THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Elaine Allensworth is a research professor and the former executive director of the UChicago Consortium, a research-practice partnership with the Chicago public schools within the Kersten Institute for Urban Education at the Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Dr. Allensworth is nationally recognized as an expert in the areas of students’ educational attainment, school leadership and school improvement. She works with policymakers and practitioners to bridge research and practice, serving on panels, policy commissions, and working groups at the local, state and national level. Her research on the factors that predict whether students will graduate from high school has shifted the conversation on school improvement by focusing efforts on factors over which schools have the most ability to exercise control. Dr. Allensworth has been the principal investigator on research grants from funders such as the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has received a number of awards from the American Educational Research Association, including the Palmer O. Johnson Award for outstanding publications. Dr. Allensworth is a coauthor of the book Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago, a work that documents the ways in which organizational structures in schools influence improvements in student achievement, and a book for school administrators, Using Data to Improve Schools.
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Recent Research / Recent Publications
Allensworth, E., de la Torre, M., Franklin, K., & Xu, Jinaqing. (2026). Identifying Indicators to Support Educational Attainment for Different Groups of English Learners in High School. American Educational Research Journal, Published online August 6, 2026. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312261463033
Allensworth, E., Gordon, A., & Young, C. (2026). Combining Early Grade Assessments to Study Literacy Skills: Addressing the Variability in Tests Taken Across Schools and Students. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2026.2636957
Allensworth, E. (2025). Using Data to Improve Schools, Corwin Press
McKenzie, R. & Allensworth, E. (2025). Variability in the Grades Teachers Give: Teacher Grade Value-Add, Mismatch, and Long-Term Effects. American Educational Research Journal: pp. 1–35. DOI: 10.3102/00028312251345094
Allensworth, E. (2025). Chapter 5 in Using the Freshman On-Track Indicator to Improve High Schools in Chicago. In LeMahieu, P.G., P. Cobb & A.S. Bryk, Measuring to Improve: Practical Measurement to Support Continuous Improvement in Education, Harvard Education Press.
Allensworth, E., S. Cashdollar, A. Cassata. (2022). Supporting Change in Instructional Practices to Meet the Common Core Mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards: How Are Different Supports Related to Instructional Change? AERAOpen, 8, 1: 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221088010
Cassata, A. & E. Allensworth. (2021). Scaling standards-aligned instruction through teacher leadership: methods, supports, and challenges. International Journal of STEM Education. https://rdcu.be/cmxl4.
Allensworth, E., J. Sebastian & M. Gordon. (2021). Principal Leadership Practices, Organizational Improvement, and Student Achievement. In P. Youngs, J, Kim & M. Mavrogordato, Exploring Principal Development and Teacher Outcomes: How Principals Can Strengthen Instruction, Teacher Retention, and Student Achievement (pp. 189–203), Routledge.
Allensworth, E. M., & Clark, K. (2020). High School GPAs and ACT Scores as Predictors of College Completion: Examining Assumptions About Consistency Across High Schools. Educational Researcher, 49, 3. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20902110