Myths and realities about KIPP
This was written by Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. He is the author of "All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice." In this post, he refers to a debate that I had with my inimitable colleague Jay Mathews about school reform that discussed Teach for America and the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP. You can find that debate here. By Richard D. Kahlenberg In the recent education debate between Valerie Strauss and Jay Mathews, a question arose about the attrition rates at the highly regarded Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) schools. The issue is important because if large numbers of weaker students drop out of KIPP’s rigorous program, it would be highly unfair to compare the test score gains won by the top KIPP students against the scores of all regular public school students – who include KIPP dropouts. In the
