Governor Christie’s plan to transform Paterson’s ailing public schools gets under way this fall and will be modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, which has become a national success story in urban education reform, North Jersey reports. Geoffrey Canada, president of Harlem Children’s Zone, speaking with Governor Christie and N.J. higher education secretary Rochelle Hendricks. Christie and the head of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Geoffrey Canada, made a joint appearance at the New Jersey Community Development Corp. on Wednesday. Together, they touted the program’s success in helping impoverished urban youngsters “from the cradle through college” and promised to deliver results for Paterson.
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Federal grants target education ‘from birth through college’
Organizers in distressed communities from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., soon will begin plans to create what the federal Education Department (ED) envisions as “Promise Neighborhoods,” where children and their families receive comprehensive support services to boost their chance of being successful in school.
Twenty-one applicants for the program—which aims to transform student outcomes by focusing, in part, on improving early childhood education and lifting up communities—were named as grant winners on Sept. 21. They will receive planning grants of up to $500,000.
“Communities across the country recognize that education is the one true path out of poverty,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “These Promise Neighborhoods applicants are committed to putting schools at the center of their work to provide comprehensive services for young children and students.”…Read More
Leadership in focus at annual AASA conference
Educational leadership was the focus of the American Association of School Administrators’ National Conference on Education in Phoenix last month.
One outstanding leader, Harlem Children’s Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada, provided a sobering wake-up call for U.S. policy makers, while another, National Superintendent of the Year winner Elizabeth Morgan, discussed the keys to her district’s success.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for a change in how the nation’s school superintendents are prepared, saying their training should be more relevant to the challenges they’ll face in their jobs every day.…Read More
AASA keynote: Focus on children, or risk nation’s status
Referring to the significant challenges facing public education today as a crisis that threatens the nation’s status as a global leader, educational trailblazer Geoffrey Canada urged school leaders to push for more funding and do “whatever it takes” to make sure all students succeed.
“I am convinced that if our country continues to treat its children the way it has, we will no longer remain a world superpower,” Canada said in a Feb. 12 keynote speech at the American Association of School Administrators’ National Conference on Education in Phoenix. “In fact, we won’t even be in the top 10.”
Canada is president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a project that the New York Times described as “one of the most ambitious social-service experiments of our time.”…Read More