With New Year’s Day a federal holiday, the following public services will be affected:

Government offices: Federal, state, county and city offices will be closed.

Postal Service: Most post offices in the ChicagoChicago reviews area will be closed. There will be no regular pickups. Express mail, however, will still be delivered. Call 800-ASK-USPS for information on specific post office locations.

Courts: Federal, state and county courts will be closed, except for Cook County Central Bond Court.

Schools: Most Chicago public schools will be closed until Monday. Many suburban schools will be closed through New Year’s Day.

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With New Year’s Day a federal holiday, the following public services will be affected:

Government offices: Federal, state, county and city offices will be closed.

Postal Service: Most post offices in the ChicagoChicago reviews area will be closed. There will be no regular pickups. Express mail, however, will still be delivered. Call 800-ASK-USPS for information on specific post office locations.

Courts: Federal, state and county courts will be closed, except for Cook County Central Bond Court.

Schools: Most Chicago public schools will be closed until Monday. Many suburban schools will be closed through New Year’s Day.

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The University of ChicagoChicago reviews has partnered with two community groups to launch a $1 million youth anti-violence program that will include a rare component: a rigorous, scientific evaluation to determine whether it’s cost-effective.

The program, called Becoming a Man-Sports Edition, aims to help adolescent boys in Chicago public schools curb their impulse to use fists and guns to settle disagreements. It addresses the problem on two fronts, by using character education and counseling as well as training in Olympic sports, such as archery and fencing.

During the 27-week initiative, which begins Wednesday, university evaluators will use a research model akin to clinical trials in medicine to determine whether the program is reducing violent behavior and helping boys stay in school.

Public officials continue to grasp for solutions to youth violence in Chicago. They’ve launched programs in schools, boosted police patrols and thrown public and private money at the problem. Earlier this year, Chicago schools chief Ron Huberman launched a $30 million violence prevention effort that targets the most at-risk students and the most troubled schools.

Still, little is known about which programs are effective and worth the expense.

“Unfortunately, the anti-violence field is littered with programs that are not grounded in solid research so we have no idea if they are really working,” said Jens Ludwig, a professor at the University of Chicago and the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. “This program will allow us to generate scientifically credible evidence about a program and show whether it works, and why.”

The lab was created in 2008 in partnership with the city of Chicago to gather crime data and research and identify solutions. It garnered $1 million in grant money and then selected B.A.M.-Sports Edition from among 30 anti-violence programs that applied.

The program is a joint venture between Youth Guidance, a private group that has provided counseling to troubled teens for decades, and World Sports Chicago, a legacy of Chicago 2016 that brings Olympic sports to Chicago’s youth.

The program will operate in 15 Chicago elementary and high schools. It will be offered to an estimated 550 boys at risk of dropping out or landing in the criminal justice system. These are not the most at-risk students, but rather the ones just beginning to get into trouble.

The lab will analyze the students’ academic achievement, attendance, school discipline and juvenile court records during the 27 weeks and compare the information with data from a control group of 550 similar students who did not participate. They hope to determine which parts of the programs worked, for which students.

Scott Myers, executive director of World Sports Chicago, sits on the Youth Guidance board of directors and helped marry the two programs. He said after-school sports help students develop self-discipline, respect for authority and responsibility.

“There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence about sports being a social development tool, but we realize there is not a lot of real empirical research to prove it,” Myers said. “We are hoping this study will help define a model that can become a ‘best practice’ so other cities who want to use sports as a tool to help kids can understand the maximum benefit.”

During school, the selected students will work with counselors in the Youth Guidance program.

Tony Di Vittorio, the Youth Guidance counselor who developed B.A.M. a decade ago, said the program provides one-on-one counseling and  behavior strategies for boys in junior high and high school. It’s not an anti-violence program, per se, he said, but rather a character education course.

Learning to control impulses, channel anger and develop coping skills are all part of the package, he said.

“I started challenging these young men and forcing them to think about their lack of responsibility and their own integrity,” he said. “I challenged their tendency to project the blame outward, instead of looking inward. We talk about ways of expressing anger and leaving a situation with your self dignity.”

Bruce Moore, a senior at Clemente High School in Chicago, spent three years in the B.A.M. program. He credits it with helping to improve his grades and keep him out of trouble.

“I was bad and couldn’t get along,” he said. “But Tony taught me integrity and how to keep my word and act like a man. I used to blame my teachers for my bad grades. Now I know I have to put effort into it and it’s up to me to earn the good grade.”

