Thursday, February 4^th

Developing a Comprehensive Approach to Ending Youth Violence

On November 3, 2009 Richard Juarez was murdered at Virginia Avenue Park. His death marked the 40th time since 1989 a family has had to suffer a loss due to homicide in Santa Monica, the majority of these homicides occurring within an 8 block "red zone" in the Pico Neighborhood. Another fact is that the most recent victims of homicide are youth that were not gang involved. The impact of this historic pattern of violence on families has been catastrophic and resident's overall quality of life has been permanently distressed. Read More

Back to top

Scholars Identify 5 Keys to Urban School Success

Offering a counter-narrative to the school improvement prescriptions that dominate national education debates, a new book based on 15 years of data on public elementary schools in Chicago identifies five tried-and-true ingredients that work, in combination with one another, to spur success in urban schools.

The authors liken their "essential supports" to a recipe for baking a cake: Without the right ingredients, the whole enterprise just falls flat. Read More

Back to top

Young, Black, and Unemployed

A new study shows that unemployment still hits young black men the hardest.

America's teenagers and young adults should save themselves the trouble of looking for a job, because chances are that they won't find one. At least, that's the unfortunate picture painted by Northeastern University economist Andrew Sum in a recent report on the dire employment situation of the nation's teens and young adults. According to Sum, the job market for the youngest workers has all but collapsed; at the end of 2009, the employment-to-population rate for teens stood at 26 percent. That's 7.5 percentage points lower than it was at the start of the 2007 recession and more than 19 percentage points below where it was in 2000. Put more concretely, if not for the recession, 3.26 million more teens would be making their way through the workforce. Read More

Back to top

Ex-Con Artist Trying to Help Former Inmates Find Jobs

Years ago, Steve Wireman was scamming residents across East Central Illinois into investing with his business, promising them profits he knew they would never see.

He injected tens of thousands of dollars' worth of customers' money into his personal accounts, according to court documents. Before long, he was arrested, tried in federal court and sentenced to prison.

After more than three years in jail, Wireman says he's done with the underhanded financial schemes. And with the endorsement of a Champaign City Council member and a U.S. congressman, he's using his personal experiences to help ex-offenders like himself get jobs. Read More

Back to top