In the Winter issue of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, a quarterly newspaper for parents and teachers in the city’s public schools, a review of Whatever It Takes:
Whatever it Takes is an engaging read that will have teachers, parents, administrators, and students rethinking the ways in which change can happen and what kind of change is achievable. It also shows that determination, flexibility, and community support can bring about meaningful, widespread reform.
Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, devotes this week’s “Child Watch” column to “Whatever It Takes” and the Harlem Children’s Zone:
“Whatever it takes” is Canada’s philosophy about serving and saving the thousands of children in the nearly 100-block radius that constitutes the Harlem Children’s Zone Project. Canada’s comprehensive, innovative strategies for how to do this are at the heart of the book and have brought him national attention, including praise from President Obama, who is proposing plans to replicate Canada’s successes in 20 more communities across the country.
Everyone wants to know: What is Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, reading these days? For a clue, watch this report on Nightline, and wait until the countdown time counter gets to about -2:05.
In the Spring issue of the Wilson Quarterly, Tom Toch reviews “Work Hard. Be Nice.,” “Sweating the Small Stuff” and “Whatever It Takes”:
Paul Tough argues compellingly in Whatever It Takes that new school models cannot by themselves transform urban education. A writer and editor at The New York Times Magazine, Tough tells the story of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit agency working with 7,000 kids in 97 square blocks of central Harlem. To Geoffrey Canada, a product of the South Bronx who escaped to Long Island and then to Bowdoin College in Maine before founding the organization, “it wasn’t enough to help out in just one part of a child’s life: [Harlem’s Children’s Zone] would need to combine education, social, and medical services.”