The SRPC is a pilot partnership between area researchers and St. Louis City school leaders to respond to the needs of students and educators using rigorous research.

Decisions to make sustainable and effective improvements in schools require data and rigorous analysis. Though schools collect and report an enormous amount of data, they are often constrained by the time and resources needed to analyze it deeply. Researchers may have data analysis expertise but have challenges gaining access to it quickly and understanding which questions are most meaningful to pursue. A research-practice partnership, or RPP, is a partnership between researchers and school practitioners to analyze education data to help schools serve their students better.

School leaders and academic researchers in the St. Louis region are collaborating through an RPP to address challenges that transcend beyond one school or district. This RPP, the St. Louis Research Practice Collaborative (SRPC), brings together practitioners from the city’s largest public school systems: Saint Louis Public Schools, KIPP St. Louis, and Confluence Academies; researchers at Saint Louis University, UMSL, Washington University, and Harris-Stowe; and community leaders, such as STEM STL, to examine how collaboration with research can benefit students.