“Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America”
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Book Review
Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America
by Paul Tough
(NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. 296 pages)
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Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America is a fascinating book covering the birth of the Harlem Children’s Zone in NYC, and the subsequent creation of charter schools to provide the poorest children in Harlem with an education that will help them compete.
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The concept promoted by Canada combines social, community and educational changes for a group of at-risk children. Canada explains how children from poor and working class backrounds come to school profoundly disadvantaged not only by their economic circumstances, but by their social circumstances. Unlike middle and uppper-middle class children who are constantly stimulated, talked to and encouraged to question; almost from the moment of birth, these poor children enter school behind in word aquisition and are unprepared for an educational process that is clearly geared to the children of the middle class.
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Canada’s solution to this problem includes intervention before birth, then preschool and then eventually charter schools geared to these disadvantaged children, who are also paired with social services.
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“Baby College”
Canada begins his program with “Baby College.” His colleagues seek out “at-risk” parents in the Harlem Children’s Zone before birth. (This step helps avoid self-selection of the program by more engaged parents.) Through “Baby College” he is able to prepare parents to engage their children from the beginning of their lives.
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“Three Year Old Journey” & “Harlem Gems”
After “Baby College,” the starter program is followed by “Three Year Old Journey” and “Harlem Gems.” The preschool’s programs run for eleven months of the year for the full day, and eventually feeds into the Promise Academy Charter Elementary School. Canada sought to jump-start his program by including a middle school, but found that without the underpinnings of the early childhood programs and the charter elementary school, it was difficult to raise children to even basic levels in middle school. The middle school was suspended and will not reopen until children from the feeder programs reach middle school level.
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In order to make sure that children from the feeder preschool programs reach the elementary schools, the lottery for the elementary school now takes place when children are three and the preschool programs are required for admittance to the Promise Academy Charter Elementary School. Canada is then guaranteed that students that complete the enrichment programs available, including social services, make it into the charter elementary school as well. It is hoped that when these children reach middle school they will no longer be playing catch-up.
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Canada has deep-pocket backers, including a billionaire who sits on his Board, who give generously to the preschool and after-school programs that are geared to lengthen the school day to increase learning time. There is no doubt that the Harlem Children’s Zone project takes greater resources than normally available through public education funding. This would be one obstacle to replication of the concept in other cities. Another is Canada’s dynamic leadership.
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The Canada concept of early intervention and intense schooling for poor children is being attempted in Phoenix. According to the Arizona Charter Schools Association, a community-based development organization is doing work similar to the Harlem Children’s Zone. The program is called My Sister My Friend AZ and may be adding a charter school to their program to promote comprehensive enrichment of at-risk children.
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For more information on the Harlem Children’s Zone, go to their web site at http://www.hcz.org/
Author of Review: MaryLee Moulton, AEN. You can contact the author at marylee@arizonaeducationnetwork.com
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