Harlem Children's Zone Model Summary

The Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) is a non-profit organization that seeks to break the cycle of generational poverty in Central Harlem by providing children with the resources to gain a range of skills and opportunities. The two multiservice charter schools known as Promise Academies were also created in partnership with HCZ. Through its cradle-to-career program children are to be supported in multiple aspects of life from the moment they are born until they graduate from college. The Zone uses this pipeline model to demonstrate that in order to obtain long-term results, individual support to children facing challenging situations must be provided through a series of programs focused on: education, family and community, and health. The programs
Willingham (2012), strongly explains how most of the challenges that disadvantaged children face are due to a lack of different forms of capital. Authors Chin and Phillips (2004) further explain how “...parents’ differential access to a wide range of resources, including money, the human capital to know know how best to assess and improve children’s skills, the cultural capital to know how best to cultivate children’s talents, and the social capital to learn about and gain access to programs and activities” account for the lack of quality of children's education (p. 185). This preventative approach tackles the issue of capitals by empowering families to discover a range of skills and by teaching them how to utilize these skill sets to create a more sustainable and safe community. In other words, the Zone’s idea is to set off a ripple effect. Case 11 by Howard, a reading assigned in class, is an ideal example of a family who can benefit from an organization like the Zone. This is the case of an african american single mother who lived alone with her four children. This woman constantly expressed how important she perceived education yet did not know how to ensure that her children do well. She was constantly overwhelmed with various stressors such as food insufficiency, exhaustion, and a fear for
According to Daniel Hanson (2013), 16,000 dollars are spent per student in a classroom setting and thousands of dollars are spent outside the classroom per year. This is problematic for many critics, as they believe that the program is not spending wisely. Additionally, the Zone’s uses a lottery process to admit children into their Promise Academies. What this means is that some highly driven children will miss out on the nutritious meals, medical and dental care, remedial and test prep assistance, after-school programs, and the over all quality education that the Zone provides (Hanson, 2013). Those who begin the programs at a later age tend to miss out on the early intervention programs which is a great disadvantage to their development. They initiate the program without any “let's get ready” introduction thus not knowing what is expected of them. Blogger Alexander Russo references Helen Zelon (2010), a contributor to the evaluation of the Harlem Children’s Zone, in explaining how only a small number of the entire served population actually gets to complete the cradle-to-college pipeline. Zelon describes it as “a pipeline with big holes, and kids who aren’t lucky enough to land seats at the schools are falling straight through” (Russo, 2010). Moreover, some would argue that educational effects can happen without social services. What this means is that changes would happen directly within the