Research Welcome to the Council of the Great City Schools’ Research Department home page. The goal of the Research Department is to conduct, facilitate, and disseminate research that will provide concrete guidance and support to our member districts and other key stakeholders as they work to improve education outcomes and reduce achievement gaps in urban school districts. Stark achievement gaps along racial and economic lines remain the defining feature of the education system in the United States. In 2005, only 12 percent of black eighth graders and 15 percent of Hispanic eighth graders across the nation scored at or above proficient on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), compared with 39 percent of their white eighth grade counterparts. Similarly, while 39 percent of white eighth graders scored proficient or above on the math portion of the NAEP, the same could be said for only 9 and 13 percent of their black and Hispanic counterparts, respectively. Clearly, the education system has failed to educate minority and white students to the same standard.   As a result of dramatic changes in technology and the global economy over the past several decades, the consequences associated with this failure have dramatically increased. Today, substantial increases in the premium associated with a high quality education, have made the large disparities in the reading and math skills with which black, Hispanic, white Americans exit the k-12 education system a driving factor in the disparities in the economic and educational opportunities these students experience for the rest of their lives. Addressing these “achievement gaps” is therefore fundamental to the creation of a society where the circumstances of children’s birth and the color of their skin do not dictate their her life chances. As such, monitoring academic achievement and achievement gaps in urban school districts, and conducting research to expand our knowledge of policies and practices that can be employed in these districts to improve achievement and reduce racial and economic achievement gaps is at the heart of the Council’s research agenda. Research Contacts Director of Research Jason Snipes (Bio) jsnipes@cgcs.org Research Manager Adriane Williams awilliams@cgcs.org Research Specialist Amanda Horwitz ahorwitz@cgcs.org Research Specialist Kyoko Soga ksoga@cgcs.org