Archive for 2008
Washington Post Review
Donna Foote reviewed Whatever It Takes in the Washington Post Book World yesterday, describing the Harlem Children’s Zone as “a social experiment so radical and potentially transforming that Barack Obama has promised a ‘few billion dollars a year’ to replicate it in 20 cities should he become president.”
She called the book “a you-are-there recording of the project’s development, amazing growth and potential promise — and an informed primer on the correlation between race, poverty and the achievement gap in America.”
Stars — They’re just like us!
Sarah Jessica Parker stocks up on her fall reading.
Barnes & Noble Next Monday
Attention New Yorkers: Next Monday, October 6, at 7 p.m., Geoff Canada and I will be speaking at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. I’ll read a little from Whatever It Takes, and Geoff and I will both speak, answer questions and sign books. Please come on by and join us.
Brian Lehrer audio
Geoffrey Canada and I talking about education, the election and the Harlem Children’s Zone on The Brian Lehrer Show this morning on WNYC radio.
30 Issues: Education Policy
The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC New York, September 29, 2008
Brian Lehrer
Tomorrow (Monday) morning at 11 a.m., Geoff Canada and I will be on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC here in New York. I think it’s on both AM 820 and FM 93.9. We’ll be part of the show’s “Thirty Issues in Thirty Days” series, talking about “the most pressing education needs in the US today.”
Against All Odds
Erin Aubry Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2008
L.A. Times Review
In Sunday’s L.A. Times, Erin Aubry Kaplan reviews Whatever It Takes:
Journalistically, Tough does a nice job of balancing theories and research on race, education and poverty with the unglamorous, on-the-ground fight to make Promise Academy and the whole Harlem Children’s Zone enterprise pull the neighborhood out of the gravity of its urban pathologies — to kick into a high enough gear for residents to achieve what Canada calls “escape velocity.”
Though much of “Whatever It Takes” focuses on strategy, it’s the acute awareness of the overwhelmingly black staff, students and parents of just what they’re up against that makes this book absorbing and frequently touching. Within that awareness are small but steady epiphanies that are the real core of Canada’s work but that simply can’t be measured by test scores: parents learning to regularly take their kids to museums, problems collectively solved in math class, story conclusions read aloud by second-graders.
Tavis Video
Tavis Smiley’s PBS show has now posted video of the complete interview he did with me and Geoffrey Canada this week, as well as a transcript of our conversation.