Early intervention, positive role models shape student motivation

By Frank Wolfe

Education Daily

As community schools become a hot topic on the national policy stage, supporters say the Harlem Children’s Zone proves the concept holds promise.

HCZ began in 1970 as Rheedlen, a truancy-prevention program. In the 1990s, under the lead ership of Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Canada, it greatly expanded to provide a comprehensive set of educational, medical and social services to Harlem residents. HCZ now serves about 8,000 children in 97 square blocks ofHarlem.

Such services include health and after-school programs; Baby College parenting classes; the Three-Year-Old Journey program, which focuses on

language enrichment; and three Promise Academy charter schools, which feature extended day programs.

Using HCZ as a model, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has pledged to create20 Promise Neighborhoods in high-poverty ar eas plagued by crime and low student achievement.

“We think that this kind of comprehensive, results-based approach makes great sense,” said Marty Blank, president of the Coalition for Com munity Schools. “But we have to recognize that each community is distinct. Which communities are ready must be given serious thought and consideration.”

At a Center for American Progress event last week, Canada said he had decided in the late 1990s to move toward a block-by-block approach to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty in Harlem.

“I’m convinced that in some communities, there’s not [just] one thing going wrong, and that’s presenting an obstacle for children,” Canada said. “It’s literally everything.”

With community and governmental partners, HCZ has used its $60 million annual budget to create its web of services.

HCZ has shown particular merit at the elemen tary school level, as students in the zone’s charter schools have shown “off-the-chart” gains in math and are absent from school significantly less than other public school students in the zone, said Roland Fryer, a Harvard University economics professor and the founder of the Education Innovation Labo ratory. The achievement needle for middle school students, however, has proven much harder to move.

Sustainment and replication

Canada acknowledged sustaining HCZ and simi lar efforts through continued personal commitments and public and private sector funding are major chal lenges, especially as investment in early education and even the middle school years pays off much later.

“Success for me is pretty straightforward — get ting our young people through college,” Canada said. “Anything short of that may have some hope for being successful somewhere down the line, but you just don’t know.”

For his part, Canada is able to serve as a role model, a well-to-do entrepreneur who has made accountability and student and teacher perform ance watchwords. Middle school students are in particular need of such role models and mentors, Canada and Fryer said. Canada said HCZ stu dents who wear uniforms are teased when they return home and face significant “cultural push back” and pressure to conform.

“One of the things we need to do is get eve ryday role models out there — dentists, account ants, grocery store owners,” Fryer said. “Trying to flip that culture is incredibly important” to carry achievement gains through middle and high school.

Canada said the increased student and fam ily support, such as that found in community schools such as HCZ, could push students to suc ceed in the global economy.

“We want to provide young people with a set of opportunities that prepare them to compete successfully for jobs so they can take care of themselves and their families and become par ticipating citizens of our country,” he said.