Education Law

The KIPP-ing point

For a decade now, the ed policy world has been wowed by a small but growing network of scrappy charter schools that appear to consistently produce high-achieving students in communities where college-going seems elusive. The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) was founded by two young Teach for America veterans who wanted to show that through a combination of high expectations and hard work, they could prepare traditionally underserved students for success.

The vast majority of KIPP students are low-income, African American and/or Latino. There are no admissions criteria for entry to KIPP academies other than a desire to be there. The program itself is characterized by rigorous curriculum and long hours for students and teachers.

According to the their website, "more than 90 percent of KIPP middle school students have gone on to college-preparatory high schools, and more than 80 percent of KIPP alumni have gone on to college." These dazzling results are what has prompted the attention of many policymakers and journalists. But they have also attracted the skepticism of other educators who wonder if there might be more selectivity going on than meets the eye and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results. Other observers who, like BoardBuzz, are less cynical still wonder if KIPP success can be replicated and brought to scale.

This week The Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice released a study by Columbia University researcher Jeffrey Henig that attempts to answer these questions. Henig reviewed seven studies that have examined KIPP school practices and results. Henig finds that KIPP outcomes seem to be genuine, writing "students who enter and stay in KIPP schools tend to perform better than similar students in more traditional public schools." He found no hard evidence that KIPP admissions policies screened for only the most motivated students, which could overstate their results. Rather, many of the students entered the program with a history of low performance and became high achievers. On the downside, Henig reports that there seem to be high attrition rates among students and teachers both, possibly due to the long hours the program demands.

What can school leaders take away from this? First, they may want to look at the KIPP curriculum to see if their own program measures up. This would be a relatively easy thing to do. Other lessons, like so many other things, come down to time and resources, however. KIPP reinforces the idea students who start from behind may need more instructional time to catch up. How can schools give students the time they need and avoid burning out students and their teachers both? And how can they pay for it?

The Center for Public Education has some helpful information about using school time effectively in addition other resources. It could be a good place to start to look for answers.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on November 11, 2008 (boomark / email).