09/18/2024 | Press release | Archived content
18 September 2024
Plan emphasizes a rigorous, joyful, and equitable daily student learning experience, authentic community engagement, and a transformative evaluation system
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Website: www.cps.edu
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CHICAGO - The Chicago Board of Education (CBOE) Wednesday voted unanimously to approve the District's new five-year strategic plan, an ambitious and equity-focused vision to drive a rigorous, joyful, and equitable daily student learning experience and a continued upward trajectory in key academic metrics through School Year 2029. Called "Success 2029: Together We Rise," the plan was developed over the past year with input from students, families, educators, community members and CBOE members and builds off of the District's pandemic-era Blueprint which bridged the prior five-year plan to the one approved today.
This new five-year vision comes as the District celebrates many important initiatives and academic accomplishments, from boasting some of the nation's top schools to showing significant post-pandemic academic growth, as well as passing a more equitable needs-based Fiscal Year 2025 budget and putting more resources into exploring and planning for the success of Black students, students with disabilities, and other student groups that have been historically underserved.
CPS posted a record-breaking four-year graduation rate of 84 percent in 2023, a number that has been increasing annually for the past two decades. In a national post-pandemic education scorecard, CPS ranked #1 in reading growth and #3 in combined reading and math growth from 2022 to 2023 out of the 40 large urban districts reporting to the Council of the Great City Schools. Preliminary 2024 state assessment data showed students continued their upward academic performance.
"Chicago Public Schools students, with the guidance and support of parents, educators, and community partners, continue to make important academic gains and we are proud of our collective success to date," said CPS Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez. "This five-year vision outlines how we will build on our momentum and lead bold and transformational changes to improve and expand on positive daily practices and outcomes for all students, and especially those who have been furthest from opportunity."
The plan can be viewed at http://cps.edu/fiveyearplan and sets the District's vision and mission for the next five years.
Our Visionfor |
Every student will experience high-quality, culturally responsive learning; develop the competencies of the CPS Graduate Profile; and be prepared for postsecondary success. |
Our Continued Missionto Serve Every Child |
We remain committed to our mission of providing a high-quality public education for every child, in every neighborhood, that prepares each for success in college, career, and civic life. |
The plan addresses historical decisions and missteps in the past that have prevented strategic investments and led to long-standing challenges and opportunity gaps, particularly for Black students, Latinx/e students, students with disabilities and students in temporary living situations, and English learners. Success 2029: Together We Rise calls for implementing Targeted Universalism which recognizes that systems and structures play a critical role in students' experiences, and the way students interact with those systems and structures differs depending on identity and life circumstances - both of which can impact students' daily school life and performance.
The strategic plan shifts the District's philosophy for driving and measuring change in terms of how CPS defines student success, the approach to accountability, how the District supports schools, invests in schools and communities, and how the District makes decisions. In these four areas, the District is calling for a more holistic and comprehensive approach to defining and measuring success.
Student success, for example, is not just defined by lagging data points, such as standardized test scores, but about the daily learning experience. CPS will be tracking how well schools provide a high-quality curriculum, meaningful assessments, student-focused instruction that honors students' identities and prioritizes relationships, and more academic and social interventions to ensure that students get the support needed to meet grade-level standards.
Accountability to our dedicated educators, staff, students, and families remains a key value. But rather than a ranking system that encourages competition among schools, CPS will provide schools with equitable resources and ongoing support so that schools can shape their own unique areas of improvement and the daily student experience. Schools and the District will be expected to meet annual growth on school-based Continuous Improvement Data Transparency (CIDT) measures, as outlined in their individual plans. This transformed philosophy is explained in the plan, including in this chart:
TRANSFORMED PHILOSOPHY |
PAST |
OUR |
STUDENTS How We Define Student Success |
Student success was defined by a narrow set of metrics. |
Student success and achievement are defined by robust and holistic measures of learning and well-being. |
SCHOOLS Our Approach to Accountability and How We Support Schools |
Our accountability system ranked and labeled schools, adversely encouraging families to select schools with the highest ratings; school resources were based on the number of students enrolled. |
Schools are not ranked. Accountability for student success is shared between the District and schools. The District provides equitable resources and ongoing support to schools, so schools can create the necessary conditions to improve student learning experiences. |
COMMUNITY How We Invest in Schools and Communities How We Make Major Decisions |
System failures were addressed by creating new schools, which led to a culture of schools competing for students and resources. |
Every community will be anchored by high-quality pathways from preschool to high school in neighborhood schools while ensuring equitable access to a range of programmatic offerings across different school types, which is supported by targeted investments in disinvested communities. |
Unilateral decisions were made by CPS and city leadership. |
Decisions are informed through robust stakeholder engagement; students, families, staff, and communities are engaged in the design of policies and practices. |
Goals include expanding access to academic acceleration for students in predominantly Black and lower-income neighborhoods on the south and west sides and providing more resources for students in temporary living situations by adding more counselors and increasing professional learning on restorative practices. It calls for investments in neighborhood schools and historically under-resourced communities
"This plan takes an honest assessment of the societal and systemic inequities impacting our classrooms and vows to address those challenges head-on," said Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi. "The core values and priorities outlined in the plan will help improve educational opportunities for every Chicago student and thus our collective success as Chicagoans."
Elevating equity inside and outside the classroom also remains a top priority with several new or expanding initiatives outlined in the plan as follows: