Looking at KIPP, Coolly and Carefully

Cissoko got help and encouragement from Tracy McDaniel, 50, principal of KIPP Reach College Preparatory school in Oklahoma City, whose own sixth graders last year were up 33 percentile points in math, 22 percentile points in reading and 26 percentile points in language arts since starting at KIPP. McDaniel first recruited Cissoko for KIPP leadership training in 2002, when she was getting rave reviews as a 24-year-old classroom teacher in Buffalo. They grew so close that he officiated at her wedding.

McDaniel said Cissoko had a great start, but lost good teachers and had trouble replacing them. She tried to regain her momentum, he said, but could not get back up to the KIPP standard. KIPP leaders, he said, "make a promise to kids" to raise their level of achievement and prepare them for good high schools and college. The standards, and the possibility of losing the KIPP name, are important motivators, he said. The foundation took the action it did, he said, because Cissoko "did not meet the benchmarks that KIPP put in place last summer."

McDaniel and Cissoko said they are still close, and will continue to work on her school's improvement. The most important part of the KIPP model is the independence of principals, who run their schools as they like as long as they show good results. Many KIPP principals say that leads to creative solutions to the many problems that plague their schools despite their glowing press clippings. One such difficulty is families pulling their kids out of some KIPP schools after just a year.

At the KIPP Bridge College Preparatory school in Oakland, Calif., for instance, of the 87 students who enrolled in fifth grade in 2003, 32 later moved out of the area and 30 had parents who decided to remove them from KIPP for other reasons. Twenty-two went back to their regular public schools -- nine left because they did not like the long KIPP day and 13 because KIPP wanted their children to spend another year in fifth grade.

KIPP Bridge principal David Ling said when he told parents repeating the grade would help get their children up to grade level, they often said they thought their children were already excellent students, and would be stars back at their regular schools. I call this the American Idol syndrome, similar to the insistence of untrained singers and their parents on that show that they are great because everyone has been telling them that for years.

The retention issue has been a hot topic in KIPP conferences and email traffic. How can they help these students reach national standards if they quit because of wounded pride? The KIPP schools in Baltimore are now in their third year of a solution they call the Rapid Readers program. It serves all fifth-graders who test below the second grade level in reading. Their families are told from the beginning that it may take them five years to get to eighth grade level. There are no surprises. If they don't like that idea, they are free to withdraw, but most don't. During their first fifth grade year, they spend three hours a day on reading. By the end of their second year in fifth grade, they are ready for sixth grade. At most, only one or two of these dozen families each year, according to KIPP Baltimore executive director Jason Botel, have transferred their children back to the regular school system.

The KIPP report card, and recent KIPP history, show several KIPP schools have struggled. At the KIPP DIAMOND Academy in Memphis, last year's fifth-graders dropped from the 30th to the 29th percentile in reading. Mancini said the board of the Memphis school has moved to correct that situation by persuading Jamal McCall, the highly regarded co-founder and assistant principal at KIPP WAYS Academy in Atlanta, to become principal of KIPP DIAMOND.

So far, two schools have left the KIPP network voluntarily -- one in Dekalb County, Ga., because of philosophical differences one in Sacramento, Calif., because of a desire for more local control. KIPP removed its name from a school in Atlanta because the school's board failed to create what KIPP considered a viable financial plan. Schools in Chicago and Asheville, N.C., that had trouble recruiting enough students gave up the KIPP label and merged with local public schools. KIPP this year dropped plans to turn a Denver public school, Cole Middle, into a KIPP school because none of the people who had successfully completed the KIPP principal training program wanted to go there. Nonetheless, more than 90 percent of schools started by KIPP since 1995 are still operating.

Trying to follow my own advice, I asked some well-informed critics about the latest KIPP statistics. Gerald W. Bracey, an educational psychologist, author and columnist, said "I would give 'sloppy' journalists only half the blame for the KIPP-as-magic-bullet phenomenon. I'd put at least half on Heritage, Walton, Fisher and other conservative think tanks who have used KIPP to say that if it can happen there it can happen anywhere."

Caroline Grannan, a public school advocate and blogger who follows charter school issues, said "KIPP schools succeed for some students--but it's a select subset of students. KIPP is evidently not the solution to the challenges facing urban public education. It would be wonderful to see the vast private funding that's poured into the KIPP schools, which serve just that limited subset, benefiting a larger segment of high-need students."

KIPP schools are supported mostly by tax dollars, as public charter or contract schools. Per pupil funding varies widely, from $4,800 in Oklahoma City to $13,000 in D.C. The report card said its schools spend on average another $1,100 to $1,500 per pupil to cover the costs of the extra learning time, annual field trips and facilities.

The report card said the average student who has been with KIPP three years started at the 44th percentile in math and the 34th percentile in reading at the beginning of fifth grade. By the end of seventh grade that student was at the 83rd percentile in math and the 58th percentile in reading. It is important to note that many students who start KIPP in fifth grade move away or decide to return to the regular school system, so the number who stay three years is relatively small. Also, these results are from tests given not by the school district but by KIPP officials so they can place students properly, diagnose weak areas and keep track of their progress. Such internal assessments lack external monitors and thus, at least in theory, can be subject to cheating. But at least three independent studies have decided the KIPP gains are real, and more such research is under way.

I continue to look for programs that have done better than KIPP in raising the achievement level of low-income children, the central problem in American education today. I have not found any yet, and will keep looking. But I will also continue to watch KIPP, with caution and with some hope.