Topic: P-12

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?

More than 30 states now have adopted or are in the process of adopting a formula that divvies out funding to public colleges and universities based on their outcomes for…

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…

Superintendent Melinda Young has seen preschoolers who enter the Steubenville school district graduate from high school ready for college. This shows the power of schools to, in her words, change…

In Episode 2 of Extra-Ordinary Districts, we go to Lexington to find out how it became so high-performing.

Across the nation, many school districts are asking themselves, “What can we do to better serve our students of color and those from low-income communities?”