New Report From KIPP Charters

Per-pupil funding for KIPP schools, the new report says, varies widely, "from a low of less than $5,000 per student at a school in the Midwest, to a high of approximately $13,000 per student at some of our schools on the East Coast." Schools raise extra funds through government grants and community donations, which allows them to spend on average an additional $1,100 to $1,500 per pupil above and beyond usual school costs for longer school days, weeks and years and for annual field trips and costly facilities.

Nonetheless, the Web site says, KIPP schools spend the same or less per student than most urban districts, even when counting the extra KIPP fundraising. "One of the ways that KIPP schools do this is by being relatively lean on administrative costs," the Web site says.

The new report details the achievement records of the 49 KIPP schools that have significant test results. Almost all show the strong gains that have made KIPP so popular with parents. But fifth-graders at the Liberation College Preparatory School and Spirit College Prep, new schools in Houston, declined in both reading and math achievement in their first year, based on standardized tests administered by KIPP to keep track of each school's and each child's progress.

Feinberg said his Houston staffers are somewhat puzzled by the results, because the same students did better on the Texas state tests. He has concluded that "we, the adults, failed to set the kids up for success on that particular test," the Stanford 10 Achievement Test. "At KIPP Spirit, the school leader stepped down for health reasons near the beginning of this year, as the pace was too much for her," Feinberg said. "The new school leader is ready to run this marathon. In both Liberation and Spirit, the school leaders and teachers have reviewed the results of both TAKS [the state test] and Stanford, and like all good teachers do, they are re-teaching, making adjustments, uncovering the holes, and simply put, teaching more and teaching better."

For the first time, the report summarizes the results for the 1,000 students who have completed all four years at 25 KIPP middle schools. On average, they jumped from the 40th to the 82nd percentile in math and from the 32nd to the 60th percentile in reading, unprecedented results for that many poor children. Many KIPP students move out of their neighborhoods, or decide they do not want to work that hard, and do not complete the four years, but KIPP leaders say they are working on retaining more students and are showing some progress.

KIPP has also just released, after requests from me and San Francisco blogger/journalist Caroline Grannan, a detailed account of how many KIPP middle-school graduates have gone on to college, the primary goal of KIPP instruction. KIPP spokesperson Debbie Fine said staffers at the two original schools, and at the KIPP to College program, have been keeping track of all 546 students who have completed eighth grade since the two schools began in 1995. (The first year of KIPP, 1994-95, was an experimental program inside one Houston elementary school, most of whose students did not continue in the program.) Of those students, 447 have matriculated to college, for an average college matriculation rate over five years of roughly 82 percent.

That is more than four times the average matriculation rate for black and Hispanic students from low-income families, but KIPP's ability to maintain that progress will be tested in the next few years. Next year, the first students from the major KIPP expansion that began in 2001 will be ready for college. KIPP is also collecting data on obstacles its graduates encounter in college, and how many of them earn degrees.

Those numbers are more difficult to acquire than fifth-grade test scores, but they are also more important. I hope the other school networks trying to give our poorest children the educations they deserve will also be keeping track of their graduates, and sharing what they learn with the rest of us.