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.

Promise Neighborhoods is one of the most ambitious efforts in recent years to tackle the crisis of urban youth. Geoffrey Canada’s work should offer one area of policy where Democrats and Republicans can join to show to the world that the election of 2008 did indeed reflect a genuine desire to eliminate some of the roots of racial inequality that continue to shape our country.

Geoffrey Canada was Stephen Colbert’s guest on the Colbert Report on Monday, talking about reverse racism and President Obama’s recent speech to the NAACP Centennial.

From the NBC affiliate in Portland, a report on this week’s Child Welfare Conference at the University of Maine, with some footage (or inch-age) of my keynote address.

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.”

“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.”