Illinois Workforce & Education Research Collaborative (IWERC)

🆕 New today: Two reports on kindergarten readiness in Illinois! 🆕 Learn all about KIDS (the Illinois kindergarten readiness assessment), including trends in student performance, the assessment's relationship to later outcomes, and issues in assessment of English Learners. https://lnkd.in/g7eHV9sZ

KIDS is a formative assessment conducted by teachers in Illinois in the first 40 days of kindergarten. It is meant to capture important dimensions of students’ development. To learn more about kindergarten readiness in Illinois, read the IWERC reports here: https://lnkd.in/gHYrUM_x 

Thanks to Chalkbeat Chicago for their thoughtful coverage of our kindergarten readiness reports, released yesterday. From the article: "For Sebastian Kiguel, one of the authors of the report and a research associate at the research collaborative, the big takeaway from the report should be, 'Where you are in kindergarten is not destiny, but it does say a lot about where you might end up in third grade.'" Read more: https://lnkd.in/gc2HRZem

Thank you to Eva Giglio and CME Group Foundation, along with our fantastic group of presenters and panelists, for an invigorating event on kindergarten readiness in Illinois! Jason Helfer of the Illinois State Board of Education shared why new research on kindergarten readiness is important, leading into Sebastian Kiguel of IWERC presenting our new research on trends in kindergarten readiness. Then, Jennifer Kirmes moderated a thoughtful panel on the implications of this work, including commentary from Bryan Stokes, Jie-Qi Chen, and Megan Hillegass on the importance of play-based instruction, the role of school leadership in the formative use of the KIDS assessment, and the needed steps to implementing KIDS successfully. Read our reports here: https://lnkd.in/g8wqjnAy

From setting policy to developing curriculum to building positive school culture, principals' day-to-day responsibilities are vast. IWERC's research on working conditions found that the quality of relationships educators have with their school leaders play a critical role in educator retention. This week, and every week, we applaud principals for all the good work they do to benefit school communities.

IWERC recently completed its research series on college decision-making by Illinois high school seniors. Our colleagues at Discovery Partners Institute summarized the importance of that research. https://lnkd.in/gjD3UQqg

⭐ IWERC Partner Spotlights ⭐ Today we spotlight our partner, the Latino Policy Forum. IWERC and the Forum work closely together on research related to Latino college student success and improving services to multilingual learners in early childhood settings. The video below highlights some of the Forum's accomplishments, with comments from IWERC's director Meg Bates on how the Forum moves research into policy and practice. https://lnkd.in/gutTRNmR

Today is the last day to register for our 10/28 event: "Lunch + Learn: New research on Kindergarten readiness in Illinois." Join us! https://lnkd.in/gVg7Bemc

In our new reports on college decision-making, we examined 2-year college-goers in Report 2. Learn more about their unique decision-making strategies below. https://lnkd.in/dja6sxCY

In our new reports, high school students who were not planning to attend college shared supports on what might encourage them to do so. Their answers were revealing. https://lnkd.in/dja6sxCY