5Essentials Survey

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Evidence · 33 claims (30 for, 2 mixed, 1 against) · 17 studies (14 associational, 2 causal, 1 design), q1–q3 · 0 of 17 report an effect size · 32 claims rest on one study

Description

The 5Essentials Survey is a statewide school-climate and organizational-conditions assessment developed by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and administered to Illinois students and teachers by the Illinois State Board of Education.

Components

• 5Essentials Survey supplemental measures of racial equity climate and school civic engagement: The study measured two school-level constructs using supplemental measures on the 5Essentials Survey. Racial equity climate measured "the extent to which each student perceived their school as fair and equitable" with items such as "race is a factor in decisions about discipline at this school" (1-4 scale, lower scores more positive). Civic engagement measured students' experiences of civic learning in courses, including current-events discussion and community action projects. (Irsheid (2023))
• 5Essentials-based school climate measures (Student Physical Safety, Teacher Physical Safety, Student-Teacher Trust): This study used three annual survey measures as school climate outcomes. The Student Physical Safety measure is the School Safety measure from the 5Essentials Survey, containing five items with the stem "How safe do you feel…?" rated from Not safe to Very safe. The Teacher Physical Safety measure is a supplementary CPS annual survey measure with seven items on problems such as physical conflicts and disorder, reverse coded for interpretability. The Student-Teacher Trust measure contains five agreement items about feeling safe and comfortable with teachers. Scores were estimated with Rasch family models on the logit scale, and different measure scales are not comparable. (Arneson et al. (2024))
• 5Essentials Survey Supportive Environment measures: The Supportive Environment essential of the 5Essentials Survey is defined based on students' and teachers' reports on six measures: peer support for academic work, academic personalism (teacher support), safety, student-teacher trust, school-wide future orientation, and expectations for post-secondary education. For example, students report whether "their teacher is willing to give extra help on schoolwork and notices if they have trouble learning something." The brief links this element to schools' ability to reduce fear of bullying. (Kiguel (2023))
• 5Essentials survey-based diagnostic tools: A set of survey-based diagnostic tools created by designers and researchers building on the original five essential supports research. The tools "allow educators to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their own school in the five essential supports," producing results that principals, teachers, and parents use to craft an evidence-based narrative and diagnosis of their school and to develop action plans. The paper details the underlying research behind the tools, their creation, and their use in supporting school improvement. (Sebring P. et al. (2014))
• 5Essentials Survey (My Voice, My School survey): The 5Essentials Survey, administered in Chicago Public Schools since the 1990s, "measures a school’s strength in five essential organizational conditions that influence student learning: Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers, Involved Families, Supportive Environment, and Ambitious Instruction." The two studies examined its predictiveness of school improvement and how schools use its results. It is also included in CPS's SQRP accountability system. (Title as printed (2021))
• 5Essentials school survey as a measure of school relational trust and climate: The article tags its work with "5Essentials school survey" and "school climate," indicating the comparative Valparaíso–Illinois relational trust study is associated with the 5Essentials survey measurement approach. The survey supplies the empirical data on trust among teachers, between teachers and principals, and between students and teachers collected from teachers and students in both regions. (Key Questions: relational trust in schools in Valparaíso et al. (2021))
• 5Essentials Survey measures of socioemotional development and school climate: The 5Essentials Survey provided the study's measures of student socioemotional development (SED) and school climate. The study used "5Essentials Survey measures of socioemotional development (SED) from 8th and 9th grade students who attended a CPS high school between 2011 and 2017 (160,148 students)" and 5Essentials Survey measures of school climate completed by high school students and teachers, alongside administrative records of demographics, attendance, and discipline. (Shanette C. Porter et al. (2023))
• 5Essentials annual teacher surveys as the school-selection instrument: The 5Essentials surveys are annual teacher surveys used in this study to identify schools where teachers reported strong principal instructional leadership. The article states researchers "visited 12 schools in Chicago where teachers reported strong principal instructional leadership based on the annual 5Essentials surveys from 2011-13." The surveys thus served as the screening instrument for the contrasting case study, and the article also tags school climate as a publication theme. (Key Questions: Principal instructional leadership in Chicago schools (2019))
