Harlem Children’s Zone

The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) is a nonprofit organization for poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support in the form of parenting workshops, a preschool program, three charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for thousands of children and families. The HCZ is "aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves."

The Harlem Children's Zone Project has expanded the HCZ's comprehensive system of programs to nearly 100 blocks of Central Harlem and aims to keep children on track through college and into the job market. "We’re not interested in saving a hundred kids," founder Geoffrey Canada says. "Even three hundred kids. Even a thousand kids to me is not going to do it. We want to be able to talk about how you save kids by the tens of thousands, because that’s how we’re losing them."

The Obama administration announced a Promise Neighborhoods program, which hopes to replicate the success of the HCZ in poverty-stricken areas of other U.S. cities. In the summer of 2010, the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods program accepted applications from over 300 communities for $10 million in federal grants for developing HCZ implementation plans.

Critics say that it's mostly private money that makes HCZ a success, not a better approach to teaching.

Principles and programs

The HCZ designs, funds, and operates a holistic system of education, social-services and community-building programs in Harlem to counter the negative influences of crime, drugs and poverty and help children complete college and go on to the job market. Providing this "full network of services... to an entire neighborhood from birth to college" is a key element of the Obama administration's Promise Neighborhoods program modeled after the HCZ.

The two fundamental principles of The Zone Project are to help kids as early in their lives as possible and to create a critical mass of adults around them who understand what it takes to help children succeed.

Components of the HCZ programs include the following:
* The Baby College, a series of workshops for parents of children ages 0–3
* All-day pre-kindergarten
* Extended-day charter schools (Promise Academy)
* Health clinics and community centers for children and adults during after-school, weekend and summer hours
* Youth violence prevention efforts
* Social services such as a foster-care prevention service
* After-school programs equipped with academic resources and extracurricular activities
* College admissions and retention support
* Post-high school programs aimed to help students during their college years and beyond

Through its "pipeline program design", the Harlem's Children Zone ensures that a child is never neglected; having a range of programs that are geared and targeted to both the parents, and children for every stage in life. In addition to early childhood programs, such as Baby College, mentioned above, The Harlem's Children Zone has programs for school aged children through its Promise Academy K-12 Charter Schools. The comprehensive and wholesome programs that are available to not only the students, but the parents of students, in the Promise Academy include counseling and benefits assistance. Not all students are able to be granted admission to the Promise Academy K-12 Charter Schools, students are accepted based on a lottery system. Children within the Harlem's Children Zone who are not chosen through the lottery system can participate in programs such as Peacemakers, which provides academic support to thousands of students in the various public schools in the zone. Physical, mental, and emotional well-being of children are ensured through other programs such as the Case Management program for middle-school aged children; this program assigns an HCZ staff member to monitor a child's progress. Past the K-12 system, students receive help from the Harlem Children's Zone College Success Office, which helps students become not only high school graduates, but college graduates.

Replication in other cities

A number of large U.S. cities have initiated their own programs styled after the HCZ, in advance of any federally funded efforts stemming from the Obama administration's HCZ-inspired anti-poverty initiatives. Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Cleveland, and cities in Maryland are planning or considering HCZ replication.

Author Paul Tough has discussed the HCZ replication proposal.

The HCZ, in partnership with PolicyLink, organized a two-day conference on November 9–10, 2009 in New York City with the aim of providing guidance to community leaders from around the U.S. in their efforts to launch similar, large-scale projects like the HCZ in their areas.

In 2008 President Obama, inspired by the Harlem Children's Zone immense progress toward breaking the generational cycle of poverty, proposed the creation of Promise Neighborhoods. Obama's commitment to alleviating poverty is put into place with this initiative which uses HCZ's "cradle to college" approach. "The initiative seeks to help selected local communities dramatically improve outcomes and opportunities for children and families in defined neighborhoods. The initiative will be diverse in its application, reflecting local needs and context." The initiative's goal follows the HCZ's paradigm to improve every aspect of life in impoverished communities, its purpose states: "all children growing up in Promise Neighborhoods have access to effective schools and strong systems of family and community support that will prepare them to attain an excellent education and successfully transition from college to career." This purpose statement directly reflects the mission of HCZ. HCZ, in collaboration with the national action institute PolicyLink, assists in providing ongoing guidance for the Obama administration in this initiative.

In 2010, the Obama administration allocated $75 million in the federal budget for the program. More than 330 communities across the nation applied for Promise Neighborhood planning grants. Twenty-one communities were awarded one-year grants between $400,000 and $500,000. Planning grantees are given a year to produce a strategic paradigm which will address the issues specific to their community in pursuit of an implementation grant. The grantees submitted their plans that summer, with the implementation phase for Promise Neighborhoods expected to begin in September 2011.

Media coverage

The '' 60 Minutes'' television program profiled the HCZ, including an interview with founder Geoffrey Canada, on 14 May 2006 and a follow up program on December 6, 2009. Canada has also appeared twice in televised interviews with Charlie Rose on 2 January 2008 and 22 June 2004, and with Stephen Colbert on 8 December 2008, 20 July 2009, and 4 January 2011.

''The New York Times'' ran an article on October 12, 2010, "Lauded Harlem Schools Have Their Own Problems", in which they exposed the "low student performance in most of the neighborhood's public schools" and the dismissal, by the board of trustees, of an entire class of 8th graders when their performance was deemed "too weak to found a high school on." They also report that "because it lost more ground than comparable schools, it got a C from the city on its annual A-to-F report card, and an F in the student progress category," while giving credit for the increased math scores of many students in the school.

The U.S. radio show ''This American Life'' produced an episode about the HCZ which aired on 26 September 2008, 11 October 2008, and 14 August 2009.

Barack Obama announced his plan in a 2008 presidential campaign speech in Washington, D.C., to replicate the HCZ in 20 cities across the United States. Federal government would provide half of the funding with the rest coming from philanthropy and businesses at a cost of a few billion per year. Senator Obama also noted the HCZ in a 2007 campaign speech.

The ''Wall Street Journal'' featured the HCZ in an article about the financial troubles experienced by this and other charitable organizations in the wake of the recession. The HCZ initiated a 100-day public service campaign started on January 23, 2009 to help counteract the effects of the economic downturn.

An article in the January/February 2009 issue of ''Mother Jones'' showcases Geoffrey Canada, the HCZ, and its recognition by the Obama 2008 presidential campaign and administration. The author of this article, Paul Tough, published a book in August 2008 about the HCZ titled, ''Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America.''

National Public Radio produced a 30-minute story on the HCZ on 28 July 2009 titled "Harlem Children's Zone Breaks Poverty Pattern."

The ''Washington Post'' published a story about the HCZ on 2 August 2009, noting that the Obama administration has set aside $10 million in the 2010 budget for planning its Promise Neighborhoods program, which seeks to replicate the HCZ.

18 March 2010, the HCZ was covered in the BBC
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