When traveling to Ohio last week, I loaded up my iPod with all kinds of podcasts. One, in particular, was fascinating. “This American Life” — from Chicago Public Radio — featured Geoffrey Canada. A community organizer at heart who may have figured out how to overcome poverty.
Conventional wisdom says throw money at parents — food stamps, job training, increasing minimum wage. Take care of problems that seem fixable. You name it, and someone’s probably tried it. As “This American Life” pointed out: These tactics throw money at adults in poverty … but do nothing to help children break the cycle.
Geoffrey Canada grew up poor in the South Bronx — raised by a single mom on welfare. After graduating from college, he knew that he wanted to do something to help children like the ones he grew up with, so he returned to New York City and took over a community organization in Harlem. Canada soon realized that his work — though admirable — wasn’t going to have a systemic impact. In fact, things were getting worse in Harlem. He needed to find a way to change the system. Geoffrey took a leap of faith and changed the way we approach about education and poverty. And, so the Harlem Children’s Zone was born.
The idea began when new-father Canada realized there was all this new research about the importance of stimulating babies’ brains. (Baby Einstein, anyone?) Parents in the suburbs were engaged in this process … but somehow the urgency hadn’t reached the inner city. From the earliest ages, children in poverty aren’t being given the tools they need to succeed. Canada decided Harlem needed a comprehensive program that would help parents help their children from infancy through college.
Hailed as one of the “most ambitious social experiments of our time” that’s exactly what the Harlem Children’s Zone does. According to 60 Minutes:
Canada’s ambitious experiment aims to prove that poor kids from the inner city can learn just as well as affluent kids from the other side of America. He has flooded the zone with social, medical and educational services that are available for free to all the children who live here.
“They get what middle-class and upper middle-class kids get,” Canada explains. “They get safety. They get structure. They get academic enrichment. They get cultural activity. They get adults who love and them and are prepared to do anything. And I mean, I’m prepared to do anything to keep these kids on the right track.”
Since Canada began, the Zone has opened a number of groundbreaking programs. “This American Life” focused on the Baby College — an intense nine-week program for expectant parents to those with three-year-olds. The program covers the importance of reading to children at early ages, stimulating the brain, imposing discipline without force and other parenting skills that may seem natural in suburbia, but had been lost in the inner city. Other programs include: pre-K, a charter school, fitness and nutrition programs, leadership development, arts and media activities for high schoolers, etc. Bottom line: It’s a comprehensive list of programs designed to help children from birth through high school with the goal of getting into college.
When Canada developed this program, no one else in the country was approaching poverty or education quite like this. But, his approach has seen an improvement in test scores. One example: 7% of black eighth graders perform at grade level in math. At the Harlem Children’s Zone, 97% of eight graders perform at or above their grade level in math. Plus, parents are taking more pride and responsibility in their own lives. Now, the Harlem Children’s Zone is a model of best practices across the country.
A New York Times editor immersed himself in this program — even attending multiple sessions of Baby College — to write a book about this “out of the box” approach. The LA Times review said the author:
Canada doesn’t want to be a superhero, because that’s not what the people in Harlem need: They need change. That’s a much-ballyhooed idea this election year, but Canada has been intent on it for a long time. He wants to enact not heroism but “contamination” — spreading enough good seeds to change the very soil of Harlem so that its culture becomes healthier at the roots and it grows into a place where all residents get a decent shot at the great American life. Heal the environment, Canada says, and you heal everyone in it.
The sad part of this program is that it’s a charter school — not part of the public school system. I am a big believer in the value of public schools; however, Canada says a program like this couldn’t work in the public sphere because public schools have too many rules and regulations and guidelines that mandate exactly how things are done. That’s a sad commentary on our education system. Imagine if this approach could be applied to inner-city public schools throughout the country. It could very well be the answer to getting kids a better education — and eliminating poverty. If only the country as a whole — and educators and teachers’ unions specifically — were willing to join Canada in his leap of faith.
See Harlem Children’s Zone photos here and go here to hear the half-hour podcast.