–Stephanie Banchero

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A group of students at Fenger High School and their parents are suing the ChicagoChicago reviews Public Schools, saying security at the Roseland school is inadequate and students are being denied a public education.

The group claims the school system, since the beating death of Fenger student Derrion Albert, is not following through on promises to transfer students to other schools.

Watch the WGN-TV video HERE.

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In the wake of a federal order placing race off-limits as a key admissions criterion to the city’s most competitive schools, the ChicagoChicago reviews Public Schools will use a battery of socioeconomic factors to distribute the coveted spots — a strategy officials hope will maintain racial integration while enhancing economic integration.

It is unclear what the impact of the new policy will be. The district is putting it in place for only a year, after which officials will assess the results.

Skeptics long have been cynical about moves from racial to socioeconomic integration, pointing to other districts where schools became more segregated after the lifting of a federal order to racially integrate, such as in San Francisco, Denver and Norfolk, Va. They think Chicago’s plan will be no different.

“(These policies) are probably not going to produce a lot of racial diversity,” said Gary Orfield, an education professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who has studied Chicago schools and the decree. “There’s a lot of evidence to show that social class integration does not lead to a lot of racial integration.”

But district officials are betting that their strategy, developed with outside consultants, offers the most comprehensive approach attempted yet by a major urban district. Chicago Public Schools chief Ron Huberman said he believes the result would be a more equitable and fair process that would not sacrifice racial integration.

The district also announced Tuesday that it would put on hold the controversial practice of allowing magnet school principals to select 5 percent of their students. Principals at so-called selective schools still would be allowed the principal’s discretion, but they will face more scrutiny from the central office, like being required to sign affidavits saying that no third party exercised undue influence on their decisions. Federal authorities are investigating admissions policies at the district’s selective enrollment high schools.

As part of the revamping, the district overhauled admissions criteria for both the lottery-based magnet schools and selective schools that require testing.

Using 2000 census data updated by a private market research company, the district assessed all 874 census tracts in the city for five indicators: median income, adult education level, percentage of single-family homes and homeowners and the percentage of children living in homes where a non-English language is spoken.

They then ranked the census tracts based on those indicators, and divided them into four tiers. It’s those four tiers that school officials will use to integrate the nearly 80 magnet and selective schools.

Skeptics say that any assessment of census tracts would be flawed because the underlying data is 10 years old.

For the selective schools, one-half of openings will go to students with the top scores and the other half divided evenly among the top scorers of the four socioeconomic groups. Previously, applicants were sorted into minority and non-minority categories, then admitted based on scores.

In another major change announced Tuesday, the district has adopted a computerized model to assign students to schools rather than allowing principals to make the decision.

–Azam Ahmed

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More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North ChicagoChicago reviews, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers.

Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers.

“That other number, I don’t know where that came from,” said Lauri Hakanen, superintendent of North Chicago Community Unit Schools District 187.

The Obama administration last week released the first round of data designed to underpin the worthiness of its economic stimulus plan, which so far has directed $1.25 billion to Illinois schools. That money has helped save or create 14,330 school jobs in the state, the administration claimed.

But those statistics, compiled initially by the Illinois State Board of Education, appear riddled with anomalies that raise questions about their validity, according to a Tribune analysis of district-by-district stimulus spending and other state data. Many local school officials were perplexed by the stimulus data attributed to their districts.

In the official report, Wilmette Public Schools District 39 was credited with 166 jobs saved by stimulus aid. Superintendent Raymond Lechner said the number should be zero.

At Dolton-Riverdale School District 148, stimulus funds were said to have saved the equivalent of 382 full-time teaching jobs — 142 more than the district actually has.

A similar discrepancy was found in data for Kankakee School District 111, where the stimulus report logged the equivalent of 665 full-time jobs saved. “That’s impossible,” a top Kankakee school official said, adding that the entire payroll — full and part time — is 600 workers.

But if that suggests the numbers for Illinois may be artificially inflated, then consider the following, which could suggest an undercount:

The totals do not reflect any school jobs saved or created in Chicago, the state’s biggest district and the recipient of at least $293 million in stimulus funds. Chicago schools budget chief Christina Herzog said the district easily saved at least 1,200 jobs because of the stimulus, but didn’t report them as such because of directives from the state board. State officials dispute that.

