Geoffrey Canada

Geoffrey Canada
Basic facts
Organization:	Harlem Children's Zone
Role:	President
Location:	New York, N.Y.
Education:	•Bowdoin College •Harvard Graduate School of Education

Geoffrey Canada is the president of the Harlem Children's Zone, a group that aims to give Harlem "kids the individualized support they need to get to and through college and become productive, self-sustaining adults." Canada is the author of Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America (1995) and Reaching Up For Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America (1998). He was also the subject of Paul Tough's book Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America and was featured in the documentary Waiting for "Superman."

Biography

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According to his official biography with the Harlem Children's Zone, "Canada grew up in the South Bronx in a poor, sometimes violent neighborhood." Canada graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in psychology and, later, a master's in education from Harvard. In 1990, Canada became president of the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, which began the Harlem Children's Zone as a one-block pilot project.

Career

Harlem Children's Zone
Geoffrey Canada has worked in Harlem to educate citizens and improve children's lives since the 1970s and began as head of the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, for which the Harlem Children's Zone was a test program, in 1990. This work, as Canada told The New York Times in 2000, is his life's dream: "I knew I wanted to do this work when I was 9 years old. It was simply being very aware of how unjust the world was for poor children."

In Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, Canada describes the inner city of New York that he worked for many years to transform. For Canada, the people in Harlem are suspended in a perpetual state of what he calls war:

“

Rising unemployment, shifting economic priorities, hundreds of thousands of people growing up poor and with no chance of employment, never having held a legal job. A whole generation who serve no useful role in America now and see no hope of a future role for themselves. A new generation, the handgun generation. Growing up under the conditions of war. War as a child, war as an adolescent, war as an adult. War never ending.

”

According to The Wall Street Journal, Canada's work with the Harlem Children's Zone was an ambitious program attempting to transform every life in Harlem: "He staked out 97 blocks in Harlem and attempted to reach virtually everyone inside that community with support at each life stage, from pregnancy and parenting classes to academic support and after-school programs to college counseling."

Charter schools
Canada's goal with the Harlem Children's Zone is "to prove that if money is spent in a concentrated way to give poor children the things middle-class children take for granted — like high-quality schooling, a safe neighborhood, parents who read to them, and good medical care — they will not pass on the patterns of poverty to another generation." Part of this approach has involved the establishment of charter schools in Harlem.

Harlem Children's Zone and Promise Academy, Harlem

The group established two charter schools, Promise Academy I and II, for which admission is determined by lottery. Children in Harlem are given priority for acceptance. According to the Harlem Children's Zone website, the academies are unique for Harlem: "Not only do our students receive a high-quality, standards-based education, but they and their families also have access to HCZ’s comprehensive network of supports, including counseling, benefits assistance, and other social services." According to The New York Times, the urban charter schools are "a development Mr. Canada helped pioneer."

The charter schools are also well funded. In a 2010 profile of the Harlem Children's Zone, The New York Times reported that Promise Academy costs about $16,000 per student in the classroom each year. The article also reported that the group had almost $200 million in assets and an $84 million operating budget. In September 2010, the group received $20 million from Goldman Sachs and $60 million from the City of New York for the construction of Promise Academy II.

Canada's notion is that charter schools can be an alternative to traditional public schooling for underserved populations. Diane Ravitch―a progressive proponent of reforming traditional public schools—notes that the Promise Academy model is admirable, saying, "HCZ does what all schools should do, if they had the money to do it." Yet, Ravitch also notes, the schools' successes are somewhat misleading because of their large corporate backing: "Canada is blessed with the resources that public schools in NYC can only dream about." Criticism of Harlem Children's Zone is often separated from Canada himself, however, as The Federalist notes: "Canada has heard his share of criticism, certainly, but questions about HCZ’s effectiveness are couched in respect for him and his care for the families of Harlem."

See also

• Charter schools

External links

• Harlem Children's Zone Website
• Geoffrey Canada Meet the Press Debate with Diane Ravitch