• Individualized school reports (ISRs) tracking schools on core research-linked indicators: Individualized survey reports are customized data products that bring CCSR research findings to each school: 'individualized survey reports (isrs) allow educators to track over time their status on critical indicators of school environment that research has linked to student achievement.' Each participating school receives a report comparing its performance to similar schools on the five essential supports, allowing schools to chart progress over time, revisit key improvement concepts, and build their own coherent conceptual models. CCSR is developing real-time and topic-customized ISRs, such as around freshman year performance. (Melissa Roderick et al. (2009))
• Consortium school survey report system with 53 measures, demographic comparison groups, and time trends: The Consortium prepares individualized, confidential survey reports for every Chicago school meeting response-rate criteria; in 2001, 412 elementary and high schools qualified. Each school is described on 53 measures constructed from questionnaire items, displayed against the systemwide average, demographically similar schools, and the school's own trend since 1994. Measures combine conceptually related items for more reliable understanding, and at least seven respondents are needed for a valid reading of a measure. (Luppescu et al. (2001))
• UChicago Consortium biennial school survey of teachers and grade 6-10 students: Every two years, the UChicago Consortium surveys all Chicago public school teachers and sixth- through tenth-grade students. Teachers answer questions on classroom instruction, their professional development experiences, and the conditions under which they work, while students report on their school experiences, attitudes, and activities. Responses feed about 25 composite measures of school development grouped under the five essential supports, and the report categorizes endorsement of each measure as weak to strong. (The UChicago Consortium (2003))
• School-specific survey reports with minimum participation thresholds: The UChicago Consortium prepares school-specific reports of survey responses, but only for schools meeting participation thresholds: reports are prepared "for every school in which at least 42 percent of teachers or 50 percent of students participate in the survey." The reports describe the learning climate, quality of instructional program, student-teacher relationships, leadership, professional environment, and school relationships with parents and community. (Improving Chicago's Schools: Sample Elementary Summary 2005 (2005))
• Five essential supports for student learning framework: The report organizes all survey measures around five essential supports for student learning, initially presented in the CPS Pathways to Achievement self-analysis guide and included in the SIPAAA planning process. The supports are School Leadership; Parent and Community Partnerships; Student-Centered Learning Climate; Professional Development and Collaboration; and Quality Instructional Program. The report states that "Many of the questions in the teacher and student surveys are directly relevant to the five essential supports for student learning" and that "The survey results are organized according to the five essential supports." Each support is operationalized as multiple survey scales, (Anthony Bryk et al. (1997))
• 5Essentials Survey system measuring school organizational conditions: The 5Essentials Survey is a confidential statewide survey administered to students in grades 6-12 and all teachers that measures the five essential supports framework. As the report states, "In all, there are 22 measures that capture the five essential supports." Survey items are combined into measures (e.g., student-teacher trust), which are then combined into essential support scores. Each measure is based on either teacher or student responses, and some pertain only to elementary/middle or high schools. (Klugman et al. (2015))
• Five Essential Supports for Student Learning: The report organizes its survey results around a framework of "the five essential supports for student learning, initially presented in Annenberg's" work, which are also included in the Chicago Public Schools' School Improvement Plan for Advancing Academic Achievement (SIP-AA). The framework structures the ten profile graphs and the detailed Part II scale pages: school leadership, parent and community partnerships, student-centered learning climate, professional development and collaboration (professional community, workplace, and development), and quality instructional program, with student outcomes reported as complementary dispositions. The report states that "Many of the questions in the (Anthony Bryk et al. (1997))
• The Five Essential Supports framework organizes school development measures: The UChicago Consortium groups roughly 25 survey composite measures of school development under five essential supports for student learning, which Consortium research identified as School Leadership, Parent and Community Partnerships, Student-Centered Learning Climate, Professional Capacity, and Quality Instructional Program. The framework is operationalized through a biennial survey of teachers and students, and the report presents 2003 snapshots and 1994-2003 trends for each measure, with endorsement "ranging from weak to strong." (The UChicago Consortium (2003))
• School report pattern: summary profiles plus detailed scale distributions benchmarked against similar and quartile schools: The report follows a two-part design: Part I gives five profile graphs, one per essential support, offering a quick comparison of the school with all participating schools and with similar schools matched on IGAP scores and school size; Part II details each scale with item-level endorsement percentages, an interpretation table for scale scores, and distributions comparing the school with top and bottom quartile schools. This design is intended to alert schools to possible strengths and weaknesses and guide deeper examination. (Sebring et al. (1995))

