Archive for January, 2010
Friday, January 29th, 2010
From the Tufts Daily, more news on the plans to bring a program based on the Harlem Children’s Zone to the Mystic housing project in Somerville, Mass. (I posted a link to the original announcement of the project back in December.)
The program is styled after the Harlem Children’s Zone project pioneered by Geoffrey Canada. Cochran noted, however, that though the goals and strategies of the two projects are similar, there are a couple of notable differences.
“Only about 30 percent of the families speak English as a first language,” he said. “The cultural diversity in the Mystic Housing Development is one of its unique characteristics.”
[Update: The story in the Tufts Daily seems to have disappeared from their web site. So the link above is no longer good. Sorry.]
Tags: Massachusetts, newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods
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Friday, January 29th, 2010
In today’s Austin Chronicle, an update on efforts to bring a Promise Neighborhood to that city (where I’ll be speaking in April):
Two proposals are being drafted in Travis County, both focusing on East Austin. One, backed by the Sooch Foundation and the Webber Family Foundation, brings together representatives of the city of Austin and AISD, as well as local nonprofits such as dropout prevention experts Communities in Schools, youth services provider LifeWorks, and affordable housing advocates Foundation Communities. Their focus is on the St. John/Coronado Hills neighborhood planning area between I-35, Highway 290, and Highway 183, potentially using AISD’s Reagan High “vertical team” – from elementary through high school – as the project backbone. Education nonprofit Southwest Key Programs is working on its own proposal for the Govalle and Johnston Terrace neighborhoods. This would build on its existing East Austin Children’s Promise program and use resources like Southwest Key’s East Austin Family Center and its charter school, the East Austin College Prep Academy.
Tags: newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods, Texas
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Friday, January 29th, 2010
In the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this week, an opinion piece by Kimberly Mitchell, a West Palm Beach city commissioner, about efforts there to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone:
This past August, along with 60 state and local leaders from all parts of the business, political, economic and educational spectrum, Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater and I launched our own local initiative, Family Zone: West Palm Beach, modeled on the nationally recognized Harlem Children’s Zone project. …
HCZ has found support from liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans – from former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who first brought this to our state’s attention, and Jeff Atwater to Orlando’s Democratic Mayor Buddy Dyer and President Barack Obama. …
President Obama has found this program to be so special, so important, he included it among his top priorities for his first year in office. In fact, West Palm Beach has the opportunity to become our own version of the Harlem Children’s Zone as one of 20 cities chosen by the White House to take part in this dramatic new program.
Tags: Florida, HCZ, newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods
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Thursday, January 21st, 2010
I was a guest today (along with Nicole Johnson, the executive director of Elev8 Baltimore) on “Midday with Dan Rodricks” on WYPR in Baltimore. Audio is now online.
And in the Baltimore Messenger, an article on my talk tonight, and on Ari Witkin, the 22-year-old events coordinator who is helping to make it happen:
President Barack Obama has called for the creation of “Promise Neighborhoods” nationwide, based on the HCZ Project.
The hope is that Tough’s talk and the public discussion that follows will lead to the creaton of a similar program in Baltimore, said Claudia Diamond, who chairs the social action committee at Bolton Street Synagogue. Diamond and Amy Myers, head of social outreach at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Charles Village, organized the talk with Witkin’s help.
Witkin said several nonprofit groups are applying for Promise Neighborhoods grants, including Living Classrooms, the Center for Urban Families, Towson University’s School of Education and the University of Maryland School of Social Work. And, 25 nonprofits in the area that work with children have been invited to Tough’s talk, he said.
Tags: Baltimore, newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods, radio
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Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
More news on tomorrow’s talk in Baltimore and an awesome price on a used copy of “Whatever It Takes” (must be in Bay Area).
Tags: Baltimore, California, sales, speeches
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Monday, January 18th, 2010
Next Thursday, I’ll be giving a talk at the Bolton Street Synagogue in Baltimore. The topic: “The Harlem Children’s Zone: Can It Happen in Baltimore?” The event, which is free and open to the public, is being organized by the Greater Homewood Interfaith Alliance. There are more details here, and you can download a flyer here [pdf].
At noon on Thursday, before the talk, I’ll be a guest on Dan Rodrick’s “Midday” show on WYPR, the Baltimore public-radio station.
Tags: Baltimore, Promise Neighborhoods, radio, speeches
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Monday, January 18th, 2010
From Prevention Action, a British online news publication on children’s health and development, reflections on a recent report from Child Trends on the prospects for Promise Neighborhoods and, specifically, the difficulty of finding the right data to use as benchmarks for success:
Child Trends acknowledges Harlem’s achievement. … The question is whether a neighborhood in Detroit, Denver or Chicago will ever be able to compare its progress to Harlem’s using similar criteria, and whether the experience of all four can be meaningfully combined – or contrasted with the experience of non-Promise neighborhoods who may or not be running initiatives of their own.
Tags: blogs, Promise Neighborhoods, reports
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Monday, January 18th, 2010
After Geoffrey Canada’s speech in Madison, Wisconsin, last week, some new coverage by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, including this report on a task force to create a Harlem’s Children Zone-like project in Milwaukee:
Gov. Jim Doyle has said that the state’s application for Race to the Top, a pool of federal grants worth $4.35 billion, will include a proposal to create a Milwaukee Children’s Zone with part of the money. In addition, a Milwaukee Public Schools task force – formed in the summer of 2009 by Doyle, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers – has called for the creation of “Milwaukee Children’s Zones.” Also, state lawmakers pushing for Milwaukee’s mayor to take over MPS have included a proposal for a local Harlem Children’s Zone-like experiment as part of their governance bill pending in the state Legislature.
But in yesterday’s paper, Alan J. Borsuk, the education columnist, interviewed Canada and struck a more skeptical note:
Then came what I would suggest is the big one, when it comes to Milwaukee: Canada said, “Then there’s the leadership issue.” You need, he said, “a leadership group that’s prepared to take on the mission. . . . There has to be a leadership strategy where someone is held accountable.” Canada’s definitions of mission and leadership leave an awful lot of Milwaukee leaders in the dust.
Tags: Geoffrey Canada, newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods, speeches, Wisconsin
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Monday, January 18th, 2010
In Carolina book-club news: According to the Charlotte Observer, the Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education is inviting Charlotte residents to take part in a book-club discussion of “Whatever It Takes” this month. And in Beaufort, South Carolina, the Friends of the Beaufort County Library have chosen the book for tomorrow’s lunch-time discussion at the Sea Island Presbyterian Church.
Tags: book clubs, librarians, newspapers, North Carolina, South Carolina
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