Learning About KIPP: Lesson 2, Kipp Crusaders
Number 2 of 3 posts, based on a book chapter published this fall in a volume edited by Dr. Philip Kovacs: The Gates Foundation and the Future of US Public Schools (Routledge Studies in Education and Neoliberalism):
. . . . KIPP CrusadersIn an interview posted at the weblog, Open Education, on December 11, 2008, David Socol makes the case that KIPP and TFA embody the zeal of well-heeled colonialist missionaries on a crusade to save the souls of indigenous urban poor children by converting them to middle class values and middle class mindsets. The history of missionary efforts is replete, or course, with examples that good intentions offer no immunity from very bad results, with the conversion process often lapsing into indoctrination, exploitation, cultural genocide, or other bad outcomes that would never be accepted in more civilized settings with less primitive souls to save. Socol (2008) makes the same point when he angrily suggests that