Located at Illinois' first public university, Center initiatives support the University's goals of serving the citizens of the state and beyond.

Current initiatives within the Center:

IL-SAELP Initiative: The Illinois State Action for Education Leadership (SAELP) Project focuses on strategies to address both the conditions that enable effective leadership and leadership development in Illinois schools. Aligned with the goals of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, these strategies center on strengthening leaders' decision-making authority and ability to address issues of student achievement and stimulating administrator preparation and professional development programs that focus on improving student achievement.
The Social, Economic, and Educational Correlates of Rural School Closure: This study is aimed at better understanding the causes of rural school closure by answering three questions: what are the demographic, economic, and educational predictors of rural school closure; what are the demographic, economic, and educational impacts of rural school closure and when do these impacts manifest themselves, if ever; and under what circumstances are the demographic, economic, and educational changes brought on by the closure or reorganization beneficial to a county, district, or community?

NCEA/AACTE Gauging Classroom Impact of Clinical Experiences in PDS Schools, 2006-2008: This project is being undertaken as part of a national partnership project sponsored by the National Center for Educational Accountability at the University of Texas and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. The goals of the project are: to provide data training and analytical tools to PDS teachers, administrators and teacher candidates in three school/district configurations, using actual student performance data; to develop methods to measure clinical experience impact in the classroom using actual student data; and to develop models for training and practice in data analysis/school improvement planning in a job-embedded model.

Recession, Retrenchment, and Recovery Project: Higher Education Funding and Student Financial Aid. The Recession, Retrenchment, and Recovery Project examined the effects of recessions on students' financial access to college during the 25-year period 1979-2004, identified states that have been relatively successful in maintaining financial access, and collected policy strategies used by these states. A particular concern was the impact of recessions on financial access-the balance of state financial aid and tuition and fees-for students attending public institutions. The final report, state profiles and other documents and data accompanying the report on higher education funding, student access and student financial aid.

Making College Readiness a Reality, HECA 2006-2009: This three-year P-20 project (now completing its first year) has three goals: (1) to expand a successful college readiness program for non-traditional students at Springfield’s Lanphier High School to the other two high schools in the district, so that the program becomes district-wide; (2) to adapt and replicate the Springfield model in two other large unit school districts with similar demographics, in order to establish college preparation programs in conjunction with higher-education partners and to develop a replication “toolkit” for use by other districts in the state; and (3) to provide the state with research and data analysis to inform policy-making related to effective college preparation.

NCLB Grant: Through this project funded by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), faculty affiliated with the Center of the Study of Education Policy will provide technical assistance and program support to staff at the IBHE and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) related to IBHE's recently awarded No Child Left Behind (NCLB) School College Partnership grants.
Statewide Evaluation Analysis Team Project: The IL Board of higher Education has often had difficulty in assessing the impact of a statewide grant program by pooling evidence from individually funded grant projects. It has been even harder for the Board to extract from individual evaluations general lessons for policy and practice.The Center’s goal for the Statewide Evaluation Analysis Team (SWEAT) is to derive general lessons for improving teacher quality by collating data from individual projects funded by the NCLB grants for Improving Teacher Quality. In brief, the goal is to solve the above-state problem of generalizing from numerous