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During his campaign, President Obama highlighted an education and anti-poverty program called the Harlem Children's Zone, which he said he'd like to replicate across the nation if he got elected. The program offers a comprehensive approach with everything from "Baby College" for new parents to a charter school, youth violence prevention programs and more. The idea behind this effort is that ending a cycle of poverty and sending more kids to college requires changing the community as well as educational opportunities.
Fast forward to 2010 and organizations in cities across America competed for grants for the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative. Just 21 out of more than 300 community applications actually got the federal funding. The $10 million in federal grant money is targeted at those programs that reflect the president's desire for a "cradle to career" approach to education.
Though the Harlem Children's Zone has garnered largely positive attention, there are those who question its efficacy. A recent report from the Brookings Institution found that while the HCZ charter school has a positive impact on student performance, the other HCZ initiatives do not appear to have a direct correlation with academic achievement.
Have you benefited from a community-based program like those in the Harlem Children's Zone model? What programs have you seen change a community? Have you been a part of a program with good intentions that just wasn't able to deliver its intended results? How much do community services impact education?
GUESTS:
- Paul Tough: Author of Whatever It Takes
- Nichole Maher: Executive director of the Native American Youth and Family Center
- Grover "Russ" Whitehurst: Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, author of a study on Promise Neighborhoods and the Harlem Children's Zone
- Jim Seymour: Executive director of Catholic Community Services of the Mid-Willamette Valley and Central Coast
Tagged as: community · economy · education · obama
Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt / Creative Commons
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I coordinate a community coalition that works to reduce youth substance abuse by improving the community that youth live in, we call it environmental change, because we are focused on changing the environment kids are in rather than changing the individual kid’s behavior. We focus on policy change, access to services, and social attitudes and norms, things that impact every kid in a community. A lot of great public health work has been done this way, and I imagine elements could work really well for improving education, especially seeking to improve policies in schools and neighborhoods to positively impact youth and the education process. The downside to this “environmental approach” is that many kids do need direct services and interventions, often because direct services are the most expensive services to provide, they are the first to get cut.
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An effective strategy that has been proven to help kids, who are struggling, is mentorship. For youth who are at risk for substance abuse, school failure, etc, having a mentor has been proven to improve their school performance and protect them from engaging in risky behavior. Big Brothers Big Sisters is a great mentorship programs, however, I wish schools and communities would prioritize facilitating mentorship for young people.
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It would be hard to say, and certainly prove, that fathers play an inherently important role in a child's positive development. As with many topics, it could simply be the ‘chicken or the egg?’ It could be that families that are fatherless are dysfunctional to begin with. Or, if could be that the social expectation that a family must have a father causes the family to feel inadequate. Or, it could be that having two people around is (obviously) easier work then having one adult manage everything. I think any attempt to try and restore the family unit is a presumptuous and insulting waste of time.
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Scott, I respect your opinion but this logic is faulty. By your argument a father is not necessary. And we can extend this to the maternal role. The value of motherhood has never been proven in a scientific double blind study...but no researcher is about to deprive a newborn from their mother for longitudinal scienctific proof. Should we all be raised in state run nurseries? Something is missing whether psychologically, emotionally, or by physical presence when there is a single parent.
But without proof we know mothers are essential. And that fathers have an essential role. And coupling combines resources and makes for a stable enviorment to raise children. This has been proven through millions of years of anthropology and 10,000 years of civilization.
Of course, bad parenting, bad fathering, and bad mothering are detrimental. And lack of income and poverty compounds social dysfunctions.
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jacob — Wed Sept. 22nd 10:47a.m.
jacob, you have a horrible lack of knowledge about science.
You're better off pontificating prevarications about Libertarianism and Conservatism, you're just not good at actual facts.
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Comrade Tom,
Interesting comment, shows your lack of judgement. I have a Doctorate in Science, did a thesis on Antigenic Recombination of Surface Proteins, 5 years Post Doctorate, and am published in two separate disciplines.
Where are your credentials?
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Jacob, I am not your comrade, and I find your familiarity with using that manner of address interesting, are you an immigrant from the former USSR or East Germany? Were you high up in the party?
And you are just not credible about science, no matter what you claim. Nice try though.
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Jacob,
Of course we can extend this to the maternal role! There may be something faulty in my argument, but you certainly have not shown it. No we do not know that a father or mother is essential beyond the act of manufacturing a baby. How could we know this? One only needs to look around the world, right now, to see how two parents don’t exactly make for a great civilization. There are many overly religious countries in which two parents are indeed the norm, and I am pretty certain they are not producing better offspring. This father and mother notion is quaint and traditional, there is nothing wrong with it, but there is also not anything necessarily right with it. Certainly the quality of the parents is equally as important, if not more important, then whether there are two of them.
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There was a study done back in the 1970s or 80s that found that the reason that so many black fathers did not stay with their falimies was that they could not get a job and support them. They wanted to be what was recognized as a good father but the economics did not allow it. Businessmen, predominately Conservative, would not hire black people.
In other words racism, employers not hiring black men (and women), was the central cause, not some inherent dysfunctionality of black people or poor people.
So this idea of changing entire neighborhoods is very interesting.
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I formerly worked in a family literacy program in Newport RI, serving low-income english and spanish speaking families. We offered GED and ESL classes, as well as parenting classes and social services (mostly in a support role, advocating for parents and families and helping connect families with services available in the community).
I loved this job and found it immensely rewarding and exciting to see families moving toward literacy. Many of the parents involved in the program had not been successful in school. It was thrilling to see them advance in attaining their GED or gain new language skills, and especially see them gain confidence in parenting and feel comfortable enough in their child's classroom to get involved in their child's education. Through our program, parents found value in setting a routine for their children, learned reasonable expectations for their kid's behavior, and found ways to interact with their kids in ways that were more positive and language rich instead of punitive and focused on what the child should not be doing.
