Friday, July 03, 2009

Geoffrey Canada - A True Educator

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Geoffrey Canada
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorJeff Goldblum

I came across this Colbert Report video interviewing an interesting man that is passionate about educating poor children - listen to Mr Geoffrey present his Harlem program for educating children and how successful he has been. If this is all true then we need more programs like this to replace our lousy public schools and not just in Harlem!

Mr. Canada, a 57-year-old social worker, calls his strategy the "conveyor belt," because it aims to give children an intensive experience in a succession of programs until they graduate from college. Children in pre-kindergarten are taught foreign languages, for instance. From there, children enter Mr. Canada's charter schools with longer school days and a calendar lasting until the first week of August.

The approach is starting to deliver results. Last year, nearly all the third-graders in Mr. Canada's charter schools scored at or above grade-level in math, better than recent citywide averages. Eighth-graders outperformed the average New York student in math, according to New York state data.

"The math thing is just so far above anything I've ever seen," says Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist who heads a new education lab. "The real hard work is to figure out why it's working and whether that kind of thing can be exported so we can help more kids."

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