GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

“commissioned by the KIPP Foundation”

These five words tells one all they need to know.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

So students who are the chosen few to go to these charters do well “wow that is amazing”

I had a KIPP grad last semester as a ninth grader who couldn’t identify any continent other than Asia on a map. All the others were left blank – no guesses, even. She did receive a “3″ on the state ELA test, so I suppose some would consider her to be part of the KIPP “miracle”, but she was one of my lowest performers.

I taught at a KIPP school for 1 and 1/2 years. It was the worst experience of my life. You are literally required to be in school from 6:45am-5:15pm. They actually made the teachers go door to door in the summers asking potential parents to enroll their kids in KIPP. I saw numerous teachers have nervous breakdowns and 1/2 the staff quit every year. The most “telling” sign of how bad KIPP is took place when I was required to attend one of their summer conventions where all KIPP school representatives meet for 3-4 days. At the end of the meetings there was a big banquet. A KIPP leader wanted to thank all the teachers who came. He asked, “All first year teachers stand up”. When he said this 50% of the banquet teachers stood up. He then said, “All the 2nd and 3rd year teachers stand up.” About 25% of the teachers stood up. He then said, “All the 4th and 5th year teachers stand up”. This time a fraction of teachers stood up. Lastly, he said, “All teachers with 5 or more years stand up.” I was standing at this time with a handful of teachers. This shows that teachers want to get out of KIPP as soon as they can. I do not think you will ever see a teacher spend 30 years at a KIPP school. Please note that I have nothing against KIPP existing as a charter school organization. However, I just wanted to state my terrible experience there. Nobody forced me to work there but I can tell you they sold me a fake bill of goods when they hired me by saying how happy the teachers are there. When I quit, they asked me to fill out an exit interview survey with questions about my experience at KIPP and why I left. I was totally honest with my answers stating that I want to work in a place where I can teach but still have a personal life and start a family. (Both of which are near impossible when teaching at a KIPP school)

Sounds terrific. These reports and articles have to get beyond the constant emphasis on beating the TPS’s academically while there are minor discrepancies here and there regarding enrollment, retention, etc. That’s NOT the larger story!

I’m sure many of these schools do well and serve many disadvantaged students, but at what cost to the TPS’s, the teaching profession and public education? The whole point was to help the system and the professions involved, provide relief and solutions, NOT play into this game of “reform”: become this, become like this, or die out, with no truly workable, decent, educationally substantive solutions in sight.

Are those who write these articles and those who read them really so stupid as to miss the big picture? Is it a mixture of collusion and stupidity? Do people just sort of go with gut reactions and intuitive leaps of faith in certain personalities and news agencies? Does a large portion of the public pretend to have a fundamental thinking disorder? And is it related to tax brackets? Do the wealthy feel the need to appear to give the disadvantaged shortcuts, while taking shortcuts around the borders of their better sense and integrity?

Just A Teacher…..

Please contact me. Click on me and will direct you to my blog and my email address.

I was camping and away from the Internet all week, and what a surprise! I return and find out that researchers paid by KIPP to study KIPP looked at the schools’ attrition but “forgot” to mention the crucial fact that KIPP doesn’t replace the students who leave. And — more surprises — the journalists covering the study largely “forgot” to notice that glaring omission. My goodness — what an epidemic of absent-mindedness!

So what?  That doesn’t change the fact that KIPP is still getting better results even when any students who leave are still counted towards KIPP’s performance, and even when KIPP starts out with students who are lower-performing than their peers.