10 African-American Innovators of Education

Geoffrey Canada

It seems that Harlem’s Children’s Zone, the program and school led by its CEO Geoffrey Canada, is an overnight media darling. But the Promise Academy of the Harlem Children’s Zone has been around since 1990 and now is the time for Canada’s educational experiment to shine. “The Zone” is a 97-block neighborhood in Harlem, which offers  social, medical and educational services available for free to 10,000 children. The Promise Academy charter schools services children kindergarten through the 10th grade and enrollees are selected through a lottery system.  At least 97 percent of third graders scored at or above grade level on a statewide math test in 2008, outperforming the average scores of both black and white children in New York City and New York state. Canada has a B.A from Bowdoin College where he graduated in 1974 and a master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.