Role With The Harlem Children's Zone
Starting as president in 1990, Canada started working with the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families which evolved into the Harlem Children's Zone. Unsatisfied with the scope of Rheedlen, Canada transformed the organization's makeup in the late 1990s into a center that would actively follow the academic careers of youths in a 24-block area of Harlem. Due to the success of the new model, the area has grown to 97 blocks.
The Harlem Children's Zone was profiled in 2004 in a story by Paul Tough in the New York Times Magazine, which described it as "one of the biggest social experiments of our time." In 2008, Tough published a book entitled Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America. Additionally, U.S. News and World Report named Canada one of America's Best Leaders in its October 2005 issue.
Along with having been featured in a number of print publications, Canada has made a number of high profile television appearances, including a profile interview on 60 Minutes, two televised interviews with Charlie Rose, a guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a guest appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and three appearances on the Colbert Report. In 2010, he appeared in an American Express commercial that premiered during the Academy Awards and took an extended look at his work and success at the Harlem Children's Zone.
Desiring to emulate the Harlem Children's Zone, in 2009 American President Barack Obama announced plans to replicate the HCZ model in 20 other cities across the nation.
Canada is prominently featured in Waiting for Superman (2010), a documentary on the state of American public education by Academy Award-winner Davis Guggenheim. The film received the Audience Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
It was reported that Canada was offered the position of New York City Schools Chancellor by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but that he turned it down.
Read more about this topic: Geoffrey Canada
Famous quotes containing the words role, harlem, children and/or zone:
“The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers’ suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children.”
—Gro Harlem Brundtland (b. 1939)
“...Negroes must concern themselves with every single means of struggle: legal, illegal, passive, active, violent and non- violent.... They must harass, debate, petition, boycott, sing hymns, pray on steps—and shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities.... The acceptance of our condition is the only form of extremism which discredits us before our children [ellipses in source].”
—Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965)
“He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)