The White House recently announced that John Q. Easton, the executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, will be nominated by President Barack Obama to a six-year term as Director of the Institute of Education Sciences. From the CCSR’s press release:

The Institute of Education Sciences is the nation’s engine for educational research, evaluation, assessment and statistics — instrumental to scholars, education policy makers and practitioners.
As Director of IES, Easton will oversee four major national centers, a staff of about 200 and partnerships with institutions nationwide. The Institute funds hundreds of research studies on ways to improve academic achievement, conducts large-scale evaluations of federal education programs and reports a wide array of statistics on the condition of education, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Throughout his career, Easton has directed rigorous projects aimed at providing the best evidence about what it takes to spark meaningful policy debate and sustained change in urban schools.

And this fall, some of that evidence will be published in Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago, authored by Easton and his colleagues at CCSR. A groundbreaking study that analyzes a cross section of elementary schools in Chicago to pinpoint the key factors influencing school improvement and accelerated student learning, the book demonstrates Easton’s unsurpassed knowledge and insight into urban education and the American educational system.
Find out more about Easton’s nomination at the CCSR website or navigate to the press’s website to find out more about the book.