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December 3, 2008
Geoffrey Canada draws the line at taking money from rappers
The Harlem Children’s Zone was just forced to cut 10% of its staff, but CEO Geoffrey Canada says he won’t change his standards about how to replenish the money he is losing from Wall Street donors. For one thing, he will take no donations from rappers, ever.
That’s what he told NY1’s Dominic Carter last night on “Inside City Hall,” after Carter got distressed about the cuts and tried to think of alternate sources of income.
“That’s like taking money from the tobacco industry,” Canada said.
Canada was appearing on the show to promote his new group, Learn NY, which is pushing Albany to renew mayoral control of the city’s public schools. But for 22 minutes, Canada talked not about the problem of school boards, but a list of others: a materialist culture that is a “road to destruction” for children, the “abysmal” state of community colleges, and why kids walk with their pants hanging down (it’s an export from the jail system, where belts are banned).
Then, with less than 10 minutes left in the show, like a movie star on a late-night show who at the last minute remembers he has to promote his film, Canada started talking about mayoral control. Whoops! Out of necessity, he made his argument succinct.
The reason the mayor should control the schools, Canada said, is that it forces him to sweat the test scores:
You know, every night when my test scores come out, I’m up all night. I can’t sleep. Oh God those kids, they better perform, because I know I’m in the papers! … Why shouldn’t the mayor be thinking about the kids of New York City the same way?
He also addressed concerns that he is leading the political effort to renew mayoral control because Mayor Bloomberg has given him money — about $500,000, the New York Times reported. He said he understands people’s skepticism:
Everybody says, “Oh but didn’t he give you some money? And isn’t that why you’re doing it?” Well, I think it’s the right question, and everyone has the right to ask, “Do you believe in this or is this simply because the mayor has anonymously given you money, and that’s why you’re standing up for it?”
But he concluded, “This has nothing to do with any donation the mayor would or would not give. And, by the way, when I don’t agree with the mayor, I’m happy to say that I don’t agree with him.” For an example, check out what Canada said at an education forum just last month.
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December 3rd, 2008 4:11 pm
Well, Canada’s charter schools have extremely small classes. If he disagrees with Klein and the Mayor on the importance of class size, he should speak up. I don’t recall him ever having done so.
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December 3rd, 2008 7:37 pm
I really respect what Canada is doing with his Harlem Children’s Zone. However, he’s kind of an ironic choice to be advocating for the continuation of mayoral control. While he and his organization have certainly benefitted from the Bloomberg/Klein administration, as someone who operates a charter school he’s been largely free from the actual control exercised by the mayor.
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December 4th, 2008 8:43 am
It’s time that we have a honest discussion about both the large-scale improvements we’ve seen since Mayoral Control was passed, as well as seriously listen to the individual concerns of parents and teachers in an effort to improve the law when it comes up for renewal in 2009. I think everyone would agree with me that 10 minutes on public school education and a program as impactful as Mayoral Control isn’t nearly enough.
There are large and important issues to consider in this debate and Geoff is a leader when it comes to NYC education issues; he has spent 25 years watching as chancellor after chancellor has been unable to make substantial progress for our kids because the system was lacking the necessary accountability standards. I’m sure viewers would have liked to have heard more about Geoff and Learn NY’s calls to increase transparency, engage parents on major decisions, and to provide parents with more information on their children and their schools.
It’s time parents have access to as much information as possible and that we have a serious conversation about an issue that is having a major impact on NYC families. That’s why we set up http://www.Learn-NY.org and http://www.Learn-NY.org/Blog.
I’d invite any parents who want to get detailed information about Mayoral Control, or are interested in joining Learn NY to help improve the law, to visit our website or email us.
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December 4th, 2008 9:26 am
Dear Brian:
Geoff Canada ” has spent 25 years watching as chancellor after chancellor has been unable to make substantial progress for our kids because the system was lacking the necessary accountability standards.”?
Just recently, according to GothamSchools, Canada publicly proclaimed that the increased emphasis on test results hurts poor kids, and that “the emphasis in recent years has turned so squarely onto results — usually in the form of test scores — that programs that don’t demonstrate a clear academic benefit are in jeopardy, even when they are valuable, he said.”
Indeed, the administration’s insistence on the use of high stakes tests over every other measure of student engagement or achievement has led to fewer children of color in our gifted and talented programs, and fewer of them admitted into our selective HS as well.
Nevertheless, I am pleased to hear that Geoff Canada and others at Learn NY realize the need “to increase transparency, engage parents on major decisions, and to provide parents with more information on their children and their schools.” We would love to hear your substantive proposals on this.
The Parent Commission on school governance is holding a public forum on Dec. 19 at Judson church on the need for transparency, accountability and checks and balances under Mayoral control, and would love to have you or someone else from your organization to speak at this event.
More info is available on our parent blog at http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2008/12/mayoral-control-need-for-accountability.html
Please let me know if this would be possible.
Hoping to hear from you soon. and thanks!
Leonie Haimson
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December 4th, 2008 11:55 am
Brian is right, we need to have a serious discussion about what has worked and what hasn’t worked with mayoral control - a discussion that will take more than 10 minutes! I would like to invite anyone who wants to be part of the discussion about how mayoral control has impacted schools to come to a Speak Out about Mayoral Control this Saturday at Hunter College, 1 -3 pm. See the Gothamschools.org calendar for more information. We will have 2 hours to kick off our public debate, focused on how parents and students feel things are going, followed by a series of local forums starting in January.
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December 9th, 2008 1:11 pm
Canada should be US Sec. of Education, the public education system needs major reform.
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