Paul Tough

Writer & Speaker

Posts Tagged ‘universities’


Sunday, March 18th, 2012

Conference at Bowdoin

On Friday, April 6, I’ll be giving a talk at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, as part of a two-day conference on “The New Politics of Parenthood.” My talk, drawn from the reporting I did for my forthcoming book, “How Children Succeed” is titled “How Children Succeed: Schools, Parents, and the Cultivation of Character.”


Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

Promise Neighborhood Updates

1. In Winston-Salem, N.C., more than 25 non-profit agencies have come together to form the Promise Neighborhood Community Collaborative in order to create a Promise Neighborhood in the Ibraham school district. According to this article in Yes! Weekly, “Whatever It Takes” helped inspire the project:

Lee Koch, principal of Prince Ibraham Elementary School, said it was Tough’s book that first inspired community leaders in Winston-Salem to look into the possibility of identifying one neighborhood as a potential Promise Neighborhood.

2. In Kinston, N.C., community leaders have joined forces with faculty and graduate students from the University of North Carolina’s Community-Campus Partnership to create the Kinston Promise Neighborhood. According to this article in ENC Today, the neighborhood will cover 81 blocks in the city’s East Kinston and Mitchelltown neighborhoods.

3. In Athens, Georgia, the Whatever It Takes initiative (which I visited last December) presented their initial plans for the Athens Promise Neighborhood to community members in May. Details here.

4. And in June, a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio filed this report on the 250-block St. Paul Promise Neighborhood, which “hopes to counteract the effects of poverty on children by creating a network of so-called ‘cradle-to-career’ services.”


Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Three Quick Items

1. Here’s a review of “Whatever It Takes” by Jennifer L. Steele, published in the Harvard Educational Review back in the fall of 2009, but only now available online. Steele writes:

Whatever It Takes is that rarest of phenomena—an education book that can be described as a page-turner.

2. Glen Pinder and Chris Finn, the stars of chapter 7 of “Whatever It Takes,” have left the Promise Academy middle school, where they were principal and dean, respectively, and are now working together again at Lady Liberty Academy Charter School in Newark, N.J.  According to this article in Local Talk News, “Pinder was recruited by the Newark Charter School Fund and Newark Mayor Cory Booker to help turn around the struggling school.”

3. A recent post on Search Marketing Daily’s SearchBlog profiled Frank Lee, a search engine optimization pro who just took a job as head of sales and marketing at an SEO firm called DataPop. The post included this unexpected tidbit:

When asked which book he is reading to prepare for his new role, Lee responded: “Whatever It Takes” by Paul Tough, a tale about driving change.


Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Georgetown/Chavez talk

As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be giving a talk and speaking on a panel this Thursday at Georgetown University, at an event hosted by Georgetown and the Cesar Chavez Schools. I’ll be talking about character education and academic achievement.

There’s now a bit more information on the talk posted here.


Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

More New Yorker reaction

Harvard Magazine has a news brief about my article on Nadine Burke, who attended public-health school at Harvard.

And on Twitter, some supportive words about the article from two writers I respect a great deal: Atul Gawande and Sara Corbett.

Meanwhile, I am tweeting, sporadically, here. Come follow me!


Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

The News from Kenilworth-Parkside

There was news about the D.C. Promise Neighborhood initiative in two Washington newspapers last week. The Washington City Paper reported on the groundbreaking for a new early-childhood center in the Kenilworth-Parkside neighborhood in D.C.’s Ward 7, adding,

the Educare building, as it’s known, is much more than a school. It’s also the first piece of a federally-funded plan to replicate the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Manhattan, using a model of integrated educational and social services to transform a kid’s whole environment, not just the time they spend in a classroom.

The Washington Post added that the effort was

spearheaded by Irasema Salcido, the charismatic educator who founded the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy in the community, but its unusual strength lies in the 70 nonprofits, businesses, churches, foundations and resident associations that have signed on. In a refreshing partnership, two traditional public schools, Kenilworth and Neval Thomas elementary schools, have joined the coalition with their charter neighbor.

Next week, I’ll be visiting the Cesar Chavez schools and giving a speech at Georgetown University about character development and student achievement — and how those topics relate to the Promise Neighborhood initiative.


Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Georgetown/Chavez talk

On March 31, I’ll be giving a keynote address as part of an event about “Character Development and Student Achievement” sponsored by Georgetown University and the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy. (Georgetown and Chavez are working together to create a Promise Neighborhood in D.C.’s Ward 7.) There will be a panel discussion following my talk, with Kaya Henderson, the interim chancellor of the D.C. public schools; Jim Shelton, the official in charge of the education department’s innovation initiatives; Irasema Salcido, the founder of the Chavez schools; and Tim King, the founder of the Urban Prep charter schools in Chicago.

For more information, contact Norma Barfield with the Chavez Schools, at norma.barfield@chavezschools.org.


Friday, January 28th, 2011

Geoffrey Canada’s travels

Geoffrey Canada has been on the road more than usual this month, giving public talks to a variety of school and community groups. He spoke at the University of Dayton in Ohio where, according to a recent article in the Dayton Daily News, a local initiative called Taking Off to Success is modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Baby College. He also spoke at a Martin Luther King Day celebration at Wesleyan University and to a group in Columbia, South Carolina, that is trying to establish what they’re calling a Promise Zone, modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone, in the city’s Eau Claire neighborhood. (According to an article in the State, Geoffrey Canada’s older brother, Dan, a Columbia resident, is on the board of the Eau Claire zone.)

Next month, Canada will speak in Haverford, Pennsylvania. In March, it’s Saginaw, Michigan. In April, York, Pennsylvania.


Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Tomorrow in Athens

In the Athens Banner-Herald, a report on my visit to Athens tomorrow, which will include a talk at the University of Georgia chapel. The visit is being organized in part by Whatever It Takes, the local non-profit group that recently received a Promise Neighborhood planning grant:

“It’s so exciting,” said Ryan Lewis, communications director for Whatever It Takes. “Paul has been talking on an international level about what we’re trying to do here. … Because we’ve done such great work, we’re able to bring somebody like that to the community, and bring even more information and have a dialogue here.”


Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Home Delivery

In Athens, Georgia, the Avid Bookshop, which will be selling books on Dec. 2 at my talk at the University of Georgia chapel, reports on Facebook that

We *just* received tons of boxes via UPS: they contain 200 copies of Paul Tough’s WHATEVER IT TAKES for the Dec. 2nd event at UGA. We’re looking forward to selling these books to you so that you can have Mr. Tough sign them. We’ve helped with several events before, but never one this big (or, arguably, this significant for the Athens community).

Janet, one of the bookstore’s owners, adds this tempting offer:

if you live in Athens, we can arrange for you to get the book before then with no shipping cost (as I’ll drop it off myself).