Lauded Harlem Education Effort Still Faces Challenges

Recent drops in state test scores for students at the Harlem Children’s Zone’s charter schools point up continuing difficulties for the “cradle to college” project touted by the Obama administration as a model for aiding needy youngsters, The New York Times writes.

The nonprofit founded in the mid-1990s by Geoffrey Canada seeks to break the long-term cycle of poverty for children in a 97-square-block area of Harlem through charter schools and a closely linked network of social services and training programs for kids and parents. The White House last month awarded $210-million in grants to groups in 21 cities to adopt their own versions of the project and is seeking a similar amount for 2011.

Although private donors have helped the Harlem group keep class sizes small and support student incentives, the schools run by the nonprofit have struggled with the same difficulties faced by other urban schools and achieved middling test results in comparison with other New York charter schools.

Grover J. Whitehurst, co-author of a Brookings Institution study on the zone, questioned whether its performance justified a central role in the Obama administration’s school-overhaul efforts.

“My quarrel is not with an effort in Harlem funded largely by philanthropy, it’s with the federal approach to scaling this up,” he said.