Education

Education

WE ADVANCE HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION AND EQUITABLE ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL CHICAGO STUDENTS TO PREPARE THEM FOR LIFELONG SUCCESS AND FULFILLMENT

“Thanks in part to the support of Civic Consulting Alliance, Chicago Public Schools continues to strengthen its foundation to effectively reach disengaged students this school year and beyond—paving the way for sustained, districtwide change and greater student success.”

— Maurice Swinney, Interim Chief Education Officer, Chicago Public Schools

OPPORTUNITY AREAS

High-quality learning experiences
Equitable distribution of resources
Connectivity across the continuum

Indicators

Key Projects

Equity Working Group for Black Student Access and Success in Illinois Higher Education
Chicago Public Schools – Whole School Safety Planning
Chicago Public Schools – Student Re-Engagement Districtwide Framework

Indicators

Civic Consulting Alliance evaluates long-term indicators to inform our platform visions and our mission. These indicators also help us understand how the challenges we seek to address impact people in our region inequitably, shaped by factors like race, ethnicity, gender, or neighborhood. In turn, these indicators highlight that our solutions must be equity-focused and guided by the people they most impact.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Educational outcomes for Chicago students have gradually improved in recent years. However, there continues to be a significant gap in student outcomes based on race, in particular between White and Asian students, and Black and Latinx students. The COVID-19 crisis has only exacerbated many of the systemic inequities that underlie these gaps.

Degree Attainment (%)
Chicagoans 25+ | 2010-2019

The graph below depicts the percentage of Chicagoans 25 years old and above who have attained an associate’s degree or higher.

2 or 4 year College Attendance (%)
CPS Graduates | 2017-2020

The graph below depicts the percentage of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates who go on to attend a 2- or 4-year college.

Kindergarten Ready (%)
CPS Students | 2018-2020

The graph below depicts the percentage of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students who are kindergarten ready when they enter the district.

Equity Working Group for Black Student Access and Success in Illinois Higher Education

Illinois’ higher education system is failing Black students. According to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, our ecosystem enrolls, graduates, and employs Black students at far lower rates than non-Black students. In fact, only nine out of 100 Black students starting high school in Illinois will go on to graduate from college.

Alarmed by these trends and in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, in July 2020 Chicago State University President Zaldwaynaka (Z) Scott launched the Equity Working Group for Black Student Access and Success in Illinois Higher Education to identify urgent actions needed to close equity gaps and enable Black students, families, and communities to thrive and survive in Illinois.

“Illinois will achieve meaningful and equitable access to college degrees for Black families and communities only when it structures an education system that provides open and equal access to ALL Illinois students. The Equity Working Group sought to recommend reforms that will improve Black student access to higher education.”

— Zaldwaynaka (Z) Scott Esq., President, Chicago State University

The Equity Working Group was intentionally composed of 45 cross-sector leaders representing higher education institutions, government, philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and corporations from across Illinois. Co-chaired by President Scott, State Senator Elgie Sims (Illinois 17th District), Karen Freeman-Wilson (Chicago Urban League President and CEO), and John Atkinson (Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson, and Board Chair of the Illinois Board of Higher Education), the Equity Working Group sought to generate solutions to combat racism and achieve systemic and institutional change across education systems, community organizations, philanthropy, the private sector, and the state.

Civic Consulting Alliance supported the Equity Working Group through two phases of work:

First, from July through September 2020, we provided project management support to create the Equity Working Group’s operating structure, and provided data analysis to create a foundational fact base. Additionally, we defined a framework of the seven most influential factors that contribute to higher education disparities for Black students (affordability, institutional funding, institutional preparedness and support, enrollment and program choice, climate and culture, student well-being, and connection to career). This work enabled a successful Equity Working Group kickoff in early September.

Second, from September 2020 through February 2021, the Equity Working Group met monthly applying the above framework to understand major disparities for Black students in Illinois, and identify potential interventions. Civic Consulting Alliance continued to structure and facilitate the Equity Working Group’s meetings, and helped synthesize their findings into an Action Plan and an implementation plan to ensure the Action Plan leads to concrete, sustainable change. In May 2021, Chicago State University released the unprecedented Action Plan, which includes public and private sector policy recommendations. Implementation of the Action Plan recommendations in the coming months and years will be overseen by the Illinois Center for Education Equity housed within Chicago State University’s Institute for Solutions of Urban Populations.

