Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone is one of the few success stories I’ve heard in American education.

The USA made the mistake of not offering children an equal chance of success by inventing a system where some schools are good. Some are bad.

No wonder the USA has the world’s highest percentage of prison inmates. China ranks second with only about 18% of the US incarceration rate.

… Is that too big a leap? … Bad schools mean more kids will fall into crime?

Geoffrey Canada it trying a radical approach. He has 1200 inner city students and guarantees ALL of them they will go to College. Though it costs $5000/yr/student, his school is free to the kids.

Is that expensive?

Prison costs $60,000/yr. Reform school $100,000/yr.

Watch The Harlem Children’s Zone from the December 6, 2009 edition of 60 Minutes. Canada is a man who simply will not be denied.

60 Minutes also posts a text version online. It’s titled Harlem’s Education Experiment Gone Right.