The most comprehensive and impressive social-service project I ever heard of is the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ).  Critics often point to school reform efforts and say that no matter what we do to fix our schools, it won’t be enough. How can schools be expected to successfully educate children whose families and communities have been ravaged by a generational cycle of poverty, drugs, and violence? HCZ is the result of President and CEO Geoffrey Canada’s  vision to go beyond school improvement by rebuilding an entire community for children and their families in a 97-block area of Central Harlem.

HCZ began as a pilot project in the 1990’s bringing a host of support services to a single block in Harlem. It’s now on its way to serving 15,000 children and 7,000 adults by 2011.  What’s most unique about HCZ is its commitment to taking care of children from birth through college. Actually, programs start even before children are born as pregnant women are invited to participate in The Baby College – a 9 week seminar that focuses on nutrition, nurturing, and discipline. HCZ offers families an all-day pre-kindergarten program called Harlem Gems, two remarkably successful charter schools called Promise Academy 1 and Promise Academy 2, community centers that run after-school programs for kids, a health clinic offering students free medical and dental services, an employment center, a college success office, an asthma initiative, an obesity initiative, as well as numerous other services. All programs are offered free of charge, and most of HCZ’s funding comes from private donations.

As you might well imagine, HCZ’s success has not gone unnoticed. Education Week just ran an article about President Obama’s plan to create 20 “Promise Neighborhoods” modeled after HCZ as part of his anti-poverty agenda. The plan will be outlined in Obama’s proposed education budget for the next fiscal year (beginning in Oct), but details like which cities will participate and how much it will cost won’t be released until next month when the formal budget proposal is presented to Congress. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I can’t help but notice how many of Obama’s school reform ideas (see previous post) are already at work in HCZ. The emphasis on quality early childhood education, setting high academic standards, promoting innovation and excellence through the creation of charter schools, increasing the length of the school day and year (which they do at Promise Academy), and support for students to get to – and succeed in – college. Of course, it has taken 20 years for HCZ to get to where it is today. The good news is that it can be done, and if it can be done, then it should be done. I just wonder about President Obama’s attempt to recreate its astounding success in a presumably shorter amount of time. How much planning time will Promise Neighborhoods have before they can get off the ground? How big will they be? Who will be in charge – and who gets to decide? Just as the $100 billion education dollars intended to improve schools are only as good as the planning and oversight that goes in to how they are spent, so too will the success of Promise Neighborhoods depend on how carefully they are designed, the extent of community buy-in, and the strength of their leadership.

takepart in donating to The Harlem Children’s Zone. Watch Geoffrey Canada talking about The Baby College on Good Morning America. Read the inspiring book about HCZ called “Whatever It Takes” written by New York Times Editor Paul Tough.

(Photo: Tony the Misfit’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)