Paul Tough

Writer & Speaker

Monday, November 17th, 2008

A Denver Teacher Writes

From his blog:

If the same group of highly intelligent and dedicated urban educators shifted their focus to the birth though 5th grade population we could see some significant results. Maybe our input might start matching our output. This isn’t to say that we don’t need highly qualified and passionate teachers working at the secondary level. We obviously do and those kids deserve our best efforts to turn things around. However, recruiting a new group of educators and taking some of the current work force to focus in on the age levels where we can really make a difference and ensure that a gap never starts seems to me as the only way to make a dent in this giant social dilemma.


Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Amazon Blog

Today on Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog, notes on “Whatever It Takes,” plus a Q&A with me and Geoffrey Canada.

When I saw this summer that Tough had written a book about Canada, my radar screen lit up like the Fourth of July. And the book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, turns out to be excellent: a well-told distillation of a very complex story, and an admiring but level-headed profile of a remarkable man. Canada’s project, the Harlem Children’s Zone, is an incredibly ambitious attempt to make sure that no child really is left behind in the 97-block neighborhood it serves, working with everyone from expectant parents to hard-to-steer adolescents to foster an entire culture that supports the basic task of educating poor kids and breaking the cycle of generational poverty. As the book shows, the project has had some remarkable successes in its first few years, but they haven’t been uniform or easy.


Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

Harlem Event

Also on Monday, Geoffrey Canada and I will be talking about Whatever It Takes and the Harlem Children’s Zone at an event sponsored by HCZ and the Hue-Man Bookstore. Details above.


Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Campaign for Educational Equity

Next Monday, November 17, I’ll be speaking at the Campaign for Educational Equity’s 2008 symposium, at Teachers College in New York City. I’m on at 9:20 a.m. or so, right after Gov. Paterson (on video), answering the question “What Will It Take?”


Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Teach for America Summit

This Saturday, November 15, at 3 p.m., I’ll be a featured speaker at the Teach for America New York City Alumni Summit. I’m on a panel with Marian Wright Edelman and Donna Foote, discussing “The Role of Media in Informing our Public Consciousness.”


Sunday, November 9th, 2008

HCZ in the Guardian

In the Guardian today, from London, an article about President-elect Obama’s campaign promises, and which ones he may choose to tackle first:

ON the corner of 125th Street and Madison Avenue at the heart of Harlem in New York stands an unusual building. It is the bright, modern, six-storey headquarters of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), a unique community-building project that has transformed the lives of thousands of youngsters from one of America’s most historic – and most downtrodden – black neighbourhoods.

A few blocks away from Harlem landmarks such as the Apollo theatre and Sylvia’s soul food restaurant, the HCZ offers a compelling opportunity to examine one of Obama’s core election pledges.

In a campaign largely filled with blithe generalities, he made a promise that could scarcely have been more specific: “When I’m president, the first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in 20 cities across the country,” he said on several occasions. “We will find the money to do this because we can’t afford not to.”


Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Feinberg on Education

In today’s Houston Chronicle, Mike Feinberg, one of the founders of the KIPP family of charter schools, offers advice on education policy to President-elect Obama, including this suggestion:

Focus on the early years: Even in this time of economic uncertainty, we need to make critical investments in pre-K and early childhood education.

In his recent book Whatever It Takes, New York Times Magazine editor Paul Tough notes that by age 3, children in low-income communities have been exposed to 20 million fewer words than their more affluent peers. By providing a language-rich learning environment at an early age, schools can offset this gap and give children the tools they need to succeed.


Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Jacksonville’s Success Zone

In today’s Jacksonville, Florida, Times-Union, an editorial about the Harlem Children’s Zone, Whatever It Takes and the city’s new “Success Zone”:

Late in the new book describing the Harlem Children’s Zone, Barack Obama is mentioned for the first time.

In July 2007, the future president of the United States gave a speech on urban poverty and held up the Harlem Children’s Zone as a model.

If elected, he would replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in 20 cities.

Could Jacksonville leap ahead into that select group of cities? All the ingredients are there.


Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Chicago Public Radio

Here’s an interview I did last month with Julia McEvoy of Chicago Public Radio, broadcast today on WBEZ’s morning show, “Eight Forty-Eight.” As their web site puts it:

Many Chicago area educators are counting on the president-elect to make schools a top priority in the year ahead. One plan that Barack Obama cites as a model for the rest of the country, is the Harlem Children’s Zone. There, a man named Geoffrey Canada believes that to successfully educate students he must take a holistic approach focusing on the community where they live.

Author Paul Tough has just written a book called Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Tough sat down with Chicago Public Radio’s education desk editor Julia McEvoy to talk about what Chicago can learn from the Harlem experiment.


Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Obama on MTV

Barack Obama, interviewed last weekend on MTV News:

There is a great example, the Harlem Children’s Zone, a guy named Geoffrey Canada started this. It has a comprehensive approach to young people in that area, and you are starting to see graduation rates go up, college-attendance rates go up, reductions in terms of delinquency, so we can make progress on this stuff, but it takes sustained effort.”