upstatelibrarygal's review
3.0
Fascinating look not just at Geoffrey Canada and education in Harlem, but at the debate about poverty and the impact on education throughout the last 50 years or so.
ecari's review
4.0
This was an excellent book for anyone interested in the charter school movement, educational disparities in American, and/or the incredible entrepreneurial and passionate spirit required to start a nonprofit organization to address any type of inequity. Whatever It Takes is about Geoffrey Canada, who decided that the seemingly endless cycle of poverty in the black neighborhoods of NYC should not be endless and can be rectified if addressed at the neighborhood level. Not only that, but he sees it as his own mission to make this change happen. He develops an organization that attempts to help people at every stage of their lives, from conception through their education. When he sees that he is losing many of the young kids when they enter the public school system and that that the older children in after school programs need much more than his programs can provide, he creates a charter school. Paul Tough writes this story brilliantly, showing the humanity of everyone and not afraid to show both success and failure. He weaves in the larger backstory of the Charter School movement - advocating and dissenting opinions alike. His clear respect for Canada and his own beliefs shine through. I read this book very quickly and immediately found myself looking up the Harlem Children's Zone online and exploring how this magnificent and honorable experiment is doing today.
barrysweezey's review
This is the America I want to live in. Not one in which parents say, "I'm going to make sure my kid goes to a good school", but one in which our society says, "Let's make all schools good schools". Now we know how.
elibriggs's review against another edition
4.0
most of the book is pre Obama so its a little dated. but still important.
adi_greif's review against another edition
5.0
This is the first non-fiction book compelling enough that I finished it. The author brings the characters to life and is also unusually clear at describing research projects - what the alternative hypothesis was, what the method was, and how the outcome changed debates on school reform policy.
heyalisa's review
5.0
this book was both realistic and hopeful. it made me question things i believe like that intervention is useful for teenagers and that you can change the way people are raised. mostly, it reinforced the belief that poverty can be overcome and that i need to work towards that goal.
punky77's review
5.0
I really enjoyed this book because it gave a deeper insight into the constraints of poverty and how one person believed that those constraints were not an excuse for children to either receive a poor education or give a poor effort towards their own education. What is frustrating to me is that it seems to take a charter school framework to address these issues in such a meticulous fashion...public schools should be able to build, implement and sustain all of these same interventions, but must be given the leeway to get it done...meaning, less time fulfilling federal and state mandates and more time building a program that will serve the needs of their own kids.