This report is part of a series of special topic reports developed by the Chicago Annenberg Research Project to document key issues and problems affecting the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and the improvement of Chicago public schools in general. The report introduces the concept of instructional program coherence and explains why schools whose…

This summary is based on the findings of the full-length report, "Graduation and Dropout Trends in Chicago: A Look at Cohorts of Students from 1991 through 2004." The report was written to disseminate accurate and detailed information on student outcomes in Chicago's public schools. This summary includes information on how the rates in…

This report documents development of Chicago Annenberg elementary schools from 1996-99 (the first 3 years of the Chicago Challenge), noting gains in student academic and non-academic outcomes and examining how the schools that developed got better. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge worked to improve Chicago's public schools through dramatically…

In 1996, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) began an initiative aimed at ending social promotion and raising achievement. The centerpiece of the initiative is a set of test-score cutoffs for third, sixth, and eighth graders, who must achieve a minimum score on standardized reading and mathematics tests to be promoted to the next grade. Students who…