Jay Mathews with good points rebutting a negative Brookings report on the Harlem Children's Zone:

So it is hard to believe what I am seeing -- a short paper from the prestigious Brookings Institution taking a shot at the Harlem Children's Zone and its premier charter school, the Promise Academy.

Brookings scholar Grover (Russ) Whitehurst and research analyst Michelle Croft say the Promise Academy, backed by $100 million in privately raised funds for social, health and education services to families in the 100-block Harlem Children's Zone, has not raised test scores as high as other New York City charters with similarly disadvantaged students who did not benefit from the zone's services.

The researchers wonder whether the expensive extras are necessary and if President Obama should rethink his plan to spend all that money cloning Canada's project.

…I am also puzzled by Brookings' insistence on measuring the worth of the Harlem Children's Zone by test scores at the Promise Academy. I understand that many people, including Canada, have made the school the focus of the effort. But it seems to me that improved health, job success and parenting skills among the families in the zone would also be useful measures. "Promise is just one facet of what we do," said Harlem Children's Zone spokesman Marty Lipp. "The Zone Project serves over 8,000 children. The Promise Academy serves 1,200."

Whitehurst and Croft have done well raising a caution flag about spending big bucks right away on more social safety net zones. But we need to know much more before we decide on the worth and importance of what Geoffrey Canada has done.

 

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Rare attack on Harlem Children's Zone

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/07/post_6.html