Dropping Out: Why students leave Decatur schools, Decatur, IL 2001

Partners:

Herald & Review
WILL-TV (PBS)
WILL-AM

"Dropping Out: Why students leave Decatur schools" was a civic journalism project that involved citizens, including those who'd never finished high school, in developing ideas to help keep students in school through graduation.

In November 2001, the partners commissioned a survey of 102 adults who had dropped out of Decatur public schools in the previous 40 years. For many of the respondents, it was the first time they had ever been asked why they'd left. Their answers pointed to some concrete steps for retention programs. One-third said additional help from a teacher or administrator might have kept them in school. Another third said more interesting classes would have helped.

The Herald & Review reported the results in a three-part series that kicked off on Jan. 27, 2002. Radio reports began on WILL-AM on Jan. 28. The reporting project coincided with the creation of the Decatur Joint Dropout Task Force, a community coalition focused on providing at-risk youth with support to stay in school. Task force members were invited to participate, along with school officials, in a March 21 town meeting on the drop-out problem, co-sponsored by the paper and the local NAACP chapter. Nearly 200 people attended and so many lined up to ask questions the scheduled 90-minute meeting lasted for more than two hours. The paper also identified community members to take part in a live call-in show broadcast April 17 from WILL-TV's studio in Urbana.

The partners chartered a bus to take the participants, citizens and school officials from Decatur to Urbana on the night of the broadcast. The ride itself proved to be an important part of the project, as it became a brainstorming session for possible solutions.

One element of the project that turned out to be less successful than hoped was a program to open banks of computers on weekends for drop-outs to fill out a brief survey and be connected with community resources for job training and GED classes. The partners publicized the program through the paper and fliers delivered to several social service agencies. The program operated for only two weekends and was abandoned when, after four days, only nine people had participated. Overall, though, the partners considered the project a success, with school officials and the Task Force developing innovative ideas to tackle the drop-out problem with input from the survey, town hall and live broadcast.

Contact:

Jan Touney
Associate Editor
Herald & Review
601 E. Williams Street
Decatur, IL 62525
Phone: (217) 421-6973
Email: jtouney@herald-review.com

The Death of Ryan Harris: A Community Responds, Chicago, IL 1999

Partners:

The Chicago Reporter

The newspaper revisited the 1998 slaying of 11-year-old Ryan Harris and its aftermath, finding it a critical point in police-community relations in Chicago's crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood. Reporters reconstructed the police investigation of the crime, which led to the brief and controversial arrest of two young, neighborhood boys. (An adult was later charged with the murder.) They also analyzed nearly a decade of crime statistics and police calls in the neighborhood, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

With the help of graduate students at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, the paper conducted a phone survey of 304 residents about the Ryan Harris case, crime in general in their neighborhood and their relations with police. It also took inventory of community resources, paying special attention to the availability of mental health services.

A 16-page special report on the findings constituted the monthly's December 1999 issue. An extra 1,000 copies were printed and distributed to area churches, schools and community organizations and extra features appeared on The Reporter's Web site, www.chicagoreporter.com. The information also became the basis for a community meeting in Englewood in January, attended by about 100 residents, who praised the project. Portions of the project were picked up by The Associated Press, WBEZ-FM (NPR), WGN-TV, the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Contact:

Laura S. Washington (Former Reporter Editor and Publisher)
3750 Lake Shore Dr., Apt. 8-C
Chicago, IL 60613
Phone: (773) 327-4025
Email: lauraswashington@aol.com

Special Report on Wrightwood, Chicago, IL, 1998

Partners:

The Chicago Reporter
WBEZ-FM
WNUA-FM

The Pew Center provided additional funding to allow the investigative monthly to complete its portrait of racial change in the Chicago neighborhood of Wrightwood. The story appeared in the April 1998 issue. For more details, please see Year Four (1997) projects.

Contact:

Laura S. Washington
3750 Lake Shore Dr., Apt. 8-C
Chicago, IL 60613
Phone: (773) 327-4025
Email: lauraswashington@aol.com

Racial Change in Chicago, Chicago, IL 1997

Partners:

The Chicago Reporter
WGN-TV
WNUA-FM

The partners drew a subtle and nuanced portrait of Wrightwood, a previously white neighborhood that had become 50 percent African-American fairly quickly in the early '90's, as a case study in racial change in a community. The Reporter, a monthly paper that uses investigative techniques to cover race and poverty, led the team, conducting a statistical analysis that showed the impact of racial change on neighborhood schools and home values. Then, reporters added civic tools to their reporting - convening a meeting of 30 civic leaders and ordinary residents to get input and spending months in Wrightwood interviewing and re-interviewing dozens of residents about their concerns, problems and need, about how they get information, about where conflict exists and what is behind it.

