Chicago Public Schools

District Partner 2001 and 2006

ERS has partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to strengthen its professional development (PD) program to improve literacy instruction, to analyze CPS and school resource use, and to help identify strategies to improve the outcomes of CPS high school students.

Work Focus

2001: To determine the capacity and effectiveness of the district’s PD program.
2006: To articulate a strategy to guide the equitable, flexible allocation of resources district-wide focusing on CPS’ high school redesign efforts.

Some Results

• ERS identified almost $70 million dollars of PD funds. To maximize the impact of these funds, ERS guided the district in: consolidating the PD resources under one district leader; dramatically reorganizing teaching and learning; establishing standards to ensure quality PD; and creating rubrics to assess the effectiveness of district and school PD efforts against these standards.
• With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chicago Public Education Fund, ERS studied Chicago’s resource allocation across schools and compared it to 10 other large, urban districts. The study’s findings—including that CPS spent less per pupil than other districts and had larger class sizes—and recommendations spurred CPS to refine its funding strategy, seek additional funding to improve instruction, and commit to using weighted student funding to better distribute funds based on individual student and school needs.
• ERS determined the right level of funding for CPS’ new high schools in relation to existing schools and provided technical support to principals of 18 new small schools on research-based ways to use resources to improve student performance. ERS also worked with district and high school leadership teams to address design and flexibility challenges that have implications for the overall high school redesign, as well as the whole CPS system. To date, the district has improved flexibility around use of school-level resources and is engaging in ongoing work to integrate the School Improvement Planning and budgeting processes.