GiveBetter x New York City

Harlem Children's Zone

Cradle-to-career services and Promise Academy charter schools in a 97-block Harlem zone

Research time: 2 min on Claude Opus 5.5
  • Research — reviewed programs, finances and impact evidence.
  • Modeling — estimated costs, QALYs and uncertainty.
  • Source audit — checked claims, assumptions and calculations.

Updated: 2026-10-18

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Summary

What do they do? Harlem Children’s Zone provides a pipeline of services, from parenting classes and early childhood through after-school, college support and family programs, across a 97-block area of Harlem. It also runs the Promise Academy charter schools; HCZ reported serving 34,590 children and adults in FY22, 19,638 of them through its own programs. This in-depth review prices HCZ’s spending per person served over six school years against the adult earnings implied by Promise Academy’s lottery-based math gains.

Why we’re interested in this organization:

  • A lottery study of Promise Academy middle school applicants found math scores 0.283 standard deviations higher six years later; Arnold Ventures rates it Near Top Tier.

  • Admitted girls were about 10 points less likely to report a teen pregnancy (from 17%), and admitted boys’ incarceration fell from 4% to zero.

  • Lottery winners graduated high school on time 13 points more often and enrolled in college sooner.

Our main reservations:

  • Our working estimate is about $336K per DALY; all of it is adult income inferred from test scores, and we do not credit the teen-pregnancy or incarceration effects.

  • The lottery sample was small (407 students), and J-PAL reports no difference in six-year graduation or in ever enrolling in college.

  • The central case treats the charter school’s public funding as replacing district spending; counting it would raise the estimate several-fold.

What do you get for your dollar? $336K per DALY in New York City. DALY is our one-year comparison unit. QALY-based health gains and income-welfare equivalents retain their original assumptions; they are not measured clinical DALYs. HCZ spending per person served over six school years against adult earnings inferred from Promise Academy lottery math gains; income-only welfare comparison, not a verified marginal gift offer.

Math scores, on-time graduation, college enrollment timing, teen pregnancy, incarceration and health self-reports.

1. What do they do?

Harlem Children’s Zone (Harlem Childrens Zone Inc, EIN 23-7112974) aims to support children from birth through college in a 97-block area of central Harlem, with parenting workshops, early-childhood programs, after-school and summer programs, health and family services, and college and career support. Its Promise Academy charter schools are separate legal entities funded mainly by public per-pupil payments. HCZ reported 34,590 people served in FY22, including 19,638 through its own programming. A donation to HCZ supports its non-charter programs.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

Dobbie and Fryer used Promise Academy’s 2005 and 2006 sixth-grade admission lotteries (150 winners, 257 non-winners) and surveyed participants in 2012, near the end of high school. HCZ publishes annual impact reports with counts served. We did not find current Promise Academy enrollment or a cost per student; we have not contacted the organization.

3. Qualitative assessment

Lottery winners scored 0.283 standard deviations higher on a nationally normed math test six years after admission. They were 13 points more likely to graduate high school in four years (58% baseline), though not within six years, and enrolled in college sooner but not more often overall, according to J-PAL’s summary. Female winners reported about 10 points fewer teen pregnancies (17% baseline), and male winners’ incarceration was zero against 4%. There were no differences in drug or alcohol use or in self-reported health. The working paper abstract reports a larger college effect (14.1 points); we follow the more conservative published summary.

4. What do you get for your dollar?

Our central estimate is $336K per DALY, using one modeled equivalent year. It is an income-only comparison: we credit no health gain and do not value the teen-pregnancy or incarceration effects.

Cost. HCZ’s FY2023 expense was $117.3M, about $5,975 per person served by its own programs. We charge that for six school years per Promise Academy student, $35,850, and treat the charter school’s public per-pupil funding as replacing what the district would otherwise spend.

Benefit. The 0.283 SD math gain is about 11 percentile points; at Chetty et al.’s $150 a year per percentile, that implies about $2,340 a year in 2025 dollars. We treat half as causal, 60% as net welfare, from age 25 to 59 on a $35,000 base, with 0.9 for displacement and 0.8 for NYC residence.

Range. Adding the charter school’s own spending gives $1.5M per DALY; charging all HCZ spending to charter students gives $4.4M per DALY. If the full association is causal, $168K per DALY. If the test gains never reach adult earnings, there is no credited benefit.

Model, assumptions and sensitivity

HCZ Inc FY2023 expense per person served (own programs) × six school years; charter per-pupil funding excluded as displacing district spending.

Harlem students; 0.8 of adult earning years in the NYC metro.

Price = 10 × (HCZ cost per person × 6) ÷ [0.5 × discounted years(ages 25–59 from 12) × ln(1 + 0.6 × gain ÷ base) × causal × non-displacement × NYC share]. Gain = 0.283 SD × 37.5 percentiles/SD × $150 × CPI. Health = 0.

