Projects

In 2020, the Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to rigorously design, test, and scale the impact of its Structured Literacy program on students’ reading proficiency levels.

The Education Lab’s faculty co-directors, Dr. Jens Ludwig, professor at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Jon Guryan, professor at Northwestern University, published a paper commissioned by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) for its 2023 policy volume, “Building a More Resilient US Economy,” that makes the case for a large-scale tutoring program designed to compensate for pandemic-era learning loss and equalize educational opportunities in the long-term.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools and induced a once-in-a-century education learning crisis for students, the Education Lab, in partnership with Saga Education and school partners in Chicago and New York City, began generating evidence on the efficacy of high-dosage tutoring.

The Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools to help implement and pilot interventions aiming to support the post-secondary career and education outcomes in Chicago schools where students face significant challenges.

The Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools to help implement a program embedding post-secondary advisors in schools to provide personalized supports for students’ post-secondary career and education outcomes.

In 2017, the University of Chicago Education Lab partnered with the Mayor’s Office, Chicago Public Schools and Youth Guidance to understand the effects of Youth Guidance’s Working on Womanhood program as part of the Mayor’s Mentoring Initiative.

The Personalized Learning Initiative is a moonshot to overcome pandemic learning loss and aims to bring high-dosage tutoring to students nationwide.

In partnership with Chicago Public Schools, the Education Lab evaluated the effect of restorative practices implemented in high schools across the district.

Youth Guidance’s Becoming a Man (BAM) uses insights from behavioral science to help youth navigate high-stakes situations.

Launched in 2016, the Rahm Emanuel administration’s Mayor’s Mentoring Initiative included an investment of $36 million in public and private funds, pledged over three years, to scale up support for youth affected by violence in Chicago.

Back to Our Future (B2OF) is a state-funded, district-led, evidence-informed effort to re-engage disconnected students at an elevated risk for gun violence involvement.

The Education Lab partnered with Communities in Schools to evaluate an intervention program of academic and socio-emotional learning supports for students at risk of dropping out of school.

The Education Lab conducted a study of a high-dosage tutoring model–what we call “Saga Technology”–which found that substituting some tutor time with educational technology can reduce costs by one-third and halve the number of tutors needed without compromising effectiveness.

The University of Chicago Education Lab is partnering with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to scale personalized tutoring in the wake of the pandemic.

The Choose to Change program combines trauma-informed therapy with wraparound supports with the goal of reducing youth violence while improving educational outcomes outside of an institutional setting.

The Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Saga Education to evaluate the effectiveness of a high-dosage tutoring literacy intervention for elementary school students to accelerate the development of reading and writing skills.