March 22nd, 2011
Last week I had a story in the New Yorker about Nadine Burke, a pediatrician in San Francisco, and the work she is doing to develop a clinical treatment protocol from the emerging research about childhood trauma and its longterm effects. My reporting about Dr. Burke will become part of my new book, “The Success Equation,” which Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish next year.
The New Yorker story got me booked on “RadioWest,” an hourlong public-affairs show on KUER in Salt Lake City. The host, Doug Fabrizio, asked some great questions, as did the many callers, from Utah and around the country (the show is also broadcast nationwide on Sirius XM). There’s now audio of the whole hour available here.
The article also played a part in this fascinating blog post from Whet Moser, on Chicagomag.com, which manages to tie together my reporting on Dr. Burke with Alex Kotlowitz’s great reporting in the New York Times Magazine on the Ceasefire initiative in Chicago, as well as a handful of other news reports and scientific studies. It’s well worth reading to get some broader context on the question of childhood trauma.
Tags: "The Success Equation", blogs, Chicago, interviews, magazines, radio, Utah
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March 22nd, 2011
There was news about the D.C. Promise Neighborhood initiative in two Washington newspapers last week. The Washington City Paper reported on the groundbreaking for a new early-childhood center in the Kenilworth-Parkside neighborhood in D.C.’s Ward 7, adding,
the Educare building, as it’s known, is much more than a school. It’s also the first piece of a federally-funded plan to replicate the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Manhattan, using a model of integrated educational and social services to transform a kid’s whole environment, not just the time they spend in a classroom.
The Washington Post added that the effort was
spearheaded by Irasema Salcido, the charismatic educator who founded the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy in the community, but its unusual strength lies in the 70 nonprofits, businesses, churches, foundations and resident associations that have signed on. In a refreshing partnership, two traditional public schools, Kenilworth and Neval Thomas elementary schools, have joined the coalition with their charter neighbor.
Next week, I’ll be visiting the Cesar Chavez schools and giving a speech at Georgetown University about character development and student achievement — and how those topics relate to the Promise Neighborhood initiative.
Tags: HCZ, newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods, speeches, universities, Washington
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February 20th, 2011
On March 31, I’ll be giving a keynote address as part of an event about “Character Development and Student Achievement” sponsored by Georgetown University and the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy. (Georgetown and Chavez are working together to create a Promise Neighborhood in D.C.’s Ward 7.) There will be a panel discussion following my talk, with Kaya Henderson, the interim chancellor of the D.C. public schools; Jim Shelton, the official in charge of the education department’s innovation initiatives; Irasema Salcido, the founder of the Chavez schools; and Tim King, the founder of the Urban Prep charter schools in Chicago.
For more information, contact Norma Barfield with the Chavez Schools, at norma.barfield@chavezschools.org.
Tags: panels, Promise Neighborhoods, speeches, universities, Washington
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February 20th, 2011
Despite the grim prospects for Promise Neighborhood funding in 2011, President Obama’s 2012 budget, which he proposed last week, requests $150 million for 2012, considerably less than the original 2011 request, but considerably more than Congress has actually allocated for 2011. As an blog post from the Chronicle of Philanthropy explains:
Promise Neighborhoods awarded $10 million in planning grants to 21 projects around the country in the 2010 fiscal year. Mr. Obama proposed upping the budget to $210-million in fiscal year 2011, with most of the money paying for grants to help nonprofit groups put their projects into effect. However, Congress has not yet adopted a 2011 budget, so spending has been frozen at 2010 levels. Congress did not fully back his 2011 request: a House subcommittee proposed spending only $60-million and a Senate committee only $20-million.
The request leaves many questions unanswered, including these, from the New America Foundation’s Ed Money Watch blog:
The Department of Education awarded $10 million in planning grants late last year. What is the status of those planning grants? Will the recipients of the planning grants receive this new money as well or will there be a new grant competition? If it will be the same grant recipients, will those grant recipients be ready to start implementing their plans in fiscal year 2012?
Tags: blogs, Obama, Promise Neighborhoods
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February 9th, 2011
On Monday, at a press conference at Madison Square Garden, Prince announced a donation of $1 million to the Harlem Children’s Zone. According to an article in Jones Magazine:
During the press conference, 30 students from the Harlem Children’s Zone got the chance to meet the musical icon. You could see how inspired and touched they were by Prince’s dedication to the youth, his unparalleled musical success and his generosity. Harlem Children’s Zone President and CEO Geoffrey Canada had this to say about the donation: “I want to thank Prince. I am touched and blown away by his generosity. This is unprecedented in my lifetime to see an artist come forward and invest in today’s children.”
Tags: Geoffrey Canada, HCZ, magazines, New York City, Prince
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January 28th, 2011
On Saturday, Feb. 12, I’ll be at the Teach For America 20th anniversary summit in Washington, D.C., moderating a panel on interventions to close the achievement gap that go beyond the classroom. Joining me will be Larkin Tackett, who is helping to oversee the Promise Neighborhood program for the department of education; Debbie Gonzalez, the senior manager of preventive programs for the Harlem Children’s Zone; Diana Rauner, the president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund; David Williams, the Chicago regional director for Youth Advocate Programs, Inc.; and Irasema Salcido, the founder and CEO of Cesar Chavez Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.
