Comer’s School Development Program in Chicago: Effects on Involvement With the Juvenile Justice System From the Late Elementary Through the High School Years

In 2000, Cook, Murphy, and Hunt published a multilevel study of Chicago inner-city schools in order to evaluate James Comer’s School Development Program (SDP). One main finding was that SDP reduced the rate of change and final posttest mean when delinquency was assessed annually between Grades 5 and 8 using a self-report measure of acting out. The present study examined whether these same mean and slope effects would be observed when delinquency was measured from juvenile justice system records instead of self-reports. Hierarchical models of official statistics revealed no evidence favoring SDP between Grades 5 and 8, and the same was basically true during the high school years. So the Chicago variant of SDP did not have a general effect on reducing delinquency. Speculations are offered about why the two delinquency measures produced different results.