Harlem’s Headmaster
- Posted by: Sarah Goldstein , RamonaRosales
- on December 8, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Geoffrey Canada is saving education by any means necessary.
You don’t have to watch The Wire to know that America’s public schools are failing. Nearly one in three seniors won’t graduate from high school this year, and one study found that in cities like New York, fewer than half of all high school students graduate on time. “Osama bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America,” says Geoffrey Canada, the director of the New York City youth outreach organization Harlem Children’s Zone. “Our education system is doing that just fine.”
Canada, 54, should know. The HCZ Agency serves more than 9,500 of the neighborhood’s most “at-risk” children. It has also expanded to offer a web of twenty programs—providing social services like truancy deterrence and conflict resolution—for children living in a 60-block area of Harlem. Finally, two years ago, the HCZ launched the Promise Academy, a charter school that extends the academic calendar well into the summer and will eventually enroll students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
| Quote: |
| Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine. |
Canada believes there is no system of public service in the United States as undervalued as education, and that a solution will require a comprehensive approach. “Schools have to be run like any other business,” he says. “You meet the bottom line or people lose their jobs. The idea that you don’t meet the bottom line and no one loses a job? There’s hardly any place that happens except in education.” Part of running a school like a business means making the profession of teaching as competitive as medicine or law. That, of course, requires competitive wages. But, according to Canada, it also requires a reassessment of how we evaluate teachers. At the Promise Academy, because of its charter status, Canada can hire and fire at will—a power he would never be able to exercise against the teacher’s union in a public school. Canada insists that he is not anti-union but that “the problem with the teacher’s union is that there is no political force powerful enough that will advocate on behalf of children.”
In order to help the lowest performing kids, the ones from families with parents unwilling or unable to show up for parent-teacher conferences, Canada has pursued a policy of vigorous recruitment: he offers prizes like movie tickets, gift certificates, and even cash rewards to students and parents who sign up for HCZ services. To those who claim what he’s doing is liberal coddling, Canada, not without a hint of anger, wonders “why someone worries about me giving a kid $20 when we are prepared to spend $75,000-a-year on this kid in jail. It’s nickel and dime stuff.” The stuff they teach you in school.
LEARN MORE hcz.org
DISCUSSION: 8 Comments
A very close friend of mine is a teacher in a low-income social demographic where most of the students are first generation in this country. The cards are already stacked against these children, and each teacher plays such a huge role in how these children develop. Every insentive absolutely counts. I grew up in a household where there was never a question of IF I would go to college, the question was just WHERE. I didn’t need teachers to encourage me. Not all students are so fortunate. All of this aside, my teacher friend too, is anti-Union. Of course, she is a member of the union, but she is able to recognize the shortcomings. This article hits the nail on the head that although unions can protect and should protect groups, the students do not have a union. The red tape can prevent giving students the best chance they have at success.
I truly enjoyed this article and the goals that the HCZ and Canada are going to achieve.
I also have a teacher-friend who teaches in NYC at a failing school. Many of her problems are with the parents.
So my question is, does support from school carry over to home if the parents can’t or won’t volunteer.
I live in area where school performances are questionable, but the town has implemented that all parents spend at least 40 hours a school year volunteering. This has helped to an certain extent, but it isn’t the volunteering that matters, but what they take away.
Maybe parent involvement, even if it is forced, will help our children realize their worth.
The incentive prizes should be offered to students not when they sign-up for a program or show-up but when they complete the designated objectives.
Though I’m OK with incentives, I prefer schools that require low-income students to attend school for longer days and during the summer. Let’s make high achievement an expectation in Harlem and beyond, rather than something that is optional.
Eric Neutuch, [url:http://www.letsgetready.org]Let’s Get Ready![/url]
We need to begin to reconsider what our expectations are. That students comply with someone elses’ idea of what is important? That they blindly pursue the materialistic dream? Or rather that they become productive human beings with good relationships who have the inner strength to proactively create and pursue the path that’s right for them. This is a dialogue we need to begin to have in this country.
You can’t blame the entire educational system because of the failures of our urban school systems.There are hundreds of exemplary schools in the USA and it is in the hands of our states to mandate that these practices be implemented. And of course, it is the responsibility of our universities to produce quality teachers and building leaders to create this excellent teaching/learning environment.
I have been following Mr. Canada’s progress for years and even read his book Fist, Stick, Knife Gun. The man in nothing short of a savior to hundreds of voiceless people that simply want to be heard concerning how difficult it is to grow up with little resources, not enough space, and and pushers on every corner. Just with what he has accomplished in the few years he has done it – leaving the ghetto to pursue higher education – only to go back – makes him an amazing individual.Cheers!
As others have said, Geoffrey Canada is a hero. Few people are on the fore-front fighting for kids.
Kudos to someone who genuinely cares. Thank you, Sir.