New Report From KIPP Charters

Educators argue often whether their work should be judged by test scores. There are thoughtful people on both sides of the debate. We journalists tend to focus on exam results because so many of our readers say that is what they want, and such information is relatively easy to get from regular public schools.

Private schools, unfortunately, rarely provide such information, and data from public charter schools have also been difficult to obtain. Charters are public schools; their students, unlike private school students, take the same state tests regular public school students do. But they are not part of the public school systems that have staffs assigned to gather and release test score results, so their data sometimes emerge in a haphazard way, or not at all.

Thank goodness, then, for those few charter school groups that focus intently on test data and make that data readily available to the public. Those school networks include Achievement First, Aspire, Green Dot, Edison, IDEA, Noble Street, Uncommon Schools, YES and a few others designed to give children from low-income families the extra time, encouragement and great teaching they need.

The most advanced of this bunch, in both information dissemination and achievement gains, is the Knowledge Is Power Program -- KIPP -- a 14-year-old network that this summer expects to have 66 schools in 19 states and the District. I am obsessed with identifying and examining the most successful efforts to reverse our long national neglect of school children from poor families, so I have made KIPP a special project. My book about the organization's surprising beginnings will be published in January. I have started work on a second book about KIPP's national growth, and I have tried to make this column the best source of news on KIPP educators and students.

Today, KIPP releases its new annual Report Card, available for the first time on its Web site, http://kipp.org. Its test score results continue to be impressive. No other program has shown gains as great for as many poor children as KIPP has done. But what caught my eye were two new developments. First, KIPP's focus on building fifth- through eighth-grade middle schools seems to be shifting toward an emphasis on starting elementary schools, as its first efforts in that direction bear fruit. Second, even in one of its strongest cities, Houston, the birthplace of KIPP, the new report reveals that bad first-year results for new KIPP middle schools are still possible, and the organization, as its leaders often admit, still has much to learn.

The report reveals the growing influence of Richard Barth, 41, a former Edison executive who was named chief executive of the KIPP Foundation in December 2005. The foundation does not run the schools. Each principal makes the decisions for his or her school, with input from the director of the cluster of KIPP schools in that area. For instance, the two young teachers who founded KIPP in 1994, Dave Levin, now 38, and Mike Feinberg, 39, direct the KIPP school clusters in New York City and Houston, respectively. The foundation, begun by Gap clothing stores founders Doris and Don Fisher, selects and trains the KIPP school principals, key to the program's success, and supports them with research and analysis.

Barth, like many KIPP leaders and teachers, came out of the Teach for America program, which places high-achieving recent college graduates in disadvantaged schools. He was among the first staff members of that rapidly growing organization and is married to its founder, Wendy Kopp. He has overseen the expansion of the KIPP leadership training program, arranged a five-year randomized study of KIPP results and conceived a dual purpose for his organization. KIPP helps its communities, the report says, "by transforming the lives of the kids we serve in our current network of schools; and [b]y inspiring others -- as we continue to reach more students in more communities--to reconsider what is possible in public education."

The report reveals that Barth has set a goal of expanding KIPP's network to 100 schools serving 24,000 students by the year 2011, slightly ahead of the KIPP average of nine new schools a year since it began to expand in 2001 from Feinberg's and Levin's first two schools. In an interview, Barth said much of this growth will still be middle schools, which make up more than 80 percent of the KIPP total, but a shift is under way toward more elementary and high schools.

The need for high schools has been obvious for some time. The two original KIPP schools in Houston and New York placed their graduating eighth-graders in private schools--including some famous ones like St.Mark's--and public magnet schools that could be counted on to demand the same high standards. But since 2005, many more KIPP eighth-graders produced by the Fisher-financed expansion have been seeking high-school placements, and there is not enough room in good high schools to serve them all. Jim O'Connor, principal of the KIPP Ascend middle school in Chicago, told me this month that five students from his last year's eighth grade who are in regular public high schools are having the most difficult time, because their schools lack the focus on strong academic results they found at KIPP.

There are five KIPP high schools now, two more expected to open this summer and at least three more planned by 2010. Yet that growth is not as impressive as the rise of KIPP elementary schools. By this summer, there will be eight of them, a number that Barth said could easily double by 2010. Barth told me that the elementary school leaders are finding that KIPP's focus on imaginative and demanding teaching and longer school days is raising disadvantaged pre-kindergartners and kindergartners to normal suburban achievement levels very quickly. Given that success, he said, it makes no sense to limit his organization to opening middle schools that have to struggle to rescue fifth-graders who start two or three years below grade level. It will take several years, but KIPP leaders envision a day when most KIPP students will start at age 4 or 5 (depending on when state funds for charter schools kick in). By high school, those leaders assert, their students will be learning at a level just as sophisticated as the children of affluent American families who attend schools like St. Mark's.

This summer, KIPP will have about 16,000 students, about 60 percent African American and 35 percent Hispanic. About 81 percent will be from families poor enough to qualify for federal lunch subsidies.

Many education experts wonder if KIPP will be able to find enough principals and teachers with the energy and dedication to work 9 1/2 -hour school days, plus every other Saturday and three-week summer sessions. The frequently asked questions page of the KIPP Web site says schools are developing ways to prevent teacher burnout. Among KIPP teachers, it says, there are "young parents who leave at 5 p.m. to pick up their children from daycare, part-time teachers who job share, and teachers who continue to work past 5 p.m." It says 53 percent of KIPP teachers are white and 47 percent are African American, Hispanic or Asian American.