- Geoffrey Canada visits the White House.
- Wicked Local Arlington does a stream-of-consciousness transcription of my talk (and a panel discussion) at the MassINC event in Boston.
- PostBourgie, an online “running, semi-orderly conversation about class and politics and media and gender and whatever else we can think of,” chooses Whatever It Takes as its Book of the Month.
- And a professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania reviews Whatever It Takes from the homeschooling perspective.
According to this morning’s Post and Courier, the schools superintendent in Charleston, S.C., is angling to make that city home to one of the first Promise Neighborhoods. According to the article:
The intention of the Promise Neighborhoods project is to replicate in communities nationwide some of what’s been done in the Harlem’s Children Zone, a 97-block area in Central Harlem in New York City that provides social, educational, health and recreational programs for children from birth through college. …
President Barack Obama began talking about Promise Neighborhoods during his campaign, and he’s requested $10 million in next year’s budget for one-year planning grants for communities that want to develop these programs. Grant recipients would be eligible to receive implementation money the following year. …
Communities can’t apply for the planning grant yet, but McGinley has been working behind-the-scenes to ensure that Charleston would be a frontrunner for the money. She’s talked with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, and downtown and North Charleston ministers to gather support. She’s pulled research on poverty and school readiness and drafted a preliminary proposal that targets downtown, North Charleston and possibly Hollywood-area schools.
In her commencement address yesterday at the University of California in Merced, Michelle Obama praised the work of Geoffrey Canada:
[O]ne of my heroes, Geoffrey Canada, grew up in the South Bronx. After graduating from Bowdoin and getting his masters at Harvard, he returned to New York City and used his education to ensure that the next generation would have a chance at the same opportunity. Geoffrey’s Harlem Children’s Zone is a nationally recognized program that covers 100 blocks and reaches nearly 10,000 children with a variety of social services to ensure that all kids are prepared to get a good education.
And in an effort to invest in and encourage the future Wendy Kopps, Van Joneses and Geoffrey Canadas, the Obama administration recently launched the Office of Social Innovation at the White House. The President has asked Congress to provide $50 million in seed capital to fund great ideas like the ones I just described. The Office is going to identify the most promising, results-oriented non-profit programs and expand their reach throughout the country.
In Friday’s New York Times, an op-ed column by David Brooks on the Harlem Children’s Zone and on a new study of the Zone by Harvard economist Roland Fryer:
Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone. They compared students in these schools to students in New York City as a whole and to comparable students who entered the lottery to get into the Harlem Children’s Zone schools, but weren’t selected.
They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. …
To understand the culture in these schools, I’d recommend “Whatever It Takes,” a gripping account of Harlem Children’s Zone by my Times colleague Paul Tough, and “Sweating the Small Stuff,” a superb survey of these sorts of schools by David Whitman.
In the Boston Globe, an article about an effort to make Boston the site of one of President Obama’s new Promise Neighborhoods:
Today, a group of Boston nonprofit leaders – led by City Year’s Hubie Jones – will be touring the [Harlem Children's Zone], as they launch a campaign to make the city one of Obama’s chosen sites. Obama is calling his endeavor “Promise Neighborhoods,” a nod to the program’s success in boosting student achievement and reducing hospitalization rates for children with asthma, among other feats.
“It’s time for Boston to think differently about how to deliver programs to these really distressed neighborhoods,” said Jones, who will be blogging from today’s tour as part of his effort to generate local interest. “If the Harlem Children’s Zone or something like it is a good idea for Boston to do, we ought to get ready for it or we will be passed over by the Obama administration.”
Geoff Canada speaks to ABC News reporter Teddy Davis about the Obama administration’s plans to create Promise Neighborhoods, based on the Harlem Children’s Zone:
An Education Department official working on Promise Neighborhoods for Obama has told me that the federal government will begin taking grant applications in 2010 with the goal of giving out implementation grants in 2011. What should the Obama administration look for in someone who wants to start a Promise Neighborhood?
“There are a couple principles that we think are very important. The first is that the entity that applies ought to have some demonstrated capacity to do a very complex kind of planning. The second is that there has to be the ability to raise private dollars over a sustained period of time because in the end you are doing something that is going to take years to really deliver the kind of results that I think the president wants and you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got the capacity to continue to support the federal dollars. The third thing is that the programs have to be committed to data and evaluation. Fourth, there has to be a really committed board or management structure to ensure that the dollars are appropriated and accounted for accurately.”
Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, devotes this week’s “Child Watch” column to “Whatever It Takes” and the Harlem Children’s Zone:
“Whatever it takes” is Canada’s philosophy about serving and saving the thousands of children in the nearly 100-block radius that constitutes the Harlem Children’s Zone Project. Canada’s comprehensive, innovative strategies for how to do this are at the heart of the book and have brought him national attention, including praise from President Obama, who is proposing plans to replicate Canada’s successes in 20 more communities across the country.
Geoffrey Canada on CNN, weighing in on President Obama’s speech on education:
“This president did something I have been waiting for my entire life, have a Democratic president that absolutely touched the third rail of Democratic politics. He said, our schools are failing. We’re going to hold teachers accountable. We’re going to fund education, but we’re going to expect results. And, if you don’t produce results, out you go. This has never happened in a Democratic president before. And I think we’re getting ready for change in America.”
On the Flypaper blog, Mike Petrilli comments on Arne Duncan’s recent statements on school vouchers:
“We need to be more ambitious,” Duncan explained. “The goal shouldn’t be to save a handful of children. The goal should be to dramatically change the opportunity structure for entire neighborhoods of kids.”
Wow. On the one hand, that rhetoric is straight out of the Great Society, and in line with the Obama team’s audacious attempt to redefine what’s possible in domestic policymaking. But it’s also a clear reference to Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, which is trying to remake an “entire neighborhood” of kids.
And on The Plank, a New Republic blog, Seyward Darby adds, “It does appear that Harlem Children’s Zone and similar pioneering programs are informing Duncan’s approach to policy.” Darby quotes from the recent Chicago magazine interview with Duncan, in which Duncan promised to undertake and fund a 20-city Harlem Children’s Zone replication project, and concludes:
That’s pretty bold (and encouraging!) talk, particularly in the face of congressional and union opposition to broadening reform efforts that have only been tested on a small scale–like the Harlem Children’s Zone.
In a new interview in Chicago magazine, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama’s secretary of education, takes a stand for replicating the Harlem Children’s Zone:
Q: Have you read Whatever It Takes, the new book about Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone? I bring it up because that project, which tries to catch kids from birth and guide them all the way to college, suggests that it may be necessary in certain communities for the neighborhood school to take on functions that lie traditionally in the realm of social services.
A: Geoff Canada’s a good, good friend of mine. I’m actually meeting with him Monday.Q: Obviously you’re familiar with what he’s doing.
A: Yes. I’m going to create 20 Harlem Children’s Zones around the country. I am.Q: Really? Do you think you’ll face opposition to the federal role expanding in that way?
A: I don’t care. I’m going to fund it.