Charter School Effort Gets $65 Million Lift

Students answer questions at KIPP DC: WILL Academy, one of three KIPP schools in the District. Leading groups are donating to KIPP's Houston expansion. (By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

The charter school movement, begun 16 years ago as an alternative to struggling public schools, will today make its strongest claim on mainstream American education when a national group announces the most successful fundraising campaign in the movement's history -- $65 million to create 42 schools in Houston.

The money, which comes from some of the nation's foremost donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would make the Knowledge Is Power Program the largest charter school organization in the country. KIPP, which runs three schools in Washington, has produced some of the highest test scores among publicly funded schools in the District and has made significant gains in the math and reading achievement of low-income students in most of its 52 schools across the country.

The announcement, several school improvement experts said, raises the charter school movement to a new level of influence, financial strength and public notice. The number of independently run, taxpayer-supported schools has grown rapidly, to nearly 4,000, since the movement began in 1991. But that counts for only about 5 percent of public schools, and most have been small and overlooked. With the KIPP announcement, experts said, donors will be looking for more ways to expand the most successful models and build large systems, as KIPP plans to do in Houston.

"The public demand for these independent public schools is clearly catching on," said Jeanne Allen, president of the pro-charter Center for Education Reform.

Charters are public schools, usually opened by frustrated educators or parents, that receive tax dollars but are run independently of local districts. Their students take the same state tests that students in other public schools do.

Joe Nathan, director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota, said the new KIPP grants, dwarfing the $10.5 million secured last year by the Green Dot charter schools in California, help fulfill the dream of charter school organizers to energize public education with independent schools.

Charter advocates have long argued that their biggest role would be to force regular public schools to improve because of the competition for students. There have been signs of that, with District officials proposing changes as charters have captured 26 percent of public school students, but many parents contend that regular schools have not improved quickly enough and are demanding more charters.

But some parent groups, such as District-based Save Our Schools, say charters should be stopped because they are draining the best students out of public school systems. The group has sued to restrain the charter movement in the District.

Charter schools come in many forms, and some have poor results. National studies suggest that students on average do not perform better in charter schools than they do in regular public schools, but that has not diminished the popularity of high-achieving programs such as KIPP, Green Dot, YES in Texas or Amistad in Connecticut.

KIPP began 13 years ago in Houston as a fifth-grade experimental class taught by Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, then in their 20s. At first, they failed to raise any corporate money for their formula of nine-hour school days; Saturday classes; required summer school; creative teaching; frequent games, songs and field trips; and focus on test results.

KIPP officials said donations for the Houston expansion included $30 million from Houston Endowment, the Hines Interests Limited Partnership and philanthropists Laura and John Arnold. The Gates Foundation pledged $10 million and the Walton Family Foundation, $8.7 million. (Melinda Gates is a member of the Washington Post Co. board.) GAP clothing stores founders Doris and Don Fisher -- KIPP's leading backers since 2000 -- pledged $5.3 million.

Feinberg, who oversees Houston's eight KIPP schools, said he was "humbled, excited and scared to death" by the expansion, which he conceived with Houston businessmen Shawn Hurwitz and Leo Linbeck III, who is also an adjunct faculty member at Rice and Stanford universities.