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The To&Through Project’s events are intended for a diverse cross-section of education leaders and partners from the K-12, higher education, nonprofit, and civic communities. Presenters and panelists come together to share new research findings as well as share ideas and strategies for helping Chicago’s under-resourced students succeed in high school and college. The To&Through Project also hosts monthly Data Collaboratives designed to elevate and promote dialogue around new and emerging work focused on applying data to youth development efforts. You can watch recordings of our previous events on YouTube.

Upcoming Events

August Data Collaborative - Ingenuity

Angela Lin and Christine Ng will present on Ingenuity’s continuum of data products tailored for different stakeholders, informing strategy and driving change within arts education in CPS. Their focus will be on the latest annual State of the Arts Report and new interactive dashboard. Ingenuity’s mission is to ensure that every student, in every grade, in every CPS school, has access to the arts as part of a well-rounded education.

September Data Collaborative - BUILD Chicago

Community-based organizations can greatly benefit from logic models, but often struggle to develop and maintain logic models that are well aligned with evolving on-the-ground program realities. Dave Koch will present on two games recently implemented with program staff at BUILD, a violence prevention organization working with young people on Chicago’s west side, which helped center the perspective and gain the buy-in of program staff while developing and implementing a new logic model.

October Data Collaborative - City Colleges of Chicago

City Colleges of Chicago’s Decision Support team will share how they’re supporting data-informed decision-making for continuous improvement. City Colleges of Chicago is Illinois’ largest community college system, serving more than 60,000 students annually. It is comprised of seven independently-accredited colleges: Harold Washington College, Harry S Truman College, Kennedy-King College, Malcolm X College, Olive-Harvey College, Richard J. Daley College, and Wilbur Wright College.

November Data Collaborative - Career Village

Eric Reyes and Abby Lupi will present their journey and two-year plan for measuring Career Readiness at CareerVillage.org, an organization that aims to democratize access to career information and advice. Historically, they did this through their Q&A forum and have since released Coach, their AI career coach. Eric is the Director of Data, and Abby is the Senior Data Analyst at CareerVillage.

December Data Collaborative - CPS Metric Redesign

Jeff Broom, Augusta Smith, Jonathan Harper, and Jake Brekelbaum will present how Chicago Public Schools is implementing the new Continuous Improvement and Data Transparency policy. The new policy shifts away from summative school rating and towards a holistic view of schools that includes student outcome metrics, measures of the conditions present at schools, and the district provided resources and supports aligned to those metrics and conditions.

Past Events

To&Through Data Collaborative: Poverty Lab and To&Through Project

The University of Chicago's Poverty Lab and the To&Through Team will host a community discussion about using data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) to understand students’ postsecondary trajectories and outcomes. This session will provide attendees an opportunity to share how each other are navigating decision rules, data quality, and limitations of this data.

To&Through Data Collaborative: Alex Seeskin, Alex Usher & Shelby Mahaffie

Alex Seeskin, Alex Usher and Shelby Mahaffie will present work on the development of a Sophomore OnTrack indicator. Alex S. is the Director of the To&Through Project (T&TP), Alex U. is the Associate Director of Data & Research at T&TP, and Shelby Mahaffie is a Research Analyst at T&TP.

To&Through Data Collaborative: Jen Wenner

Jen Wenner presented High Jump’s research-based system for using focus groups as tools for problem identification, progress monitoring and summative evaluation. Jen is the Director of Program Evaluation and Quality Improvement at High Jump.

To&Through Data Collaborative: Dom McKoy and Alex Usher

Dom McKoy and Alex Usher presented an early look at a new version of the To&Through Community Areas Tool that tracks CPS high school and college attainment by Chicago neighborhoods. 

To&Through Data Collaborative: Kirat Doshi

Kirat Doshi presented on work around the "My Options" tool, a project to provide OneGoal Fellows with real-time feedback around the development of their college lists. Kirat Doshi is the Managing Director of Analytics at OneGoal.

To&Through Data Collaborative: Nate Flint

Nate Flint presented National Louis University's undergraduate coaching/advising/career milestones, and the data dashboard used to manage them. Nate is the Manager of Undergraduate Analytics at National Louis University. 

To&Through Data Collaborative: Patrick Milton

Patrick Milton presented on Chicago Public School's "LEARN. PLAN. SUCCEED. Progress Reports", which provide personalized overviews of potential college options and each student’s level of competitiveness based on available academic metrics. Patrick is the Executive Director of the Office of School Counseling & Postsecondary Advising at Chicago Public Schools.

To&Through Data Collaborative: Megan Lane

Megan Lane shared analysis on current teacher retention measures and trends in CPS, along with plans for building an "on-track indicator" to predict teacher attrition to inform recruiting and school match. Megan is a Strategic Data Project Fellow at Chicago Public Schools.

To&Through Data Collaborative: Jon Furr and Charlie Rosemond

Jon Furr and Charlie Rosemond presented the initial public version of the Illinois Postsecondary Profiles, a new online resource for information and data describing higher education institutions across Illinois.  Jon is the Executive Director of Education Systems Center and Charlie is the Data and Outcomes Manager. 

To&Through Data Collaborative: Quinton Keith

Quinton Keith presented the Network for College Success’ Tableau data portal for the organization’s 17 CPS partner schools. Que is the Director of Data and Continuous Improvement for NCS.