Increasing the Effectiveness and Coherence of Interventions to Reduce Educational Inequality

The University of Chicago has been hosting IES predoctoral training programs since 2005. The current training program will prepare doctoral students to conduct research to improve instruction in urban schools and reduce educational inequality. The training program is housed within the University of Chicago's Committee on Education and partners with the University's Consortium on Chicago School Research. The training program will recruit students and faculty from the departments of Comparative Human Development, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology, and the schools of Public Policy and Social Services Administration.

Over the course of the 5-year grant, the program will recruit approximately 20 fellows for 5-year fellowships in two cohort waves. Fellows will receive tuition and benefits, stipends, and a small research/conference travel fund. The first cohort of fellows will receive 4 years of funding from IES during the grant followed by 1 year of funding from the University (after the grant is completed). The second cohort of fellows will receive 3 years of funding from IES during the grant followed by 2 years of funding from the University (after the grant is completed).

Fellows will participate in an interdisciplinary core curriculum consisting of coursework in human development, schooling, educational policy, and statistics and research design. Each fellow will also engage in a 3-year apprenticeship to transition from working on traditional research teams to working with policymakers and practitioners and then to preparing for dissertation research. All fellows will also participate in the program's weekly Education Workshop, an interdisciplinary speaker series focused on current findings on educational improvement.

The total projected costs of the training program are $12 million. In addition to grant from IES, the University of Chicago will be contributing approximately $7.6 million to cost-share the 5-year fellowships.