Sunday, May 01, 2011

KIPP Schools: A Reform Triumph, or Disappointment?

This from Time:

A new report ... will add to the debate about the Knowledge Is Power Program or KIPP schools — a highly influential non-profit network of public schools serving low-income students. The study is important because it's the first large-scale look at the college completion rate for students in schools at the leading edge of today's reform efforts. The results show that while KIPP graduates—who are 95 percent African-American and Latino and overwhelmingly low-income—far outpace the national averages for similar students, they also fall short of the network's own goals: 33 percent of students who completed a KIPP middle school at least 10 years ago have a bachelor's degree today. Among similar students nationwide, just 8 percent have graduated college.

The study has implications for the growing array of schools with missions and methods similar to KIPP because it begs the question: Is 33 percent an enormous achievement given the challenging environments that KIPP operates in? Or, conversely, should KIPP be achieving better results given the intensive support KIPP students receive?...

Kati Haycock, President of the Education Trust, a national advocacy group for low-income students says she, "can't help but be impressed by KIPP's focus on college and its willingness to hold itself to public account for the college graduation rates of its graduates. At best, most K-12 folks report how many of their graduates entered college, but many don't want even to be accountable for that." ...

1 comment:

Kevin Morgan said...

KIPP schools seem to be showing impressive improvements among students of very low-income or African American/Latino race. This is a very challenging thing to do considering the external situations that exist for the schools to operate in. Often times, if a school is in a lower-end part of town, funding is low as well, which causes problems with maintaining good teachers. This in turn puts a halt on showing increases in graduation rates, and also improving the percentage of students that goes on to college. You would think 33% is impressive, and rightfully so. Given the circumstances from which these schools operate, it is very difficult to push education in people's lives whom their main priority is surviving or finding whatever kind of work they can just to provide for themselves. It's easy to say that we need to send our kids to school and get them a good education when the job and money and life's amenities are all taken care of and secure. But when a person or family has to live day to day not knowing if they will be able to afford groceries or find a job, education is often times put on the back-burner in their minds.