Worth reading - Barack Obama's Innovative War On Poverty

[Bread and Circus]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/13/barack-obamas-innovative_n_134162.html

Barack Obama's Innovative War On Poverty

October 13, 2008 11:52 AM

"He is also taking a page from the streets of New York. Buried on the Obama website's poverty page is a note that the Senator will "establish 20 promise neighborhoods in areas that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement." The idea is lifted from the Harlem Children's Zone, which uses 'free-market' solutions to decrease youth violence and encourage after-school activities.

That unorthodox approach towards tackling poverty is the child of Geoffrey Canada, an urban policy guru who, in 1999, plotted out a unique way to turn around a 24-block zone in the city. Canada created a "safety net" or "conveyor belt" that has helped map approximately 10,000 children through adolescence, relying on a variety of social service programs: a nine-week parenting program; education reforms, such as after-school tutoring and intensive K-12 charter schools (with no union contract); and even improvised techniques - for instance, once handing out cash to kids with perfect attendance.

" realized it is not just money that is keeping poor children in the situation they are in. They are not learning the tools that will help them get out of poverty," said Paul Tough, the New York Times reporter who documented the Harlem program in his book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America. "It is about getting a neighborhood to a tipping point where you are affecting 50 to 60 percent of the kids. Where the idea of hard work and studying isn't viewed as a negative anymore."

In many regards, Tough noted, Canada's work presaged what Obama has designed for the national stage. And, as such, it was hardly unexpected when the Democratic nominee held Harlem up as a model for other cities to pursue.

We need "a cultural change in education in inner-city communities and low-income communities across the country -- not just inner-city, but also rural," the Senator told the editorial board of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In many low-income communities, he added, "there's this sense that education is somehow a passive activity, and you tip your head over and pour education in somebody's ear. And that's not how it works. So we're going to have to work with parents."

Obama invited Canada to take part in his competitiveness summit at Carnegie Melon University last June and has proposed applying his program to 20 cities across the country once in office. It is part of what he is calling "an all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort that is literally saving a generation of children."

[ej510]

1. This is a good start in low income areas education is looked down on. If we educate the public then

we can prevent stupid people from being elected again.