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School Board News
“Guest Viewpoint: KIPP schools offer model for success”
By Mike Feinberg
October 2006
http://www.nsba.org

Vanessa Ramirez entered KIPP as a fifth-grader in KIPP’s inaugural class over a decade ago. Vanessa grew up in a low-income community in Houston, where few young people aspire for higher education. This past spring, she graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles.

KIPP was designed to give young people like Vanessa more opportunities in life. KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) began in 1994 when Dave Levin and I were “Teach for America” teachers in Houston.

While our students were doing well in class, we quickly became frustrated by what was happening with them once they left our doors. We realized the impact we could have on them in our fifth-grade classroom was limited.

Inspired by one of our mentor teachers, Rafe Esquith, Dave and I sat down one night and put down on a computer screen everything we thought it would take to fully prepare children for success -- after fifth-grade -- in college and their lives beyond.

We began KIPP with 50 Houston fifth-graders. The basic premise was there are no shortcuts to academic success: It’s all about rolling up your sleeves and working hard.

We designed KIPP to be a fifth-grade program where children would come to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, every other Saturday, and for three weeks in the summer.

The next year, Dave returned home to New York City and opened the second KIPP school in the South Bronx. Three years later, KIPP Academy New York and KIPP Academy Houston became the highest-performing schools in their communities.

Six years later, Dave and I were approached by Don and Doris Fisher, founders of Gap Inc., to replicate this concept across the country. In 2000, we created the KIPP Foundation to recruit, train, and support educators to open and operate KIPP schools nationwide.

While KIPP was originally conceived as only one fifth-grade class, we thought that if we made the necessary investment in the people that lead and teach at the schools, we could be successful in growing. There are now 52 KIPP schools in 16 states and Washington, D.C.

Through hard work and high expectations, KIPP is putting underserved kids on the path to college. There is no magic bullet -- just great teaching and longer hours.

A report by the Educational Policy Institute in August 2005 found that KIPP made “large and significant gains,” as compared to traditional urban schools. Nationally, nearly 80 percent of KIPP alumni who graduated from the eighth grade have matriculated to college.

To date, KIPP’s growth and replication has been organic. With so many communities to serve across the country, we began to open schools wherever we could find what we call the three F’s -- funding, facilities, and freedom -- needed to operate a KIPP school.

Moving forward, KIPP’s strategy for growth has shifted from organic to strategic. We are now looking, wherever possible, to form clusters of roughly five or more schools in current KIPP cities. Our goal is to double in size to 100 schools in the next five years.

While we are focused on serving the students in our current schools across America, we also realize that there are underserved students in other communities in need of a high-quality public education.

This July, we launched our new site expansion program that will allow one or two communities to open new KIPP schools starting in the summer of 2008.

The new site expansion process allows community coalitions to apply to bring KIPP to their cities. Community leaders will be able to demonstrate both the need for KIPP, as well as the financial, political, and legal support necessary to open a cluster of KIPP schools.

We believe that the actual proves the possible, and every day our teachers and students are showing that, given the right support, all students can and will learn. Ultimately, we hope that others in public education will see what is happening at KIPP and be inspired to improve their own schools or open a new charter school to do great things.

Vanessa Ramirez’s story is similar to what is happening across the KIPP network. As KIPP grows and touches more communities, we believe that Vanessa’s story will become the norm rather than the exception.

Mike Feinberg is a co-founder of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), www.kipp.org.