We are at a pivotal moment for Black students in Illinois—a time of great opportunity (as public will to end racial inequity has grown) and great risk (as the COVID-19 crisis has disproportionally increased barriers faced by Black students in attaining a college degree).

At this critical juncture, the Equity Working Group’s Action Plan is poised to drive systemic and institutional change. Chicago State University has announced the opening of the Illinois Center for Education Equity for winter of 2021. Already, the Action Plan is informing powerful stakeholders and initiatives, including the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s strategic plan, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus' agenda, the Illinois P-20 Council’s equity targets, the philanthropic sector, employers, and the education sector at large. This work is illustrative of the collaboration that is essential to rectifying long-standing inequities and ensuring that Black students are set up to succeed.

“We are immensely grateful to Civic Consulting Alliance for guiding this public-private collaboration and its urgent work to ensure a more equitable higher education system in Illinois.”

— Zaldwaynaka (Z) Scott Esq., President, Chicago State University

OUTPUTS

Operating Structure— Operating structure enabling engagement of 45 cross-sector leaders from Illinois’ higher education ecosystem
Strategic Framework—Foundational framework and data ‘fact pack’ to organize ideation and prioritization of strategies to rectify higher education disparities for Black students in Illinois

OUTCOMES

Illinois is equipped with an Action Plan of specific cross-sector strategies to achieve systemic and institutional change in order to close equity gaps to enable Black students, families, and communities to thrive and survive in Illinois.

Chicago Public Schools – Whole School Safety Planning

Although Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has made significant progress on disciplinary reforms over the years, there is still a significant need to address the disproportionality of exclusionary disciplinary actions against students of color. At CPS, Black students make up only 36% of total district enrollment, but 60% of total reported misconduct. In 2020, civil unrest around systemic racism and police brutality shone a light on this issue, and sparked debate about how to reimagine school safety—recognizing the longstanding challenges that drive inequities across communities, like racism, poverty, and trauma.

In August 2020, Chicago’s Board of Education called for the creation of an inclusive process by which community members and other stakeholders could identify alternatives to the School Resource Officer (SRO) program—through which Chicago Police Department officers are stationed at some high schools. The district then set out to design a process for community members to develop a menu of trauma-informed approaches to safety for high schools to consider in their creation of comprehensive “Whole School Safety Plans.”

Given Civic Consulting Alliance’s experience building community engagement and collaborative planning processes, we stepped up to develop and implement a two-phase planning approach, timeline, and school safety framework.

“Getting Big Things Done” Virtual Conversation Series

How Do Trauma-Informed Safety Approaches Build an Equitable Chicago?

“Civic Consulting Alliance provided technical guidance, including creating a plan that kept everything on track and everyone on the same page. This enabled the community-based organizations to focus on what mattered most: engaging community stakeholders on this important topic.”

— Jadine Chou, Chief Safety and Security Officer, Chicago Public Schools

PHASE 1 | October 2020 – March 2021 | Community-led Engagement

Civic Consulting Alliance developed an application and selection process to choose community-based organizations to join a new “Whole School Safety Steering Committee.” In December, CPS selected five organizations: the ARK of St. Sabina, BUILD Chicago, Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI), Mikva Challenge, and Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE).

In January and February, in partnership with Embark Strategies, the Steering Committee—with coordination support from Civic Consulting Alliance and our pro bono partner Slalom—co-designed and hosted 18 community engagement sessions with more than 675 people to gather ideas about how to achieve three pillars of school safety: physical safety, emotional safety, and relational trust. In March, Civic Consulting Alliance then worked with CPS, Embark Strategies, and the Steering Committee to synthesize these ideas into 5-10 recommendations for CPS high schools to consider.

PHASE 2 | March 2021 and Beyond | School-based Implementation

Over the spring and summer, individual CPS high schools leveraged the options generated by community members and curated by the Steering Committee to develop their own unique Whole School Safety Plans. Civic Consulting Alliance and the University of Chicago's Trauma Responsive Educational Practices (TREP) Project supported this second phase of work.

In addition to alternative approaches to school safety, the plans also included recommendations for a school’s use of SROs. Local School Councils then voted on the plans, which resulted in the following decisions:

33 high schools voted for plans that would eliminate or reduce the presence of SROs and allocate money towards alternative school safety approaches
20 high schools voted for plans that would retain both of their SROs

These votes are in addition to 17 high schools that voted to remove both SROs in summer 2020, before there were alternative Whole School Safety options.