HCZ Inc FY2023 expense
117336803 USD (observed). Form 990, year ending June 2023. [propublica]
People served by HCZ programs
19638 people (observed). FY22 impact report (traditional programming). [hcz-impact]
Charter FY2023 expense
29941591 USD (observed). Promise Academy charter Form 990. [propublica-charter]
Charter students
1500 students (judgment). Implied by charter spending at roughly $20,000 per pupil; not observed.
Persistent math effect
0.283 SD (observed). Six years after the lottery. [dobbie-fryer]
Causal share of score-earnings link
0.5 share (judgment). As in the Saga review; no lasting graduation or enrollment difference in J-PAL’s summary. [jpal]

HCZ spending per person over six years; charter funding treated as displacing district spending: Cost: $3.6M; New York City health QALYs: 0.00; all-population health QALYs: 0.00. Income-equivalent healthy years: 10.67. HCZ Inc FY2023 expense per person served (19,638) for six school years; persistent 0.283 SD math gain; half the score-earnings association causal; 0.9 non-displacement; 0.8 NYC residence.

Add the charter school’s own spending: Cost: $15.6M; New York City health QALYs: 0.00; all-population health QALYs: 0.00. Income-equivalent healthy years: 10.67. Counts Promise Academy’s public per-pupil spending (about 1,500 students, judgment) as an added cost.

Charge all HCZ spending to charter students: Cost: $46.9M; New York City health QALYs: 0.00; all-population health QALYs: 0.00. Income-equivalent healthy years: 10.67. Attributes every HCZ program to the charter students’ benefit.

Full score-earnings association is causal: Cost: $3.6M; New York City health QALYs: 0.00; all-population health QALYs: 0.00. Income-equivalent healthy years: 21.34. As education economists often assume.

Quarter of the association is causal: Cost: $3.6M; New York City health QALYs: 0.00; all-population health QALYs: 0.00. Income-equivalent healthy years: 5.33. Stronger fade-out of the earnings link.

Test-score gains do not raise adult earnings: Cost: $3.6M; New York City health QALYs: 0.00; all-population health QALYs: 0.00. Income-equivalent healthy years: 0.00. J-PAL’s summary finds no lasting difference in graduation or ever enrolling in college.

Counterfactual: Lottery losers in other NYC schools.

Attribution: A gift is credited with the average Promise Academy effect per student at HCZ’s average per-person cost; other HCZ programs unquantified.

Dominated by the test-score-to-earnings link and by whether charter public funding is a real added cost.

Sensitivity

  • Add the charter school’s own spending: $1.5M per DALY. Counts Promise Academy’s public per-pupil spending (about 1,500 students, judgment) as an added cost.
  • Charge all HCZ spending to charter students: $4.4M per DALY. Attributes every HCZ program to the charter students’ benefit.
  • Full score-earnings association is causal: $168K per DALY. As education economists often assume.
  • Quarter of the association is causal: $672K per DALY. Stronger fade-out of the earnings link.
  • Test-score gains do not raise adult earnings: no finite positive estimate. J-PAL’s summary finds no lasting difference in graduation or ever enrolling in college.

Unresolved inputs

  • Current Promise Academy enrollment and per-student cost.
  • Adult earnings for lottery participants.
  • Valuation of teen-pregnancy and incarceration effects.

Health and income breakdown

For the modeled $3.6M: 0.00 health QALYs + 10.67 income-equivalent healthy years in New York City: $336K per DALY. Income equivalents are welfare comparisons, not observed QALYs or DALYs.

Method and caveats.

5. Funding and previous grants

Harlem Childrens Zone Inc reported FY2023 (June) expenses of $117.3M, up from $104.3M in FY2022, after $152.5M in FY2021, funded almost entirely by contributions ($98.3M in FY2023). The Promise Academy charter entity reported $29.9M of expenses in FY2023. We have not seen a costed plan for adding students or services.

Annual expenses

Organization-level spending, including programs, administration and fundraising. The research list averages three comparable, consecutive full fiscal years when available.

  • FY 2021: $152.5M; Harlem Childrens Zone Inc, EIN 23-7112974, 12-month period, IRS Form 990 total functional expenses, fiscal year ending June. Source
  • FY 2022: $104.3M; Harlem Childrens Zone Inc, EIN 23-7112974, 12-month period, IRS Form 990 total functional expenses, fiscal year ending June. Source
  • FY 2023: $117.3M; Harlem Childrens Zone Inc, EIN 23-7112974, 12-month period, IRS Form 990 total functional expenses, fiscal year ending June. Source

6. Sources

  1. The Medium-Term Impacts of High-Achieving Charter Schools on Non-Test Score Outcomes (NBER w19581). Dobbie and Fryer, National Bureau of Economic Research. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  2. The Medium-Term Impacts of High-Achieving Charter Schools in the United States. J-PAL. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  3. Social Programs That Work: Promise Academy (Near Top Tier). Arnold Ventures. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  4. Harlem Children’s Zone 2021–22 Impact Report. Harlem Children’s Zone. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  5. How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings?. Chetty et al., Quarterly Journal of Economics. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  6. Harlem Childrens Zone Inc, Form 990 filings (EIN 23-7112974). IRS, hosted by ProPublica. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  7. Harlem Childrens Zone Promise Academy Charter School, Form 990 filings (EIN 76-0756768). IRS, hosted by ProPublica. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.
  8. Cost-effectiveness: health and log-income comparison. Coefficient Giving. Published: not stated; retrieved: 2026-10-18.