Series: Extraordinary Districts

One of the key lessons that emerged in Education Trust’s podcast, “ExtraOrdinary Districts,” is that improvement requires leadership at the school level.

Education Trust’s podcast, “ExtraOrdinary Districts,” illustrated that: school leaders who believe in the capacity of all children, no matter what their background, are critical to improving schools; and school leadership…

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

Chicago Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson states that Chicago’s principal-development strategy is directly correlated to its improving graduation rates and test scores. Here, we visit the high school that she…

How would Chicago school district know what worked and what didn’t? With foundation help, the University of Chicago launched the Consortium on School Research, where research superstars spent years studying…

In 1987, U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett flew into Chicago, declared it the “worst” school district in the country, and flew home, leaving Chicago residents stunned and angry. They…

What are they doing in Steubenville do be so high performing in elementary school? And how are they addressing the fact that their students don’t continue to perform at the top of the country as they move into secondary grades?

Although Steubenville’s third and fourth graders perform toward the top of the country, achievement tails off in fifth grade heading into middle school. We hear from Steubenville’s educators what they’re…

Back in the late 1990s, Ohio adopted a law that said that fourth graders who couldn’t pass a reading test would have to be retained. Steubenville educators realized that some…