By Dennis Quick

Kid care. According to the Morrison Report of a few years ago, the Lowcountry has a 40% high school dropout rate. That figure is simply too high if we want to make our region economically competitive.

To tackle our education problem, maybe we should pay attention to Geoffrey Canada, an education-reform crusader and the subject of a New York Times Magazine cover story last June.

In 2001, Canada started the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City. The zone includes 24 city blocks in central Harlem. Within that zone are about 6,500 children, more than 60% of whom live below the poverty line and 75% of whom score below New York state grade-level standards on math and reading tests.

Canada is devoted to rescuing every one of those kids from lifelong poverty, prison or an early trip to the morgue. He’s determined to show that poor children can do well in school and achieve high graduation rates. Canada is not out to showcase the best and the brightest students, exceptional kids who can overcome adversity. He’s interested in the masses of unexceptional kids.

Canada is attacking Harlem’s education crisis on a variety of fronts including strengthening families, holding educators accountable and getting businesses to participate. Counselors knock on every door of every apartment in the Harlem Children’s Zone to make sure parents of school-age children are aware of the project’s programs. During just one day at different schools within the Harlem Children’s Zone, counselors taught new parents better parenting techniques, an executive from Lehman Brothers explained the stock market to teenagers in an investment club, fifth-grade students read aloud to their peers autobiographies they had written that afternoon and a 19-year-old college student tutored a 5-year-old working with “Hooked on Phonics.”

Canada runs the Harlem Children’s Zone like a corporation. “Market penetration” and “performance-tracking system” are common phrases in the zone’s business plan. The zone’s board includes financiers and Wall Street CEOs. Last April, they raised $2.8 million in one night for the zone through a fund-raising dinner that attracted bankers and stockbrokers. Yes, it pays to have pals on Wall Street.

Canada says the results of the Harlem Children’s Zone won’t be seen for another eight to 12 years, when the Zone’s preschoolers, kindergarteners and elementary schoolchildren face high school graduation. He expects 90% of them to graduate on time.

Here at home, maybe it’s possible to establish a Lowcountry Children’s Zone for our city kids.

Geoffrey Canada’s holistic approach to education reform—changing schools, neighborhoods and families—is the only way to go. The responsibility of our children’s education can’t be placed entirely on schools because schools don’t operate in a vacuum. If a child comes from an environment where education isn’t a top priority, where parents don’t get involved, where the community is apathetic, then that child will most likely fail, even if the school has the best teachers and equipment in the world.

And it’s not about simply dumping more money into the school system. A friend of mine told me about an educational observation made by a European acquaintance visiting Charleston. The acquaintance pointed out that although America spends much more money on public schools than Europe does, on average European kids are much better educated.

 Adopting, or at least considering, Geoffrey Canada’s educational crusade means business leaders, educators, parents and government officials must work as a team. Regarding education, all of us should be in business together—the business of saving young lives.

Culinary colossus. I attended the Jan. 31 vintners dinner and auction sponsored by Trident Technical College and Southern Wine & Spirits of South Carolina. Held at the Charleston Area Convention Center, the delectable event featured fine wines from around the world and a four-course dinner prepared and served by TTC’s culinary and hospitality students. The students did such a good job that I don’t see the need for Charleston to bother luring another culinary school to town to replace the departing Johnson & Wales University. TTC is the replacement, and its new Culinary and Hospitality Training Center, which opens this fall, will amplify that point.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

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