The district-specific data, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, also underscore how little of the money has been spent to expand educational opportunities. Statewide, districts reported using most of their stimulus funds to prevent layoffs, with the equivalent of just 222 full-time jobs added to payrolls.

Last week’s stimulus report came against the backdrop of a raging debate over the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s entire $787 billion stimulus program. Critics on the right contend it has ballooned the deficit while failing to rapidly revive the economy. The administration said the stimulus was designed to build a lasting recovery and has helped avert an even more drastic downturn.

Problems with the Illinois stimulus data illustrate how difficult it is to benchmark the impact of so sprawling an initiative. Many districts were unclear about what they should report. And there also may have been confusion over how the data were collated once the figures arrived at the state level.

It appears the state treasury — not students or school districts – was the prime beneficiary of the education stimulus jackpot in Illinois. In great measure, funds  simply were used to replace general aid payments already owed to local districts by the state. That gave Gov. Pat Quinn breathing room in his struggle to rein in a whopping two-year budget deficit of more than $10 billion.

Confusion reigns over why the numbers for many districts appear so off. Responsibility for collecting data and sending the figures to Washington fell to Quinn’s office, which turned the task over to the state board.

Board spokesman Matt Vanover said the data might be flawed and said the information was only as good as the numbers sent in by local districts. But officials of several districts contacted by the Tribune insisted they never provided the state with the jobs numbers used in the official tabulation.

Herzog said the jobs saved in the city weren’t reflected in official paperwork because the state directed that layoff notices had to have at least been served and then rescinded before  jobs could be counted as retained.

Vanover said Chicago received the same guidance as every other district in the state, but apparently interpreted it differently.

Chicago’s omission from the stimulus data is not without irony. The federal overseer of school stimulus spending is U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who until early this year was the CEO of the Chicago schools.

Sandra Abrevaya, a spokeswoman for Duncan, said the discrepancies the Tribune uncovered in Illinois jobs data are “really troubling” and would be investigated and corrected if necessary. Still, she said, similar jobs reports from other states appear more solid.

“At this point, the department feels good about the number overall,” she said.

Some local school officials suggested that the jobs data sent to the state appeared to have been overcounted in the official tabulation.

Last spring, Dolton-Riverdale received $3.6 million in stimulus money and reported to the state that the money saved 181 teaching jobs. A follow-up report this fall on another installment of $750,000 brought the total to 201. The official state report states that stimulus money saved 382 jobs.

But Carolyn Keith, the district’s comptroller, said the data from the two reports overlap and should not be added together.

The report from the state board listed jobs being retained or created thanks to the stimulus in 348 local districts, but more than half that total was concentrated in just 35 districts.

By contrast, the numbers reported for many districts – even big ones — were conservative. Naperville Community Unit School District 203, with 18,000 students, reported just six jobs created with stimulus money.

In Schaumburg-based School District 54, Superintendent Ed Rafferty said the state’s estimate of 250 jobs preserved or created was accurate, though more than half belonged to a multidistrict preschool program that includes District 54.

Just a handful of the jobs were new, Rafferty said, and he warned that every position propped up by stimulus money would be in jeopardy when the program expires.

“Unless there’s a guarantee of continuation of (federal or state) money, the vast majority of these will be eliminated because there won’t be local resources to fund them,” he said.

John Keilman contributed.

–Bob Secter and Erika Slife

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ChicagoChicago reviews Public Schools officials plan to appoint a chief medical officer, a new cabinet level position that will oversee efforts to improve students’ health.

The health czar will report directly to Ron Huberman, the schools’ chief executive officer, and will work closely with the Chicago Department of Public Health.

The job calls for coordinating all health-related activities in the schools, currently spread among various departments.

“The goal is a healthier student body that is able to come to school more regularly and learn effectively,” said Erica Salem, an assistant commissioner at the Chicago Department of Public Health.

It’s well documented that uncontrolled health problems in young people, like asthma, can interfere with their attendance and ability to keep up with school work.

The new health czar will focus on three key priorities: violence prevention, mental and behavioral health, and addressing the needs of students with chronic medical conditions, Salem said.

“Elevating the importance of the health of our children” is a critically important part of the job, she said. An appointment could be made in the next month, she confrimed.

The Chicago Public Schools would not make an official available for comment, despite repeated requests. Salem supplied a copy of the job description to the Tribune.

The position will be jointly funded by the Health Department and is backed by funding from Chicago’s Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute.

– Judith Graham

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