From Paul Tough and the Harlem Children's Zone to Promise Neighborhoods

Paul Tough, journalist and author, is chronicling a national movement, one made up of programs capable of delivering astounding results in the educational performance of children living in low income areas. His description of these programs left many education leaders clamoring to bring them to California.

The stories he shared at the 2010 STEM Summit at UC Irvine last year set a new and very hopeful solution to the question of how to address the relationship between chronic poverty and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics learning.

"These programs have several elements in common," Tough says. "They start working with children and parents very early, sometimes before birth."

Above all, Tough says, these programs aim to create for poor children a network of educational and social programs that are so comprehensive that they mimic the social advantages enjoyed by children in more affluent families.