Claims

• High school civic engagement is associated with higher graduation rates for all students regardless of age at entry, race, or gender [+W]
• Overage students at high schools with great racial equity climate are twice as likely to graduate in four years as those at schools with poor racial equity climate [+W]
• SRO removal was not significantly related to changes in student or teacher perceptions of physical safety or in Student-Teacher Trust [~W]
• Schools with higher 5Essentials Survey scores, especially more Supportive Environments, are more likely to reduce students' fear of bullying [+W]
• Schools strong on clusters of the five essential supports were 10 times more likely to improve learning of reading and mathematics [+W]
• The five essential supports matter in combination: strength on clusters of supports, not isolated domains, predicts improvement [+W]
• Strength on most 5Essentials measures was similarly likely across poverty levels, but five measures were less prevalent in high-poverty schools [+W]
• 5Essentials Survey measures predicted school improvement in both high- and low-poverty schools at elementary and high school levels [+W]
• Accountability pressures overshadowed the survey's improvement potential without reducing its predictive power [~W]
• Leadership coaching partnerships and instructional leadership team collaboration increased schools' capacity to use survey data [+W]
• Few schools used 5Essentials data for improvement, citing opaque data, principal-focused measures, and lack of district-wide strategy [-W]
• Among elementary schools with strong 5Essentials results, high-poverty schools improved more than low-poverty schools on more than one-half of measures [+W]
• Only 50% of a school's 5Essentials score is explained by the previous year's score, indicating substantial year-to-year malleability of school climate [+M]
• Strong scores and growth on the 5Essentials Survey predict student success measures including GPA, attendance, test scores, and college enrollment [+M]
• When Supportive Environment improves, the other 5Essentials essential supports often improve [+W]
• High schools that foster 8th-to-9th-grade student growth across multiple dimensions positively influence students' social and academic trajectories [+W]
• School quality measures that exclude schools' impacts on socioemotional development underestimate or misidentify many impactful schools [+W]
• Schools' impacts on socioemotional development and behaviors in 9th grade matter substantially more for long-run trajectories than test score impacts [+W]
• Fostering socioemotional development and fostering test score growth had nearly identical impacts on 9th grade test scores [+W]
• School survey reports benchmark each school against demographically similar schools and the whole system over a ten-year period [+W]
• Ten years of repeated survey participation enables reporting of change over time in school climate measures [+W]
• The 2005 CCSR survey drew over 130,000 participants and produced reports for 454 schools [+W]
• Instructional leadership ratings are high even in bottom-quartile Chicago high schools: 85 percent of top-quartile teachers give strong or very strong ratings, and half of bottom-quartile teachers do so as well [+W]
• Intergenerational ties in the community contribute positively to student learning, per research cited in the report [+W]
• Joint problem solving distinguishes top- from bottom-quartile Chicago high schools: half of top-quartile teachers describe strong processes plus 13 percent very strong, while bottom-quartile teachers most often describe weak processes (46 percent) [+W]
• Program coherence varies widely within quartiles: more than half of top-quartile teachers report moderate coherence and 32 percent report little or none, while 44 percent of bottom-quartile teachers report strong or very strong coherence [+W]
• Recalibrated 5Essentials measures based on 2014–19 data maintained acceptable Rasch reliability and school-level variance [+W]
• The 1997 Chicago Annenberg surveys reached 308 elementary schools and 62 high schools with response rates high enough to receive individual school reports [+M]
• In schools where students experience peer support for academic work, student learning is more likely [+W]
• Academic achievement is more likely in classrooms that combine personalism with a strong press toward academic work [+W]
• When a strong sense of self-efficacy is accompanied by sustained student effort, better academic achievement is likely [+W]
• Student learning improves most where multiple related essential supports are implemented and evaluated [+M]
• Survey snapshots and trend graphs track school development measure responses from 1994 to 2003 [+W]

