Here are more details on the MassINC event this Thursday in Boston.
Archive for June, 2009
Boston event
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Chattanooga TV report
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Chattanooga’s CBS affiliate, WDEF, covered the Ochs Center’s public policy forum on early education. The video is here.
Chattanooga Times Free Press report
Sunday, June 21st, 2009The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports on yesterday’s public policy forum on early education:
Harlem, N.Y., and Chattanooga are very different cities thousands of miles apart, but community members learned on Saturday there are striking similarities.
The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s University Center held a public policy forum regarding children’s education in Hamilton County. The event’s featured guest speaker was journalist Paul Tough, author of “Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America.”
Maine TV
Friday, June 19th, 2009From the NBC affiliate in Portland, a report on this week’s Child Welfare Conference at the University of Maine, with some footage (or inch-age) of my keynote address.
Seattle Times column
Monday, June 15th, 2009Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large devotes today’s column to the Harlem Children’s Zone and Whatever It Takes:
In the Harlem Children’s Zone, kids excel in school no matter how poor their homes.
In his book “Whatever it Takes,” Paul Tough writes about the zone and its creator, Geoffrey Canada, who created a formula that promises to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and transform education. …
Canada’s work removes any excuses we’ve used for not getting it right. It gives us reason to put away despair and take up hope.
Education Next review
Thursday, June 4th, 2009In the Summer issue of Education Next, Cara Spitalewitz reviews Whatever It Takes:
Tough has been interviewing and observing Canada for five years, and his knowledge of the inner workings of Canada’s programs and the ideas driving them is striking. He provides overviews of the current research on early intervention as well as the evolution of poverty theory, from the controversy surrounding the 1965 Moynihan report to the debate between sociologist William Julius Wilson and political scientist Charles Murray about the root causes of poverty. …
Tough covers a great deal of ground, but what runs through all of his reporting is [Geoffrey] Canada’s staunch pragmatism. As competing education manifestos vie for policymakers’ allegiance, “which side are you on?” distressingly seems to be a more important question for many than “what works?” Canada, along with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, is one of the few education leaders to have signed both manifestos. Who can focus on philosophical debates when we are losing children by the tens of thousands?
Catalyst Strategic Design Review
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009In the Spring/Summer issue of Catalyst Strategic Design Review there is a series of articles on the Harlem Children’s Zone, including a piece adapted from some of my Schoolhouse Rock blog posts on Slate last fall. (There are also some great Alex Tehrani photographs.)
The magazine looks at HCZ in part from a design perspective, which is novel. The magazine itself is quite interesting — it exists only online, but it’s designed like an actual magazine, with pages you turn.
The Northside Achievement Zone
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009More impact from Geoffrey Canada’s recent speech in Minneapolis: The Twin Cities Daily Planet reports that on Saturday, a coalition of local groups announced the launch of the Northside Achievement Zone, inspired by the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone.
The Daily Planet article also points out some differences between the HCZ and the NAZ:
The Harlem Children’s Zone built new programs, beginning with its Baby College™ for parents, all-day intensive preschool, charter schools, and much more. The Harlem Children’s Zone also spent nearly $40 million on its programs in 2006, according to its federal Form 990 return. So far, NAZ’s plans are more directed toward coordinating and communicating about already-existing programs offered by organizations already in the area, rather than on new resources or programs.
Speech in Boston
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009On June 25, at 8:30 a.m., I’ll be giving the keynote address at an event at the Bank of America Auditorium in Boston organized by MassINC, a Massachusetts think tank. The event, which will include a panel discussion with Paul Reville, the state’s secretary of education, is to mark the publication of a new research report by MassINC on education reform in Massachusetts. Details, including how to RSVP, are here.