In Harlem, Obama Embraces a New Approach to Poverty

After falling steadily during the Clinton years, the American poverty rate rose under the Bush administration, increasing from 11.3 percent of the population in 2000 to 12.5 percent in 2007. Disturbingly, the sharpest jump has occurred among the country's youngest children. In 2000, there were about 4.1 million American children under the age of 6 in poverty; now there are more than 5.1 million.

What would it take to reverse that unfortunate trend? In the short term, it would take an economic recovery. As much as any specific targeted policies, it was the economic boom that lifted so many millions of Americans out of poverty during the 1990s.

But over the long term, a solution to the nation's poverty crisis is going to take something more than just a return to economic good times.

I've spent the last five years reporting on Geoffrey Canada, who runs an innovative and ambitious non-profit organization called the Harlem Children's Zone. I've written a new book about his work titled Whatever It Takes.

The book is a chronicle of the growth of the Harlem Children's Zone, which provides cradle-to-college educational and social services to 8,000 children in a 97-block neighborhood in central Harlem -- everything from parenting classes to an all-day prekindergarten to a network of charter schools.

At the same time, the book is an investigation of the way that our understanding of poverty's causes and cures has changed over the last decade or so. In the past, the assumption among policymakers was that the most effective way to break the generational cycle of poverty was to raise the income level of parents. But over the last decade, some economists have begun to argue that we should instead aim all of our serious resources and attention at children themselves. We know, anecdotally, that some children from poor families turn out successfully, despite their deprived upbringing. Why not try to systematize that process, so that poor children are regularly growing up with the resources they need to become successful middle-class adults?

As economists have been rethinking these fundamental questions, social scientists have been compiling evidence of specific targeted interventions in the lives of poor children that have given them the skills they need to lift themselves out of poverty. And so the big debate in poverty policy is no longer about which macroeconomic shifts would do the most to improve the environment for poor families -- it's about which interventions would do the most to change the lives of poor children.

To me, the most innovative policy in Barack Obama's platform is his pledge to replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in 20 cities across the country, and to commit "a few billion" federal dollars to public/private partnerships that would run those new zones.

It won't be easy to replicate the Zone. And the current financial crisis may make it harder for a President Obama (if he's elected) to shake loose the funding he would need to make his plan work. But in the end, interventions like the Harlem Children's Zone are cost-effective -- what we spend early on in a child's life on prekindergartens and parenting classes and good schools, we more than get back later on in savings on welfare payments, job training, and crime prevention. As Obama said when he announced his plan, "we will find the money to do this because we can't afford not to."

Comments

[chicagoeducator]

As a former teacher for a Chicago charter school, I am deeply concerned about the lack of governance surrounding charter schools. I liken this to the financial/banking debacle and the inherent dangers it imposes on schools where there is little oversight or accountability.

I brought scathing misconduct allegations of ASPIRA charter school to the heads of CPS: Arne Duncan and Josh Edelman (Director of Office of New Schools). My allegations of illegal strip searches, indiscriminate grade changes, attendance changes and other egregious misconduct was proved through an internal CPS investigation. Yet, nothing has changed and nothing has been done.

I know of some charter schools who choose (that's the operative word) to be transparent and effective, but
as Paul Tough recently wrote, "...when things go awry..." as they have here, I'm extremely distressed to find there is little that can be done to protect these children.

I don't want to see educational leaders (or even Obama whom I support) running off privatizing education until there are people overseeing charter schools who truly care more about the students than their jobs and reputations.

I'd like to hear what Paul Tough thinks of what I should do now that I've brought truth to power and no changes have been made. (By the way, I've read everything you've written in NYT...)

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

It seems that to some commenters below, it's not a question of teaching kids to swim; rather, a question of making sure to kick them out of the lifeboat once they've grown up.

[Hirnlego]

True

Childhood poverty comes at great cost to U.S. economy
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/25/news/poor.php

I wish people were more concerned about this (too)
Report: 10M children die from lack of health care every year
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-05-06-child-health_N.htm

[raincrow]

Before you do ANYTHING else, go to the This American Life website and listen to the 9-26-08 "Going Big" segment on Geoffrey Canada's Harlem program.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1262

It will make right-wingers devour themselves in rage because a pointy-headed educational program actually appears to be working beautifully, and it will thrill the hell out of liberals who KNOW that well-conceived and executed pointy-headed educational programs can work beautifully.

[steamboat]

Nothing will be accomplished as long as we got MORE then 50% of the students in the cities NOT finishing high school. And we don't go back to stressing math and science instead of these junk cultural courses.

[jmyoung666]

How is this in any way a response to the article? This program is about improving the education of children, so it sounds like you would support it.

[Stephen308]

He seems to be suggesting you are worried about closing the barn door after the horse has already fled the barn.

We keep giving more and more money to a failed education system because the unions demand money and demand we don't force them to teach to standards that have meaning.

Kerry, Obama, others always promise to stand tough and force education change then never do anything to stand up to the unions and create real change.

[Overd0g]

"what we spend early on in a child's life on prekindergartens and parenting classes and good schools, we more than get back later on in savings on welfare payments, job training, and crime prevention".

I'm awaiting proof of this statement.

[Clavis]

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Ever heard that?

I work with the Office of Child Support Enforcement in New York City. A lot of people slip through the cracks and become permanent members of the underclass, never able to get out from under piles of debt and a lack of education or job skills. Reaching children at risk and giving them resources and perspective they lack is inarguably more efficient than trying to help people work their way back from 2-3 decades of mistakes, bad luck and negative conditioning.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Right on, not that the right would agree.

[Pete Cenedella - Huffpost Blogger]

Are you seriously suggesting we should NOT fund early childhood interventions at a time when we can find the loot for rescuing wealthy bankers? There's certainly a mountain of evidence in both the cognitive sciences and the social sciences that the first three to five years of life are crucial in terms of brain formation and synaptic activity. See several articles in The Lancet on the longer-term social and economic impact of various aspects of early childhood, for instance: EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT: THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE in The Lancet, Volume 369, Number 9555, 6 January 2007; LONG-TERM ECONOMIC EFFECT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD NUTRITION in The Lancet, Volume 371, Number 9610, 2 February 2008. There are plenty more. See also this link to the Princeton/Brookings Institution "The Future of Children" journal issue on School Readiness, esp. the article "Early Childhood Care and Education: Effects on Ethnic and Racial Gaps in School Readiness," by Katherine A. Magnuson and Jane Waldfogel.
http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2826/information_show.htm?doc_id=255993
Hey, you asked... LOL.

BTW, Hi Paul!

[Paul Tough - Huffpost Blogger]

The research that Pete mentioned above is certainly useful (at least the papers I've read), but I'd also recommend "Schools, Skills, and Synapses," by James Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago. You can download the paper from the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research, here:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w14064

(See p. 21, especially­.) Heckman has done a lot of the best research I've seen on the rate of return for early childhood investments.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

But are you looking?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

What we need is more overeducated white collar criminals in the slammer, and more undereducated blue collar (or simly collared) criminals in time machines so we could fix their childhoods.

[MagisterLudi]

New message? Oh, really?! I am sure it's driven by focus groups like McCains' "new" economic plan. Too bad he had no solutions in Chicago in various Senate jobs.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Now, now, ML.
I expect better of you.