Posts Tagged ‘New Jersey’

Promise Neighborhood News

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

More news stories about communities around the country using the example of the Harlem Children’s Zone to develop new strategies to help poor children succeed. In the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, an article about a new nonprofit working to rebuild that city’s Lindsay Heights neighborhood. From North Minneapolis comes news about the Northside Achievement Zone. There are two big initiatives in New Jersey, one in Newark, and one in Camden.

And from Athens, Georgia, a report on the Whatever It Takes initiative:

The name “Whatever It Takes” was taken from the title of a book by Paul Tough, an account of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a large-scale social service project that inundates children in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood with educational and health services aimed at turning them into college graduates. Following the Obama Administration’s announcement of the Promise Neighborhood grant in April, the U.S. Department of Education stated that the program would be based in part on the Harlem Children’s Zone model. Even so, Earnest and Johnson say that WIT is not intended to be a replication of that project.

Here’s a video from Athens, introduced by Michael Stipe:

Newark and Camden zones?

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

In today’s Newark Star-Ledger, an article about the new initiative to build neighborhood zones based on the Harlem Children’s Zone in both Newark and Camden, New Jersey. According to the article, the plan is intended to take advantage of President Obama’s proposed Promise Neighborhoods program:

State leaders hope the plans will give New Jersey a leg up on the competition for the Promised Neighborhoods Initiative, an Obama administration proposal that requested $10 million to duplicate the Harlem project in 20 cities nationwide.

“This is a holistic approach to how we should deal with education,” Gov. Jon Corzine said at the conference. “We want to make sure Newark and Camden receive those (federal) resources.”

Congress has yet to approve the funds, but Canada said he expects it will be allotted and the administration will start the selection process in a few weeks.