more KIPP

• founded in 1994

• now has 52 schools in 16 states

• more than 90 percent of KIPP schools are still operating

from Jay Mathews:

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. [ed.: I love it!]

[snip]

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.

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Looking at KIPP
Jay Mathews

This is amazing:

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.

Incredible.

My campaign line has become:

"The district should take responsibility for raising individual student achievement across all levels of ability in consultation with parents."

I keep saying it, but nobody's buying it. My district doesn't have the faintest interest in raising individual student achievement across all levels of ability, and certainly not in consultation with parents.

heck, no!

I'm sure the special ed folks have a strong interest in raising the achievement of their kids.

That's because they're doing their jobs.

And of course the middle school principal did tell a large audience of unhappy parents that he was "only" concerned with the low-scoring kids & no one else, because "they're the ones who are struggling."

He said this. To parents. None of whom had attended the meeting to discuss special ed or "building services."

I'm told that another one of our high-level administrators said to a parent, "We don't care about the high-achievers. They're doing fine."

Words to that effect.


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