These families and children's lives were enriched from this program, and while their test scores may not have risen meteorically, these children will live more safe and full lives. Success in a program like this cannot be measured by the OAKS test or other standardized methods. If your focus is only on the test, there are probably better ways to raise that score. However, if you are interested in creating healthier students who arrive at school ready to learn, then you need to support families and help create homes that have stability. Programs such as the one in Harlem will do just that. I hope Obama pursues more of programs such as this and less Race to the Top programs.
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As a teacher, I couldn't agree more. Focus on enriching lives and opportunity and the academic piece will follow in time. Somethings like those mentioned by normanad are too intangible or difficult to measure but certainly worth pursing.
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Families are the nucleus of our communities, when our communities are not healthy, neither are our families, and vice versa. Neighborhoods no longer consist of "neighborly" people. Gone are the days when everyone in the community helped guide kids and keep them out of trouble. Nowadays, if you were to report negative behavior to a parent of a child in your community, you are usually met with defensive parents that justify their child's behavior rather than using the opportunity to build relationships and teach their children. Community building must accompany formal education and programming in order to engage all people, not just parents. Angie Blackwell
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I think it is interesting that societal change tends to come from the bottom and wends its way upward.
And I think that you have to define what the goals are, make better people or make more efficient workers and consumers.
Look at how the talking heads refer to our people as "labor" and as "consumers" and not as "American Citizens", not as The People". They talk about how the "economy" is doing rather than how the people are doing. The Economy refers to how efficiently money is transferred up to the wealthy, how their stocks and profits grow, the economy does not refer to how the people are doing, if they are happy, healthy, and well fed.
So once you define the goals you also define the solutions. That's an engineering slogan, with words something like "when you define the question you also define the solution". The question is the hardest part to define.
I admire people who try to help make better people.
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AMEN
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"There was a study done back in the 1970s or 80s that found that the reason that so many black fathers did not stay with their falimies was that they could not get a job and supportthem......Businessmen, predominately Conservative, would not hire black people"
Comrade TOM: PLEASE Show me the study. I would like to be enlightened. But from my readings sociological studies do not leap to such conclusions. You don't think black divorce has roots like white divorce in disagreements, falling out of love, marital conflicts, personality and value conflicts, infidelity, irreconcilable differences and sometimes violence. I think you are taking severe liberties and stretching truths to make your socialist points.
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There was a book written about it. It made quite a splash at the time.
I think it was back around the time that rascist Conservative Ronnie Reagan was slandering black people with slurs like "cadillac driving welfare queens" and complaining about single parent black families. Boy, Reagan was a nasty piece of work, wasn't he?
And I am not going to do your homework for you, you need to grow up and do your own.
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So now it is a book and not a scientific study? I don't think it exists. No sense looking for something made of your ether.
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I know it will come as a surprise to you, jacob, but scientists actually do study things and then write books about what they studied.
Yeah, I know, Conservatives are anti-science, so you won't believe me.
And the problem was not black divorce, because they were not getting married in the first place, they just could not afford to.
People will love each other and have sex even when not married and they have done that since long before the idea of property law in the form of the marriage contract. Women as property, boy do Conservatives have a nasty history on human rights.
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Komrade Tom,
I have read War and Peace, read the Communist Manifesto and visited Lenin's Tomb in Moscow, but am not from the former Soviet Block. As a tourist I have visited Eastern Europe and seen the stain of Communism.
Stalin had a particularly propagandist use of mis-information and manipulation that I see in your posting and musing. Are you from the Soviet Propaganda School? The Manifesto now comes in a Red Pocket edition, perfect for your Xmas stocking stuffers.
And don't worry about Science and the scientific process of critical inquiry. You never did before; Old Dogs and New Tricks....
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I work as an evaluator, researcher and analyst. From 1998 through 2005 I worked as the evaluator for a local Portland project called the School Attendance Initiative (SAI). SAI was a collaboration among school districts, social service non-profits and Multnomah County. The collaboration identified children missing school, went to homes and provided services to the children and families to help those children get back to school.
Most of those children were at risk for long term drop out. Many of them lived in generations of entrenched poverty and abuse. We were able to obtain school records and the analysis clearly showed significant improvements in grades (reading and math) with intervention from the social services. These children were not necessarily getting more academic services, they and their families were getting the support services to stabilize the home and return the children to school.
The program was originally grant funded. When the grant ended Multnomah County stepped up and provided general fund money to keep it going. Sadly, despite proven results--SAI helped over 5,000 children locally-- the program was cut for political reasons.
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Comments are now closed.
Inner city black neighborhoods have major dysfunctional issues. But there is one major solution that has minimal cost. 70-80% of black children grow up in single parent households. Not having a father is the single biggest factor in childhood poverty, education underachievement and juvenile crime.
Men who do not sacrifice and care for their women. Parents who fail to properly care for and love their children. Children who neglect their studies. Education system in the toilet.
Compensating for the lack of a father in a child 's life can be done, as the Harlem project has demonstrated. However, it costs as much a $15,000 a year per child to provide comprehensive government social services that a father should have provided for free.
Government cannot overcome family dysfunction and perverted personal morality. The heavy hand of government cannot make a mother love a child, or make a husband sacrifice for his family. Having a child is EXPENSIVE...and a lifelong committment. It is not a Saturday night fling and on to the next booty prize.
This program reminds me of the simple solution to gang warfare, juvenile crime and city decline proposed in the 1990's also originating from Harlem: Midnight Basketball.