The Urban Education Research Center (UERC) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City works with intermediary organizations, education professionals, education leaders and researchers to provide insights into critical education challenges and solutions to those challenges.
The mission of the UERC is to create reliable, usable knowledge about education in urban areas with the goal of promoting excellent schooling and improving the lives, opportunities and communities of urban residents in the Greater Kansas City community and the nation. UERC partners share our goal of reducing social and economic inequalities in education opportunities and outcomes. We seek to accomplish this goal through collaborative, data-rich strategies including technical assistance and consultation and rigorous research and evaluation using a range of methodological tools.
We believe a diversity of perspectives and involvement of diverse constituents are key to understanding and solving urban education issues with national applicability. Working collaboratively with academics, practitioners, community and nonprofit organizations, members of the business community and the general public has contributed to a deeper understanding of and shared progress on critical issues.
UERC STUDIES BY FOCUS AREA
OF UERC STUDIES INVOLVED RESEARCH OR PUBLIC INFORMING
25% 75%
OF UERC STUDIES PROVIDED FOCUSED, ACTIONABLE EVIDENCE TO PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
The center’s research and evaluation is responsive to local, state and national priorities as our agenda has been developed in close collaboration with local and state leaders and intermediary organizations, the education community and industry partners. In addition, large scale research conducted by the center has contributed to state and national conversations about critical education issues.
Our work spans a broad spectrum of learners including K-12 students, postsecondary students, and adults UERC studies have provided insight about the distribution of and pipeline for teachers of color in Missouri, the learning needs of adult learners, the potential of engaging high school students in conversations about health disparities in urban communities, social disparities in school suspensions in Kansas City, and the benefits of applied STEM learning opportunities in high school for success in college for Missouri high school students.
We attempt to effectively reach a range of different audiences by communicating study results in multiple formats including research briefs, evaluation reports, checklists, interactive data dashboards and scholarly articles.
WHAT OUR PARTNERS ARE SAYING ...
“Having a research focused organization, such as UERC, adds substantial value to our investments and communication with our partners. The data is a tremendous source of evidence as we look to diversify our portfolio of investments, as well as measure impact on our current ones.”
UERC is a trusted partner that combines academic rigor with real world understanding.
UERC is well known by our donors, so they trust the data we are sharing.
OUR PARTNERS
UERC is a leader in understanding contextual data for the region and the state, is an excellent collaborator, and is knowledgeable about sources of data, key regional/state initiatives, and key stakeholders.
“The UERC partnership brings confidence to the conversation when funders ask questions about impact, value add of the programming and our overall ecosystem efforts. This allows us to confidently broaden our funding asks of additional donors. Without the data, we would not be able to discuss or share the importance and value of our organization. We've also advanced in our work as being viewed by the community as a resource for data that is comprehensible and translated so it's easy to digest.”
To learn more about the UERC, visit info.umkc.edu/uerc
