Review of Journeys: Are @KIPP charter schools pathological?
Are @KIPP charter schools pathological? Jim Horn et al. will soon publish a new book entitled Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through “No Excuses” Teaching. The following is a review based on the advance copy that I received.
Jim Horn et al. have collected important perspectives from current and former Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) teachers in a new book entitled Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through No Excuse Teaching. The KIPP corporate charter school chain of schools has received hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate, local, state and federal dollars since its inception in 1994. The KIPP charter chain was started by Mike Feinberg (See Frank Convo with KIPP’s Mike Feinberg: Do you call BS?) and Dave Levin, Teach For America alums, have found ready allies in the corporate education reform movement— whose policies are focused on private control of public schools.Since the KIPP charter chain is privately controlled, they have also restricted access and only allowed a select few outside research projects to enter their schools. Horn wrote in Journeys that he requested access to KIPP schools to expand his sample and was rejected by the charter chain. Sadly, this is not an isolated example of KIPP refusing to cooperate with researchers. I personally experienced the restrictive nature of KIPP schools to outside researchers. A few years ago, KIPP Austin relayed in conversations with a UT-Austin research team that they were having problems with Black
student attrition. A colleague and myself set up a research design that protected their anonymity and we expressed our intent to publish the work. Then the KIPP program was featured on Oprah as an ideal location for Black students and the Austin campus of the KIPP charter chain backed out of the research project. That sequestering experience inspired a peer reviewed research study independent of KIPP Austin published by the Berkeley Review of Education examining the attrition of Black students out of KIPP and other charter schools. We found that charters in Texas often had double and triple the attrition rates of traditional urban public school districts. In fact, Cloaking Inequity, my education policy and social justice blog, was first begun to address the KIPP public relations machine that respond to the black student attrition study. In their press releases, KIPP Review of Journeys: Are @KIPP charter schools pathological? | Cloaking Inequity:
student attrition. A colleague and myself set up a research design that protected their anonymity and we expressed our intent to publish the work. Then the KIPP program was featured on Oprah as an ideal location for Black students and the Austin campus of the KIPP charter chain backed out of the research project. That sequestering experience inspired a peer reviewed research study independent of KIPP Austin published by the Berkeley Review of Education examining the attrition of Black students out of KIPP and other charter schools. We found that charters in Texas often had double and triple the attrition rates of traditional urban public school districts. In fact, Cloaking Inequity, my education policy and social justice blog, was first begun to address the KIPP public relations machine that respond to the black student attrition study. In their press releases, KIPP Review of Journeys: Are @KIPP charter schools pathological? | Cloaking Inequity:
