Sharing Web Resources

I plan to move to another state and open a school.  I chose Harlem children zone because admire their business model.  At Harlem Children's Zone, they believe in doing 'whatever it takes' to ensure that children graduate from college so they can be prepared for the high-skills job market.  

Geoffrey Canada is the President and CEO of Harlem Children Zone.  His program addresses the needs of children at each stage of their development, as they work to strengthen the families and community around them. This program starts from birth to college. It starts with The Baby College, which teaches best-practice parenting to parents of children from 0-3 years old.  HCZ runs Birth to Pre-Kindergarten programs to get children on track early. Children then attend one of two HCZ Promise Academy K-12 charter schools or are supported by HCZ staff in the seven public schools in the Zone.  HCZ also runs innovative middle and high school afterschool programs for local public school students. HCZ's College Success College Success Office supports HCZ's students - many of whom are the first in their families to attend college - so that they can successfully navigate the new challenges and responsibilities they face.

What I’ve learned the most id that supporting children in their education in the early years is essential to them being prepared for life and having the ability to enter the job market fully prepared. When children are adults after successful completing all levels of schooling, they are more apt to become part of the work force. People that are part of the work force contribute to the economy of this country. These people are less likely to end up entering the welfare or in the correctional facilities

This is why I am so passionate about teaching early childhood education. Early learning is the solid foundation the early child all over the world deserves to have. Education is every child’s right and I am dedicated to educate every child n my reach.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

According   to the World Forum Foundation and Association for Childhood Education International, there is a initiative to ensure that every child all over the world will have access to quality primary education (2013).  This goal was to be reached by 2015 which seem to  be unlike to be achieved. One of the barriers that are keeping this from happening is poverty.  Because poverty is prevalent around the world children leaving school before completing their primary level it contributes to the slow rate of achieving universal primary education.  It is also stated the children living in rural location re two times less likely in urban environments.  Poverty is a contributing factor to children not attending school, starting school late or children leaving school prior to completing primary school. Not only educators but people all over the world should help go combat poverty globally to ensure that all children receive a quality education.

What I’ve learned is since poverty is a contributing factor in a children’s education, I will find way to ensure that children in my community have healthy meals. The more I research this subject, the more it resonates in me the importance of children and family having healthy meals.

Blog Assignment: Sharing Web Resources

The Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) is a non-profit organization for poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for thousands of children and families. The HCZ is "aimed at doing nothing less than breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves.

The Harlem Children's Zone Project has expanded the HCZ's comprehensive system of programs to nearly 100 blocks of Central Harlem and aims to keep children on track through college and into the job market.

Quoting from the HCZ Project web page: "The HCZ Project began as a one-block pilot in the 1990s, then following a 10-year business plan, it expanded to 24 blocks and then 60 blocks. The goal is to serve 15,000 children and 7,000 adults by 2011. The budget for the HCZ Project for fiscal year 2009 is over $40 million, costing an average of $3,500 per child." In addition to this private financing, the HCZ schools receive about $12,500 in public funding per student. According to The New York Times, these figures do not include the costs of the HCZ "after-school program, rewards for student performance, a chef who prepares healthy meals, central administration and most building costs, and some of the expense of the students' free health and dental care".

The HCZ and its promotion as a model of education to aspire to, especially in the recent documentary Waiting for "Superman", have been criticized as an example of the privatization of education in the US.  University of San Francisco Adjunct Professor in Education, Rick Ayers writes that Waiting for "Superman" "never mentions the tens of millions of dollars of private money that has poured into the Harlem Children's Zone, the model and superman we are relentlessly instructed to aspire to."  One year after this film was made; the Grassroots Education Movement made a film entitled The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, which accused the original film of exaggerating the success of the HCZ.

The Harem Children Zone has a program called project pipeline. Their model is from the cradle to college to community: preparing our kids for bright future.  I am intrigued by this because although initially I want to focus on early childhood education, replicating the program when I move across the country. I’m drawn to this model because I believe that children should have a strong foundation and if they are support throughout their lives, the will become successful adults. Simultaneously the families of these children would receive support and services through the children academic career. The children and families will grow and flourish together.

www.hcz.org

Getting Ready—Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Attempting to locate two international professionals in a week proved to be way move difficult than I thought. I thought it would be easy because I know two international professionals personally, one is from Tobago. Both people were difficult to reach because I had to try to reach them via facebook. After the attempts failed I decided to choose the world forum foundation radio website which is the alternative assignment or Part one.

For part two, I have decided to use the Harlem Children Zone because I have seen and heard Geoffrey Canada and I am truly impressed by his accomplishments. I have applied for a position at the Harlem Children Zone in the past.

The Harlem Children Zone, which first began as a one-block pilot program in the 1990s, was the brainchild of Geoffrey Canada, an obsessively energetic anti-poverty activist who grew up in the Bronx. Now spread over 90 blocks in Harlem, it takes an intensive and comprehensive approach to child development. At its most basic, the idea is to support children in the neighborhood from the minute they're born until they leave for college. That means parenting classes, intensive kindergartens, high-quality schools called Promise Academies with robust after-school programs, even help with college applications.