On Wednesday, Whitehurst published a response to Canada's complaint, describing a second statistical analysis undertaken in accord with Canada's wishes. The outcome, Whitehurst said in an interview with City Limits, was wholly comparable. "Very little changes," he said. "You still end up with the conclusion that the HCZ charter schools are about average among the Manhattan and Bronx charter schools."
City Limits Magazine
March 2010:
Hope or Hype in Harlem
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He added: "We don't have any evidence. We don't know whether counseling works, whether obesity-reduction works. We don't know for sure whether Baby College works. It's not that we know they don't work. It's that we don't know they work."
Representatives of the Harlem Children's Zone declined to comment on the Whitehurst study and the potential losses to funding, which the agency, along with PolicyLink, has launched a campaign to restore.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen New York City agencies and non-profits were among those that applied for the Promise Neighborhood 2010 grants. One, the Children's Aid Society, looks to build on its established programs in public schools, as well as expand early-childhood education, prenatal care, service learning and a wide range of social and community supports for 4,500 families in a 50-block corridor in the South Bronx.
Children's Aid President and CEO Richard R. Buery, Jr., told City Limits that a potential funding cut is "extremely disappointing," especially when the Promise Neighborhoods pricetag is compared with other federal spending priorities.
"We believe that strong social services can create an environment where all children can learn," Buery said. "When you look at the federal education budget, we're talking about investing $210 million in a promising practice. Given the amount this country spends on incarceration, and on education in general, it's an embarrassment that we can't find $210 million to test this promising theory."
But HCZ skeptics think it's wise for Congress to hold off putting all its anti-poverty eggs in the Promise Neighborhoods basket.
"Resources are scarce," says Brookings scholar Whitehurst. "We need, as we have choices, to invest in things that have a pretty good evidence base of working."
He pointed out that government funding comes with different criteria than those used by the private funders—including several financial titans—who have backed HCZ to date.
“There’s a fundamental difference between hedge-fund billionaires giving money to the HCZ, out of all the things they spend their money on, versus the federal government using taxpayers’ money,” he said. “They are fundamentally different issues.”
