They take very few English language learners.
They dump their behavior problems into the traditional public school system.
They lose 15% of their students every year - 40% of their black male students between the 6th and 8th grades.
They have $6500 more per student to spend on education.
And they have to spend much less on special services since they have few students in need of such services.
Then upshot of all this?
Luis A. Huerta, an associate professor of public policy and education at Teachers College, praised the study for exploring indicators of KIPP’s operations other than student achievement, which, while important, doesn’t tell the whole story, he said.
“If we can start speaking about these more nuanced layers, and move beyond this discussion of student achievement, we tend to get a real picture,” he said. “Here we have schools receiving upwards to $6,000 or more than traditional schools, and that’s not even accounting for the fact they have fewer services than traditional schools, yet the gains they’ve shown in student achievement are quite modest.” Mr. Huerta is a faculty associate of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, which had a hand in distributing the study but did not take part in the research.
The KIPPsters like to push the achievement factor, but given the attrition rate, the additional funding they receive per student, and the make-up of their student body, KIPP surely isn't a model for national education reform.
When the KIPPsters own their students the way traditional public schools do, when they don't lose 15% of their students to attrition or 40% of their black male students between the 6th and 8th grades, when they take a demographic percentage of ELL's and special service students and THEN outscore traditional public schools, when they lose 35% of their money to budget cuts over three years, give me a call.
Until then, I maintain that KIPP is an overhyped, limited charter school for a very few, very motivated children with very motivated parents.
And even then, I think those same students would receive a better education if they weren't subjected to the fascism of the KIPP model.
Funny & weird how we move from one hype or fantasy to another and never learn. And cherrypick data/points from theory and then put them on steroids. Starting with Adam Smith's "enlightened self-interest" of people. What we won't know is that Smith also warned about greed. And other examples : how stock market is going to make us all rich , send our kids to college, help us retire early blah blah... And what was missed was that for many companies, price to earnings ratio was baloney. Then we had this thing on housing - how housing prices will never go down. KIPP is one of such hypes. KIPPsters cherry pick data and provide no context at all. The sooner the bubble pops , the better off we are.
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