As a result of this effort, CPS high schools now have access to a robust, community-driven process for designing their school safety plans. Today, CPS high schools can implement the particular Whole School Safety Plan recommendations that best help them build positive community relationships, ensure a safe learning environment, and address students’ social and emotional needs. Yet work remains to further reduce racial disparities in school discipline and policing. In the year ahead, CPS—with Civic Consulting Alliance data analysis, facilitation, and other support—will monitor implementation of its Whole School Safety Plans to assess and further refine CPS’ school safety approach. While the work to reimagine public safety continues here in Chicago and across the country, this process serves as an example of how to gather and meaningfully incorporate community input to ensure more equitable outcomes.

OUTPUTS

Design and Implementation—of a process that engaged more than 675 school community members and school safety stakeholders to build out a menu of trauma-informed approaches to safety for high schools to consider
Framework and Planning Template—to engage the larger school community in developing a plan for school safety centered on three pillars: physical safety, emotional safety, and relational trust

OUTCOMES

Chicago Public Schools high schools now have a more holistic approach to design school-specific safety plans that consider alternative options to the School Resource Officer program, including increased behavioral and mental health supports and restorative justice programs
As of August 2021, the number of School Resource Officers in CPS dropped from 146 to 65 in the span of two years, shifting over $3 million from policing resources to other safety strategies that are more proactive and supportive of student needs

Chicago Public Schools –
Student Re-Engagement Districtwide Framework

In the 2020-2021 school year, the ripple effects of COVID-19 included a significant increase in student truancy and chronic absence. At the end of the school year, 26,000 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students had less than 60% attendance. This increase was particularly pronounced among Black and Latinx students, exacerbating the inequitable impact of COVID-19 on Chicago’s communities.

As CPS neared the 2021 summer break, it sought to identify, contact, and re-engage students urgently and at a massive scale. At the same time, the district was undergoing a leadership transition, reducing its organizational capacity. CPS rapidly launched a centralized re-engagement effort, but it needed to step back and develop a cohesive approach to ensure that it reached all students in need.

Given our deep knowledge of CPS, expertise in operationalizing large-scale plans, and project management skills, CPS engaged Civic Consulting Alliance in May 2021 to support the development of its re-engagement framework. Specifically, we worked to:

Develop a district-wide framework outlining CPS’ student re-engagement approach;
Map current re-engagement activities against this framework to identify gaps and opportunities to leverage community-based organizations in outreach;
Create an implementation plan to guide re-engagement efforts going forward; and
Provide hands-on problem solving and project management support for the implementation of re-engagement efforts.

As a result of this process, CPS took a new approach to re-engaging students over summer 2021, including:

Use of a Student Prioritization Index to identify students in need of more individualized support, especially those students in need of a 1:1 intervention such as a home visit;

Home visits on a massive scale—hiring about 500 Outreach Ambassadors via community-based organizations to reach thousands of students by the end of the summer;
Building out standardized tools for Outreach Ambassadors and administrators, including scripts for outreach and defined re-engagement processes; and
Organizing youth programming, parent phone banking, and canvassing, to engage students and their families.

“Thanks in part to the support of Civic Consulting Alliance, CPS continues to strengthen its foundation to effectively reach disengaged students this school year and beyond—paving the way for sustained, districtwide change and greater student success.”

— Maurice Swinney, Interim Chief Education Officer, Chicago Public Schools

CPS’ re-engagement efforts are critical to our city’s sustained and equitable COVID-19 recovery. Education is key to young people’s health, wellbeing, and long-term success, and re-engagement is the first step to address unfinished learning.

Equipped with a re-engagement framework and implementation tools, CPS reached 85,459 students across its re-engagement efforts, and 91.2% of CPS students attended school on the first day of the 2021-2022 school year.

OUTPUTS

Re-engagement framework—and an implementation plan to identify, contact, and re-engage Chicago Public Schools students urgently and citywide
Project management support—including analysis and problem solving to support Chicago Public Schools staff in implementing re-engagement initiatives in summer 2021

OUTCOMES

6,000 Chicago Public Schools families reached via home visits in summer 2021
91.2% of Chicago Public Schools students attended school on the first day of the 2021-2022 school year
Chicago Public Schools equipped to more effectively reach and support disengaged students and their families, ensuring greater student success

Platform Funders

In addition to the many pro bono partners acknowledged in the Education projects described above, the following corporate and foundation partners committed philanthropic support to fuel our staff investments in our Education platform in FY2021:

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General Operating Funders

Our ability to maintain our flexible and responsive capacity to get big things done in all platforms relied on those philanthropic partners who provided general operating support for our mission:

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