John Dewey for Today
Chicago refines the role of the research university in urban schools.
Many of us in higher education have long grappled with the stunning dichotomy of American education: Our colleges and universities are acknowledged as the most advanced in the world, and yet our public elementary and secondary schools continue to lag behind those of other industrialized nations. Nowhere is this contrast more stark than from our academic vantage point: a world-renowned university in a section of Chicago whose public schools struggle to serve the children and families who depend on them. Because the country relies on public schools to educate its citizenry—not only to maintain America’s place in the global economy, but also to preserve its democratic systems—continued failure in this realm poses one of the most significant national domestic problems of our time. It is time for higher education to take a far greater, and significantly different, responsibility for pre-K-12 schooling.
Our institution, the University of Chicago, has made a strategic decision to focus its intellectual resources on the improvement of urban public schools. Recognizing that a complex problem needs innovative and nuanced solutions, we have launched an urban education initiative that comprises four interrelated strands: pursuing basic research that will help better the lives of children, developing outstanding practitioners for urban schools, undertaking applied research that refines our work in Chicago and informs other school systems across the nation, and developing a model of what high-quality public schooling for urban children looks like.
Notably, we are pursuing this work without a school or department of education. We believe this offers us an exceptional opportunity to conceptualize a new role for the research university seeking to influence pre-K-12 schooling. Our initiative will be led jointly by faculty members and school practitioners, and is supported by a national board co-chaired by the university’s president and provost. We do not suggest that Chicago’s Urban Education Initiative is a blueprint for other institutions to follow. But we are committed to investing in this work, and to studying and sharing new approaches...
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