HCZ and NYCHA officials are pitching the new building as a continuation of the Zone’s mission to integrate education and social services and connect an isolated housing development to the wider community. Residents of the Saint Nicholas Houses would also receive an admissions preference to the school, and officials said that residents would also receive a preference for an anticipated 100 jobs created by the new school.

There’s more coverage in the New York Post, in the Daily News, and on NY1.

- a conference on a “multicultural/multiracial future” this Sunday at my church: Middle Collegiate Church, in New York City

- a fundraising luncheon for Mainspring Schools in Austin on April 29.

- education conferences organized by my publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, next month in Atlanta and New Orleans.

- an event on May 16 at the Holton Career and Resource Center in Durham, N.C., organized by the East Durham Children’s Initiative.

- a school-readiness symposium in Baltimore on May 18, organized by Ready at Five.

These are scarce resources and there’s tremendous interest out there. And I think this work has to continue whether schools and neighborhoods and communities get funded or not. But we want to invest in those places that have the capacity to deliver dramatically better results for children. So this is not just about a good idea, it’s not just about good will or good intentions. We want to put lots of dollars, millions and millions of dollars behind those places that have the capacity, the political will, the courage and the plan to dramatically improve student outcomes.

According to NY1, Mayor Bloomberg, speaking at a charter-school anniversary in Harlem, announced that his administration is “pushing to use part of President Barack Obama’s ‘Promise Neighborhoods’ funds for the creation of two new Children’s Zones, one in Brooklyn and one in the South Bronx.”

Meanwhile, Catalyst Notebook, a Chicago schools blog, reports that

Three Chicago neighborhoods are taking the first steps toward potential replication of the Harlem Children’s Zone, the highly-praised program that provides education and social support to poor children and families in Central Harlem.

Representatives from social service agencies in Chicago Lawn, Logan Square and Woodlawn will travel to New York City in the coming weeks to attend a multi-day conference and a ‘practitioner’s institute’ for organizations that are interested in launching Promise Neighborhoods, an initiative of the Obama Administration modeled on the Children’s Zone.

At LynNell Hancock’s Covering Education Seminar at the Columbia University School of Journalism, talking about the experience of reporting at the Promise Academy middle school. Video by Maura Walz.

One student’s account of my recent visit to LynNell Hancock’s Covering Education seminar at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Paul Tough, who writes about education for the New York Times Magazine, tackles hefty social science quandaries – like what causes poverty and how it can be alleviated — within the narrative of Geoffrey Canada’s dramatic, ongoing struggle to change the lives of Harlem’s children. … After five years of reporting, Tough describes Canada’s venture – the Harlem Children’s Zone – through the stories of the people who work for and are served by the project, which includes two charter schools. Tough also explains the research behind anti-poverty efforts, relating it to the sometimes nail-biting, sometimes heartbreaking, yet surprisingly hopeful story of Canada’s work.