ConnCAN First Person Interview: Paul Tough

About Paul Tough

Since 2001, Paul Tough has been a staff editor at the New York Times Magazine, as well as a regular contributor to the magazine on the issues of education and poverty.  He is currently completing a book, to be published in 2008 by Houghton Mifflin, on the Harlem Children's Zone, a comprehensive social-service agency in New York.  Before coming to the Times, he was an editor at Harper's Magazine; a producer and contributor with the public-radio program "This American Life"; the editor of Saturday Night, a Canadian monthly; and founding editor of Open Letters, an online magazine of first- person writing.  He was born in Toronto and he currently lives in New York City.

On need for a support system:
"What I've learned is that schools are not enough.  To get to scale, to really work with huge numbers of poor kids in bad neighborhoods, there really needs to be support before they get to school, there needs to be programs for their parents, there needs to be pre-kindergartens, there needs to be after school programs, there really just needs to be an entire support system."

On achievement:
" I don't think it's asking to much to get kids to high levels of achievement.  No, in fact, I think it's necessary.  It's a fantastic national goal to say lets get all kids to a level playing field.  But I think it's easy to underestimate how hard that's going to be."