Use disaggregated attainment data with an aspiration benchmark to identify where students face barriers and hold institutions responsible for change¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 mixed) · 4 studies (4 associational), q2 · 0 of 4 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The report models a monitoring practice: track attainment milestones over time, disaggregate "by race/ethnicity and gender, disability status, and, for the first time, English Learner (EL) status to understand which students face more barriers to educational attainment and where different strategies and supports are needed." It benchmarks group PAIs against the roughly 75 percent of ninth-graders aspiring to a college credential, and publishes the data through the To&Through Online Tool so users can interact with school-level data. The authors state that "information alone isn't enough to change policies and practices" and hope the inequitable outcomes "spur a critical examination of students' opportunities and experiences in schools."

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Access to longitudinal district and National Student Clearinghouse data; suppression of rates for groups of fewer than 100 students to avoid reporting unreliable fluctuations

Constraints¶

• Data limitations prevent reporting on non-college pathways such as military or workforce outcomes, and on college completion for students who began as ELs; the PAI is a hypothetical projection, not actual cohort attainment

Target Learners¶

• CPS students across secondary and post-secondary transitions

Target Learning Goals¶

• Educational attainment from high school through college completion

Claims¶

• Bachelor's DAI varies sharply by race/ethnicity and gender: Black and Latino young men are projected at 10 and 13 percent versus a 19 percent district average [+W]
• Graduation rates by age 19 in Chicago varied substantially by race/ethnicity and gender, with African-American boys lowest (39 percent) and Asian girls highest (85 percent) [+W]
• Only about 53 percent of CPS students who were first-time freshmen in 2000-01 took the PSAE within four years, with rates varying by race and gender [~W]
• English Learners participated at higher rates; the disability difference was not statistically significant [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• District, state, and federal strategies to close the aspirations-attainment gap: linked K-16 data systems, educator capacity for college advising, and strong signals about college requirements
• Disaggregate attainment data by student subgroup to locate barriers and target supports
• Online college search tools should prominently display both four-year and six-year completion rates, disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, and Pell eligibility
• Use institutional peer benchmarking with incremental benchmarks toward the 75th percentile of peer-group metrics over a 10-year period
• Monitor and publicly report chronic absence data early, disaggregated by student group

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Malone, M., Mahaffie, S., Hernandez, G., Usher, A., & Nagaoka, J. (2021). The educational attainment of Chicago Public Schools students: 2020. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. http://toandthrough.uchicago.edu/tool/cps/hs