Symposium

The External Research Team hosted our inaugural research symposium at the Chicago Cultural Center on August 7, 2025. Through this event, Chicago Public Schools External Research Team aims to improve the culture around education research to better support the needs of our school communities and families. Freedom within the Form is CPS’ external research team’s attempt at bringing together the wealth of knowledge, resources, and experiences required to rally around the needs of our schools and our city. 

We respond to a growing national need for researchers that are tuned into the concrete needs of school communities, and schools that value accessible and meaningful data and research to improve student learning experiences. We advocate for concrete shifts in process which, when combined with transformative learning mindsets, will advocate for an inclusive, rigorous, and integrated approach to research. We push back against the expectation that researchers are *only* researchers - rather, we demonstrate that we are students, families, educators, organizers and most importantly engaged community members of the city of Chicago. Research can and should be for all of us. 

Please see the agenda below to get more information about our sessions and presenters.