One of the districts that surprised Sean Reardon the most is Chicago – the nation’s third largest district with about 400,000 students.

Although overall the achievement of its third-through-eighth-graders is below the national average, that hides a story of remarkable growth – that is to say, Chicago’s third graders score well below the national average –but its eighth-graders score right about at the national average.

No other large or even medium-sized district can boast of that kind of growth from third through eighth-grade. Not only can this growth be seen on the state tests that Reardon analyzed but also on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), in which Chicago participates separately as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA).

And the improvement doesn’t stop in eighth grade. Graduation rates in the city have been rising steadily and so have ACT scores.

In this episode, we examine what Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is doing to have seen such improvement.

ExtraOrdinary Districts was made possible with a grant from The Wallace Foundation, which fosters improvements in learning and enrichment for children from low-income families and encourages efforts to improve the recruitment, training, and support of school leaders.