"The objective is to create a safety net woven so tightly that children in the neighborhood just can't slip through," so says Geoffrey Canada, the nationally recognized Harlem Children's Zone Charter School Director. Who for the past 20 years has been recognized for his pioneering work to both support and educate children and the families they come from, in the community of Harlem, N.Y., from a child's birth to college graduation.
Featured on CBS's 60 Minutes
Mr. Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone school he created was recently featured on the CBS News Magazine 60 Minutes, with special contributor CNN's Anderson Cooper relating the story. It is a follow up to a piece that former 60 Minutes reporter Ed Bradley had done three years ago on the charter school and its director, who were using innovative and new approaches to educating African-American youth, with the goal of completely closing the achievement gap between African-American youth and their Caucasian counterparts.
What the Harlem Children's Zone has been able to Accomplish
The good news is that Mr. Canada has been able to flood a 97-block neighborhood in Harlem, with a wide array of social, medical and educational services that have been made available to the 10,000 children who live there. The results of this type of intensive support and they are according to Anderson Cooper, "nothing short of stunning."
But in order to achieve the results he was looking for Mr. Canada decided to build his own school and currently there are some 1200 kids enrolled from Kindergarten through the tenth grade. The school is planning to expand through the 12th grade and already has some rather different modus operandi from a regular public school. One very important difference is that Mr. Canada makes a promises to all his programs families that all of their children will get into college.
Some others include: one adult for every six children in the classroom, the classes are smaller to make it easier to give the proper attention to students. School days are longer, kids come to school on Saturday and summer vacation is only three-weeks long. There are reading labs, language skills in French and Spanish, and an SAT tutoring center for teens, a dress code and classes on cooking and healthy eating habits. But all of this doesn't come cheap.
The annual budget is around $76 million dollars two-thirds of which comes from the private sector, (Wall Street) and amounts to about $5,000 per child. Mr. Canada says, "It's a lot of money until you see what it costs us when we fail these kids [and they end up] in New York City jail, [costing tax payers] $60,000 a year. Or the Juvenile detention system, $100,000 dollars a year, we end up spending that kind of money on kids and getting nothing in return," Canada said.Ra
What the Program is Still Working On
The bad news is that funding (donations) are down in this difficult economy and Canada's school only has 210 slots and 375 kids applied to this falls kindergarten class. Because Canada's programs have been so successful many parents are obviously upset when they find out that their child will not be able to attend. The participants are picked from a lottery and many parents are not happy leaving a the Harlem Children Zone's great opportunity of helping their children succeed and advance to a chance luck of the draw.
The Statistics Speak for Themselves
The measurable statistical success is the proof in the pudding, so to speak. What the Harlem Children's Zone has been able to do is close the racial achievement gap. Dr. Roland Fryer of the Harvard University Economics Department has done an independent study of Mr. Canada's efforts to close the racial achievement gap. According to Dr. Fryer, "Black kids in our schools are not performing at even close to the rate that white children are. The average 17-year-old black student reads at the proficiency level of the average white 13-year-old, that is a four year difference. But when Dr. Fryer analyzed Canada's elementary kids test scores, the achievement gap in both reading and math had been eliminated, "We have never seen anything like that. Absolutely eliminating that gap. The gap is gone incredible," Dr. Fryer said.
Mr. Canada's success with middle school kids is even more impressive, as sixth graders in his Promise Academy started off far behind grade level but, within three years had virtually eliminated the achievement gap in math and reduced it by nearly half in reading.
Paul Hamilton - My name is Paul Edward Hamilton, I am a current contributing writer for Suite 101 and Examiner.com and post things that I write on ...
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