Here’s how the conference web site describes what we’ll be talking about:
Everyone agrees that education plays a critical role in eradicating poverty, but is it enough? How critical are other poverty-focused interventions to improving student outcomes? In this panel, practitioners will discuss which services have the greatest impact on poverty in their communities and what they’re doing to address the needs of low-income children and families.
Tags: Chicago, HCZ, panels, Promise Neighborhoods, Washington
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January 28th, 2011
There’s news from all over this month about efforts to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone. In Arkansas, the
Central Little Rock Promise Neighborhood was one of
21 groups to receive a planning grant from the federal department of education. Julie Hall, one of the organizers,
talked about her group’s plans on KTHV (video above). Meanwhile, the Chronicle of Philanthropy
profiled another grant recipient, organized around the Cesar Chavez charter school in Washington, D.C., and the Philadelphia Inquirer
reported on a local organization that received a planning grant: Universal Companies, run by musician Kenny Gamble. (The Inquirer story led to this
heated exchange of posts on Philadelphia Magazine’s Philly Post blog.)
There was also news recently about replication projects that
didn’t win one of the 21 planning grants, like a
project by the United Way of Lane County, Oregon, to start two pilot Promise Neighborhoods, and a
coalition in St. Louis that is trying to bring a Zone to North St. Louis. And then there’s the
initiative in Paterson, New Jersey, which is working directly with the Harlem Children’s Zone. As Governor Christie put it at an
announcement with Geoffrey Canada in Trenton on Jan. 19:
“Over the coming weeks and months, we will work with Geoffrey and the Harlem Children’s Zone to put in place a program in Paterson that will emulate the success of Harlem Children’s Zone and give the children of Paterson a renewed sense of hope and opportunity.”
In a blog post on the Wall Street Journal’s web site, one expert was quoted sounding a skeptical note about the Paterson replication:
“We have an absolutely brutal track record of trying to replicate these things,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Hess said Canada’s personal ties allowed him to take advantage of existing social programs, tie them together and raise money. … “There’s no harm in trying, but I think much more skepticism is necessary than has been the case,” he said of New Jersey’s new effort in Paterson.
More cause for concern about the future of Promise Neighborhoods came in this article in the Washington Post, in which Jim Shelton, the education department official (and former Gates Foundation executive) overseeing the Promise Neighborhood program, commented on the administration’s request to Congress for $210 million for this coming fiscal year, which had been reduced last year to $60 million by a House subcommittee and then to $20 million by a Senate subcommittee. (I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last summer about the proposed cuts.) At the time, administration officials I spoke to sounded optimistic that much if not all of the funding would be restored, but in the Post article, Shelton
said that this year the administration probably will have only an additional $10 million for the Promise Neighborhood program and will request more money for the program again in 2012. “At a minimum, we could have a small-scale implementation, not nearly what we had anticipated,” Shelton said.
Tags: Arkansas, blogs, magazines, Missouri, New Jersey, newspapers, NYT, Oregon, Philadelphia, Promise Neighborhoods, TV, Washington
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January 28th, 2011
Geoffrey Canada has been on the road more than usual this month, giving public talks to a variety of school and community groups. He spoke at the University of Dayton in Ohio where, according to a recent article in the Dayton Daily News, a local initiative called Taking Off to Success is modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Baby College. He also spoke at a Martin Luther King Day celebration at Wesleyan University and to a group in Columbia, South Carolina, that is trying to establish what they’re calling a Promise Zone, modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, in the city’s Eau Claire neighborhood. (According to an article in the State, Geoffrey Canada’s older brother, Dan, a Columbia resident, is on the board of the Eau Claire zone.)
Next month, Canada will speak in Haverford, Pennsylvania. In March, it’s Saginaw, Michigan. In April, York, Pennsylvania.
Tags: Baby College, Connecticut, Geoffrey Canada, HCZ, Michigan, newspapers, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Promise Neighborhoods, South Carolina, speeches, universities
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December 7th, 2010
Yesterday on Early Ed Watch, a blog about early education from the New American Foundation, Lisa Guernsey, the director of the foundation’s early education initiative, published a Q&A that she did with me on early education, my new book, the Harlem Children’s Zone, and “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” among other topics. An excerpt:
I’m working on a new book that has me back out visiting a lot of schools, and I’m interested in the so-called non-cognitive aspects of persistent poverty and educational opportunities that help people escape from poverty. I’m looking at how – both at the preschool level and also the high school level – interventions may focus on aspects of character or personality or executive function. For me personally that’s the most interesting thing going on out there. It’s really early and less connected and less well-formed as an argument than what I was writing about in Whatever it Takes, but it contains the germ of having new ways of thinking about poverty and what is going on in the lives of poor kids and what kinds of interventions might get them out of poverty.
Tags: "Superman", "The Success Equation", blogs, HCZ, interviews, Q&As
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December 7th, 2010
In Friday’s Athens Banner-Herald, a report on my talk there last week, and on Whatever It Takes, the local Promise Neighborhood initiative:
In the end, the success of Promise Neighborhoods will depend on how well individual communities like Athens implement the fundamentals of the Harlem Children’s Zone, he said.
“Whether these programs succeed or fail will not be decided in Washington D.C.,” Tough said. “It will be decided in communities like these. If we can use this moment to gather the right resources and people and spirit in places like Athens, I think we have a chance to make a real and lasting difference for the kids who need our help the most.”
Tags: Georgia, HCZ, newspapers, Promise Neighborhoods, speeches
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