Based on their non-answers to my questions (which are on their FAQ page), here is what I have concluded about KIPP so far:
1 - KIPP benefits from enrolling already high-achieving students and their parents.
2 - KIPP tacitly yet powerfully promotes the existence of segregated schools by making them "work." Whether this is a good thing or bad thing remains to be discussed. But it should at least be acknowledged. To paraphrase my friend and colleague Jim Horn, you can call a spade a spade, or you can call it a goddamn shovel.
3 - KIPP has not subjected its achievement data to a rigorous statistical analysis that would determine the standard deviation of the scores; therefore, there is no way to determine if the high scores are the result of a relatively small number of high achieving students or if the scores are representative of the majority of KIPP students (this phenomenon is complicated by KIPP's large attrition rate, which exaggerates the effect of these high scores on the overall averages).
4 - KIPP's rigorous approach contributes to its attrition rate, yet this high attrition rate helps KIPP by making the scores look better than they actually are.
5 - There is no evidence of a broad-based curriculum in place at KIPP schools other than what KIPP claims.
2 comments:
(Some of this post is duplicated in a comment on a previous KIPP post.)
I'm a public-school parent, volunteer and advocate in San Francisco who has been researching KIPP schools as an amateur volunteer.
I have another question about KIPP. It's very clear from my research that KIPP retains students to repeat grades at a high rate. Questions include: how high; how does that compare to traditional public schools; how much does that contribute to high test scores; and does retention confer genuine, lasting academic improvement?
KIPP schools are almost all grades 5-8 in districts where the feeder schools are almost all K-5. Does that indicate that KIPP schools are intended to encourage students to repeat 5th grade, and to weed out those who are unwilling to do that? And where KIPP retention rates are reported (I saw a Baltimore report that mentioned them), do those rates include students who finished 5th grade elsewhere and went through 5th grade again at KIPP?
I took my own 7th-grader in fall 2006 to visit KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy and ask about enrollment. The response included the message that we should not assume she's in 7th grade; she'll be in the grade she tests into. When we were originally looking at middle schools for my oldest child, I visited a number of schools, and never got that message before -- the norm is to assume students remain in their grade on schedule unless there's some significant reason that shouldn't happen.
Also, here's a link to a new blog post of my own on KIPP's Oakland (CA) school, KIPP Bridge College Prep.
http://www.sfschools.org/2007/02/where-have-all-kippsters-gone.html
Post a Comment