that rethink the school experience in order to…

The aim of this brief is to describe a key contributor to the persistent disparities found in student learning outcomes in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and to show how this knowledge can help identify specific sources of inequities in CPS, particularly for schools with predominantly Black student enrollments. The authors present a data-based…

The fact that all children must attend school has characterised South Africa over the past two decades. While many schools are struggling to address this challenge, others have made strides and progress in closing the gap between groups. This article recounts how these secondary schools have been able to narrow the achievement gap and sustain…

The UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership (CUEL) brief is an analysis that examines schools that have historically struggled to improve within the context of the Chicago Public Schools SQRP Accountability System. In this research brief, CUEL researchers advance the term 'high churn" to describe a school type that has proven particularly…

Reform is a common tool used by policymakers to increase student achievement, yet some reform efforts are more successful in some schools and not others. This study looks specifically at the following constructs related to both student achievement and reform: school culture, school climate, teacher efficacy, and collective efficacy. The…

Schools are faced with increasing pressures from declining test scores and outcry from the public to improve the educational system. Efforts to reform the system have varied widely and produced inconsistent results. One school took a different approach by embracing the reform efforts through a systematic change process, led by a transformational…

The United States has undergone a revamping of education standards in an effort to systematize rigorous learning standards across the country and prepare students to be college- and career-ready. In addition, new accountability requirements have been put in place to determine the effectiveness of the school leader. Certainly, educational reforms…

This report summarizes the research on the association between state interventions in chronically low-performing schools and student achievement. Most of the research focused on one type of state intervention: working with a turnaround partner. Few studies were identified that examined other types of interventions, such as school closure, charter…