by Paul Tough
Canada realized that if he was going to make this new approach work, he couldn't take each child's success and failure as personally as he used to. Promise Academy was a crucial new step, but it was just one link in the chain that Canada was constructing, and he knew he needed to stay focused on the big picture. It wasn't easy for him, though, especially on nights like this one. For all his attempts to be cold-hearted and analytical, when he looked into the eyes of the parents he was turning down, he still felt the pain in their lives viscerally. At the end of what was supposed to be a triumphant event, he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't doing enough, that he had failed.
"What I'm going to remember about tonight," he said, "is how those mothers looked at me when their kids didn't get in." It made him think about his own young son, Geoffrey Jr., who was at home with his mother, Canada's wife, Yvonne. "When I go home tonight to my own kid, whose life is pretty much secure," Canada said, "it's not going to make me sleep well knowing there are kids and families out there that don't feel secure. They just are terrified that their child is not going to make it, and they think this is another opportunity that slipped by."
It was a waiting list that had started him on the path to the Harlem Children's Zone a decade earlier. And now, despite everything he had accomplished and all the millions he had spent, here he was, still setting up waiting lists. "We've got to do more," he said with a sigh. "We've got to give these people a chance for hope."
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About the Author
Paul Tough is an editor at the New York Times Magazine and one of America’s foremost writers on poverty, education, and the achievement gap. His reporting on Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone originally appeared as a Times Magazine cover story. He lives with his wife in New York City.
