Educator Who Transformed Harlem Schools Helps Tulsa's Schools

Ashli Sims, The News on 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Geoffrey Canada reclaimed a notorious New York City neighborhood by transforming its schools, and now his pioneering community-wide approach to education is being copied in Tulsa.

Hammering, painting, and molding clay, busy 3-year-olds are exactly what educator and author Geoffrey Canada said he loves to see.

"You walk in here and you see young people who are excited and energized, teachers who are engaged and smiling. Everybody wants to be here, so you know there's real learning going on here," Canada said.

Canada took pictures, signed autographs, and had a crew of fans, hanging on his every word. If there's such a thing as a rock star in education, Canada is one of them.

Block by block, Canada and his staff took back central Harlem. They went door to door, engaged parents, reinvented schools and started caring for the whole child in the Harlem Children's Zone.

That community approach is now being replicated in Union's Rosa Parks Community School.

"It's just been wonderful for us, security wise, the atmosphere, the environment," said Angel Calhoun, a Rosa Parks parent

The school is majority minority with most of them on free and reduced school lunches, and Canada's legacy of success in Harlem resonates with Rosa Parks' teachers and students.

"I have been in a lot of schools. I have not seen any that are more exciting, and more interesting than what I saw here today," Canada said.

Canada said his Harlem experiment showed how vital community schools can be.

"No one wanted to live in Harlem. They were giving away the homes. When we created a safe neighborhood with high quality schools, Harlem is now a place where everybody is trying to come to," Canada said.

Tulsa has several community schools, including Kendall-Whittier, which Canada also visited.