The Senior Urban Education Research Fellowship program, sponsored by the Council of the Great City Schools, with funding from the Institute for Education Sciences, is designed to promote collaborative, high quality, rigorous research projects between senior researchers and urban school districts. The goals of the fellowship program are to:

• Promote scientific inquiry into questions and challenges facing urban school districts
  
  
• Facilitate and encourage significant collaboration and on-going partnerships between the research community and the leadership of urban school districts
  
  
• Produce a set of high quality studies that yield reliable guidance regarding the challenges and decisions urban school districts face in the reform of secondary education

The Council of the Great City Schools will award three annual rounds of Fellowships, beginning in June 2007. Three senior researchers will each be awarded a $100,000 stipend and additional financial support for school district personnel and research assistance in each year of the program. Successful Fellows will generally be researchers with at least 7-10 years of experience and have an established track record of working with urban school districts.

Fellowships are designed to be 18-24 month research projects that have the greatest potential to inform and improve secondary school instruction and achievement in urban school districts. Award decisions will emphasize the following priorities: adolescent literacy; transitions to secondary education; secondary school mathematics instruction; the use of assessment data to refine instruction; high school course taking and graduation patterns; improving instruction for adolescent English Language Learners and students with special needs; and access to high quality, effective secondary education teachers.