The president also proposes to support community schools under a reformed CCLC program. The Center for American Progress discussed the benefits of school-based services offered by community schools in a recent report. In addition, the proposed $210 million in funding for Promise Neighborhoods will allow for the replication of the highly successful Harlem’s Children’s Zone in communities across the country. The president is right to prioritize funding for school-level reforms that facilitate access to important social and health services for students and families.

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.