This evening I attended a talk by Paul Tough, the author of Whatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America at Johns Hopkins University. The Harlem Children’s Zone, Canada’s $60 billion dollar program that serves children in 97 city blocks in a high-poverty New York City neighborhood, takes a holistic approach to provide a comprehensive education and support services to children from birth to college. The HCZ initiative, recognizing that the achievement gap is present at as early as 12 months of age, teaches parenting skills, provides health and social services, and, for those students lucky enough to win admission to one of the charter schools, works intensively to provide students with both the cognitive and the non-cognitive skills necessary for graduating from college and becoming successful members of society.
By investing in a 20-city replication of HCZ, Promise Neighborhoods, President Obama has made progress towards his campaign promise to combat poverty through education reform. The recently released 2010 budget includes support for Promise Neighborhoods, a significant vote of confidence in the program and a step towards enacting large-scale change. Baltimore has moved to bring HCZ to the western part of the city—in late 2008 Alonso and other city representatives visited Harlem to see the program in person. While Baltimore has schools that offer a more holistic approach to education than traditional academic programs (e.g. the recently-opened Maryland SEED school), the “full wrap-around service” provided by an HCZ-style system has the potential to effect real change in breaking down generational poverty in the city.
As a teacher who spends most of her hours focusing on her students and classroom, it is refreshing to contemplate the big picture again. My students, eleventh and twelfth graders, function far below grade level, and many struggle with the basic literacy skills that they should have attained in the elementary grades. While we should continue to seek effective ways to educate students such as mine, we need to focus our attention on the youngest generation. By providing early and intensive education, support, and enrichment, we can propel our most at-risk children to success before they have the chance to fall behind.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I attended Paul Tough's event as well and found it very interesting. It was quite relevant to me because I am a Community Schools Coordinator at a high school in Baltimore. My job is to manage existing school partnerships (with neighborhoods, agencies, programs, businesses and parents)and build new linkages based on the schools need. Hopefully this will impact parent involvement, school climate and attendance.
I was excited to hear that President Obama plans to pilot this the HCZ in 20 cities. I imagine Baltimore would be one. Paul seemed to think we are ready. Based on Paul's recommendations, I think we should look at a collaborative model to start with. There are a lot of agencies and programs that already have formal and informal partnerships with with City Schools. I also agree that the "Westside" would be ideal. Johns Hopkins and EBDI are doing so much on the "Eastside" already.
For example, The neighborhoods surrounding the Harlem Park Campus would be ideal. Within that campus is a Head Start Program, 2 high schools, a recreation center, a community partner (Y of Central MD), an elementary school and a middle school. I think that is everything! Theoretically, you could begin working with families as they enroll in Head Start (or before) and track students all the way through high school.
I hope this model comes to fruition. Too many times things are talked about but takes years to pull together. Meanwhile families and kids suffer. In the meantime, I will be fighting for my own job as funding cuts continue to mount. Despite proving to be a valuable resource for 2.5 years, Baltimore still has not fully supported the Community Schools Strategy. I guess the assumption is teachers and administrators have MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME to broker new partnerhips, help instructors find resources, assist families in crisis, and ensure existing partnerships are effective and in line with the school improvement plan.
Post a Comment