Paul Tough

Writer & Speaker

Friday, January 29th, 2010

News from West Palm Beach

In the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this week, an opinion piece by Kimberly Mitchell, a West Palm Beach city commissioner, about efforts there to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone:

This past August, along with 60 state and local leaders from all parts of the business, political, economic and educational spectrum, Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater and I launched our own local initiative, Family Zone: West Palm Beach, modeled on the nationally recognized Harlem Children’s Zone project. …

HCZ has found support from liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans – from former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who first brought this to our state’s attention, and Jeff Atwater to Orlando’s Democratic Mayor Buddy Dyer and President Barack Obama. …

President Obama has found this program to be so special, so important, he included it among his top priorities for his first year in office. In fact, West Palm Beach has the opportunity to become our own version of the Harlem Children’s Zone as one of 20 cities chosen by the White House to take part in this dramatic new program.


2 comments on “News from West Palm Beach

  1. SuSaw says:

    Despite your too many frequent flyer miles flown in 2009, maybe the nice people in PB will invite you to talk about your book, a fascinating, compelling, beautifully written read. Thank you…

  2. Paul Tough says:

    Good idea! Especially if they invite me to visit in the middle of winter…

    Thanks for the kind words on the book. PT

Leave a Reply