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• Irsheid, S. (2023). Beyond the Student: Structural Factors that Affect Grade Retention. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/beyond-the-student
• Arneson, A., Hinze-Pifer, R., Franklin, K., & Johnson, D.W. (2024). Removing police officers from Chicago schools: Trends and outcomes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/removing-police-officers-from-Chicago-schools
• Kiguel, S. (2023). Moving the needle on bullying and educational outcomes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/docview/30488487
• Sebring P., & Montgomery, N. (2014). The Five Essential Supports for School Improvement: Mobilizing the Findings. Pensamiento Educativo. Revista de Investigación Educacional Latinoamericana, 51(1), 63-85. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/five-essential-supports-school-improvement-mobilizing-findings
• Title as printed. (2021). University of Chicago Consortium on School Research press release. https://consortium.uchicago.edu
• 5Essentials Survey: New insights for school leaders. (2026). University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu
• Key Questions: relational trust in schools in Valparaíso, Chile and Illinois, US. (2021). International Journal of Leadership in Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/journal/rled
• Shanette C. Porter, C. Kirabo Jackson, Sebastián Kiguel and John Q. Easton. (2023). Investing in Adolescents: High School Climate and Organizational Context Shape Student Development and Educational Attainment. UChicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/investing-in-adolescents
• Key Questions: Principal instructional leadership in Chicago schools. (2019). Teachers College Record, 121(090303). https://www.tcrecord.org
• Melissa Roderick, John Q. Easton, and Penny Bender Sebring. (2009). A New Model for the Role of Research in Supporting Urban School Reform. Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/ccsr-new-model-role-research-supporting-urban-school-reform
• Luppescu, S., Hart, H., Nagaoka, J., Easton, J. Q., & Sweeney, R. E. (2001). Pablo Neruda High School: Improving Chicago's Schools, 2001 Survey Report. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/improving-chicagos-schools-pablo-neruda-high-school
• The UChicago Consortium. (2003). Trends in Chicago Public Schools' Survey Measures of School Development (1994-2003). https://consortium.uchicago.edu
• Improving Chicago's Schools: Sample Elementary Summary 2005. (2005). UChicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/improving-chicagos-schools-sample-elementary-summary-2005
• Anthony Bryk, Stuart Luppescu, Diane King Bilcer, Gudelia Lopez, Jenny Nagaoka, John Q. Easton. (1997). Improving Chicago's Schools: John Tyler High School. Consortium on Chicago School Research, 1313 E. 60th Street, Chicago IL 60637. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/improving-chicagos-schools-john-tyler-high-school
• Klugman, J., Gordon, M. F., Sebring, P. B., & Sporte, S. E. (2015). A First Look at the 5Essentials in Illinois Schools. UChicago CCSR Research Report. https://illinois.5-essentials.org/2014_public/
• Anthony Bryk, Stuart Luppescu, Diane King Bilcer, Gwendelia Lopez, Jenny Kagaoka, John Q. Easton. (1997). Improving Chicago's Schools: An Individual School Report — Millard Fillmore School. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/improving-chicagos-schools-millard-fillmore-school
• Sebring, P. A., Bryk, A. S., Luppescu, S., & Thum, Y. M. (1995). Charting Reform in Prairie School: Results of Student and Teacher Surveys. Consortium on Chicago School Research.
• Sebring, P. A., Bryk, A. S., Luppescu, S., & Thum, Y. M. (1995). Charting Reform in Asbury High School: Results of Student and Teacher Surveys. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://ccsr.uchicago.edu

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	5essentials-survey
title	5Essentials Survey
description	The 5Essentials Survey is a statewide school-climate and organizational-conditions assessment developed by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and administered to Illinois students and teachers by the Illinois State Board of Education.
status	review
moved_from	design/school-report-profiles-with-quartile-benchmarks, element/5essentials-racial-equity-civic-engagement-measures, element/5essentials-sro-study-climate-measures, element/5essentials-supportive-environment-measures, element/5essentials-survey-diagnostic-tools, element/5essentials-survey-element-press-release, element/5essentials-survey-measures-school-climate, element/5essentials-survey-relational-trust-measure, element/5essentials-survey-sed-climate-measures, element/5essentials-survey-system-illinois, element/5essentials-surveys-leadership-case-selection, element/ccsr-individualized-school-reports-isrs, element/ccsr-school-survey-report-measure-system, element/uchicago-consortium-biennial-teacher-student-survey, element/uchicago-consortium-school-specific-survey-reports, theory/five-essential-supports-ccsr-sipaaa, theory/five-essential-supports-student-learning-ccsr, theory/five-essential-supports-survey-measures-framework
product_kind	assessment
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	16 — irsheid-2023, arneson-2024, kiguel-2023, sebring-p-2014, title-as-printed-2021, 5essentials-survey-new-insights-for-school-leaders-2026, key-questions-relational-trust-in-schools-in-valparaíso-2021, shanette-c-porter-2023, key-questions-principal-instructional-leadership-in-chicago-schools-2019, melissa-roderick-2009, luppescu-2001, the-uchicago-consortium-2003 … and 4 more

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