The Harlem Children’s Zone is known for its courageous endeavors to service children and families in Harlem, New York. The HCZ works hard to help families and children overcome challenges of daily living. I grew up in Bronx, New York; I know firsthand the struggles and challenges African American families face in urban areas in New York City. Last summer I had the pleasure in meeting with a principal at one of the HCZ academies. The structure of the HCZ programs are very impressive. Geoffrey Canada is President and CEO of the HCZ. Harlem Children’s Zone mission is strengthen families in underprivileged communities and empower parents to be a positive influence in their children’s lives. Mr. Canada founded The Baby College which provides workshops to help parents care for their children, The Harlem Gems which is a preschool program, Promise Academy which are charter schools that educate elementary, middle and high school children. The HCZ doesn’t just educate children and families but the programs are enriched with tools to help families become better people within their communities.
One current trend that caught my attention is the fight to end poverty/crime. Geoffrey Canada is very description in telling his views on poverty in Harlem as it relates to education. The article below highlights all the major issues in urban communities and illustrates the lack of resources.
Reform the bureaucracy. The calcified bureaucracy that has grown around theEnd the public school monopoly. While the goals of the No Child Left BehindAttract and retain more great teachers. Teachers, who have one of the mostMake teaching and learning full-time jobs. It’s clear that we have to payCreate incentives for excellent teachers. Right now, a teacher who inspires
By Geoffrey Canada
President and CEO
Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc.
As someone who has seen promises and programs about ending poverty come and
go for decades, I still find it unbelievable that the United States of America still has more
than 13 million children living in poverty. Having worked in Harlem for over 20 years
with children who have been falling behind in school, it’s clear to me that there is one
sure way to win the long-lost war on poverty – to provide a high-quality education to all
children.
No one who is knowledgeable about the subject will dispute that our education
system has failed, is failing and -- unless dramatically overhauled -- will continue to fail –
particularly in regard to poor students of color.
While the tragic consequences of the abandoned war on poverty quietly mount up,
there is no national consensus about what we should do. I believe there are five steps that
we can readily take now that will make a difference in the years to come.
1)
country’s schools is getting in the way of student achievement. Managers of
schools and school systems can’t deploy their staff so they can best benefit
students. Often teachers can’t be moved from a successful school to a failing
one and lousy teachers or principals can’t be replaced in a timely way.
2)
law are admirable, in poor communities, there is essentially no choice for
parents whose children attend failing schools. The reality is that in areas such
as Harlem, giving parents the “freedom” to opt out of their child’s failing
school is akin to telling passengers on the Titanic that they can sit in any deck
chair of their choosing.
3)
important jobs in our country, receive significantly less money than peers in
other professions. The median starting salary for a teacher in the U.S. is
$29,564, while a recent MBA can start his or her career with a salary of
$75,000 or more.
4)
teachers more, while requiring them to work a full year. Perhaps having
schools closed for the entire summer worked fine when we had an agrarian
society. But today, in failing schools, we need to extend the school year and
the school day. That is the only way poor kids can catch up and eventually
have a shot at a job in our increasingly knowledge-based workplace. The
simple truth is that no one is going to turn around our failing schools without
making teaching in them a full-time job and compensating staff accordingly.
5)
students can look forward to the same pay raise as the teacher next door who
has mentally checked out and is just counting the days to retirement. In fact,
great teachers who want to earn more have to leave classrooms entirely for
jobs in administration. Our education system needs a structure that fairly
rewards great teachers and trains other teachers to improve their classroom
skills.
We need to resume the war on poverty with the vigor we would bring to any
enemy that threatens our country. Yes, we must win the war on terrorism, but the future
of our homeland will never be secure if we continue to lose the war on poverty. Today
the country spends, on average, more than $7,500 per pupil annually to educate our
children in public schools, while a top private school can cost more than twice that
amount. We do not need to match private schools dollar for dollar, but public schools
must do better and that means more money, spent wisely.
Certainly the need for improving education, particularly in low-income
communities, couldn’t be much plainer. We have 12 percent of African-American men in
jail on any given day; more than 90 percent of them did not graduate high school. The
Community Service Society reports that almost 50 percent of African-American men in
New York City are unemployed – clearly this is a direct result of their lack of education.
We can spend escalating amounts of money on jails, drug treatment and welfare --
or we can pay a fraction of that money up front and do the job of educating low-income
Americans right the first time.
The casualties and ghosts of the abandoned war on poverty sit in our classrooms,
walk our streets and waste away in our prisons. This is truly the American Nightmare:
impoverished, uneducated and unemployable amid a land of plenty. We can continue to
ignore them and pay the price or we can call up the national resolve to fight – and
through education, win – the country’s abandoned war on poverty. (Geoffrey Canada)
While I read the article I thought of some of the issues in the Early Childhood field and how they are directly related to what Mr. Canada speaks on. We have early childhood professionals who are underpaid, and the lower paid teachers mostly work in urban communities. It makes you think further about our society as an entity. Teaching children is an important job, it makes no sense as to why teachers are underpaid. We need more people who have the same will power as Mr. Canada exudes in order to change our education system and put an end to alarming trends.
