Chicago Value Added Project

VARC is collaborating with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on a comprehensive program of research to develop value-added measures of school and classroom/teacher performance, implement strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of educational policies and instructional practices, conduct research and provide professional development to support data-informed decision-making at the local and district levels, and provide technical guidance to the district to build a data warehouse structures to support research and data-informed decision-making tasks.

The applied research and support for data-informed decision-making is conducted in real time, synchronized to the real-time demands of educators, administrators, and policy makers. One important lesson learned from our work with Milwaukee Public Schools is that in order to support "just-in-time" research it is essential to work with the district to design data collection and data warehouse systems so that the right kind of data is collected at the right time, analyzed almost instantaneously, and then immediately fed back to school and district staff.

The Chicago Value-Added Project is funded by The Spencer Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, and Chicago Public Schools.