The package of stories was published in the April 1998 edition of The Reporter. On April 15, WBEZ-FM, Chicago's public radio station, broadcast its story on the Wrightwood community as part of its "Chicago Matters" series. On May 17, WNUA-FM featured Wrightwood on its monthly Sunday morning public affairs show "City Voices."

The partners wrapped up the project with a July 1 town hall meeting in Wrightwood. About 175 people attended and gave the project high marks for increasing understanding in Wrightwood.

Laura S. Washington (former editor and publisher)
3750 Lake Shore Dr., Apt. 8-C
Chicago, IL 60613
TEL: (773) 327-4025
EMAIL: lauraswashington@aol.com

Leadership Challenge, Peoria, IL 1996

Partners:

Journal-Star
WMBD-TV (CBS), WMBD-AM
WCBU-TV (PBS), WCBU-FM (NPR)
Illinois Central College
Bradley University

Noting a decline in civic leadership and community involvement, the partners embarked on "Leadership Challenge," a project that met its ambitious goal of inspiring citizens to take leadership roles in the community.

Designed from the beginning to become a community effort, the media partners invited civic institutions to join the steering committee that framed the project. Through a series of targeted mail surveys, a random sample telephone survey of 509 Peorians and four community roundtables involving some 50 people, the partners were able to document the reasons people were becoming less involved in community activities.

They included a lack of time, a feeling of being unwelcome and a fear of being criticized. But the surveys also showed that getting involved gave people a sense of satisfaction and more people would get involved if asked by a relative, friend or employer. A series of stories laying out and exploring the findings began on Jan. 21, 1996.

The series included weekly profiles of ordinary Peoria residents who took on leadership roles. It culminated in a Nov. 18 town meeting, in which 120 people participated in a search for solutions and generated 147 ideas for reversing the trend. Some of the ideas were picked up and put into practice, as hoped, by a member of the steering committee, the director of the Center for Non-Profit Excellence at Illinois Central College (ICC). ICC received funds from the Pew Center for Civic Change to extend the work of the journalism project and trained several neighborhood activists in skills needed to lead organizations. The resulting Neighborhood College continues to train emerging leaders.

The series also inspired a local businessman to run for mayor and, when he took office, prompted him to develop a Neighborhood Development Commission that tapped new segments of the community for leadership roles.

Jack Brimeyer
Managing Editor
Journal Star
1 News Plaza
Peoria, IL 61643
Phone: (309) 686-3121
Email: jbrimeyer@pjstar.com

Terry Bibo-Knight
Columnist/Special Projects Director
Journal Star
1 News Plaza
Peoria, IL 61643
Phone: (309) 686-3121

Illinois Voter Project, Chicago, IL 1993

Partners:

University of Illinois
League of Women Voters

The partners teamed up for the Illinois Voter Project (IVP), an effort to make election coverage more issues-focused and responsive to voters rather than candidates. The university conducted a statewide opinion survey before the March 1994 primary to determine citizens' major concerns. In June, the partners began a series of 14 focus groups designed to refine those findings, identifying in greater detail what citizens see as problems in their communities and possible solutions.

The research showed that key election issues were crime, education, jobs and tax spending. In September, after six weeks of recruiting members, the partners convened two Citizen Agenda Panels - one city and one suburban - to interview experts in the problem areas and develop a set of policy recommendations to present to candidates. Members of the panels were included among the questioners in a town hall-style debate sponsored by the partners Oct. 19.

The partners hoped that most Chicago-area media would use their research and citizen panels in election coverage and, thus, did not create a formal alliance with any particular media partner but reported their findings at press briefings. Interest was especially keen at the city's three daily newspapers. The suburban Daily Herald embraced the process and created its own citizen panel in addition to covering the IVP. The process also received coverage in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times and several radio stations. ChicagoLand Television (CLTV), a regional cable news service, produced a 30-minute documentary about the IVP that aired three times prior to the November election.