KIPP Program

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) is a national network of schools which cater to underserved students, helping them to eventually achieve enrollment in college. The schools are opened in high-need areas throughout the United States. This article focuses on when the program began, how it works, KIPP successes, and how a KIPP school is created. The different commitments that teachers, students, and their parents must make to be part of a KIPP school are also included, as well as some criticisms of the program.

Keywords Adequate Yearly Progress; Charter School; Commitment; Curriculum; Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP); Middle School; Norm-Referenced Examination; Standardized Testing; Teachers; Underserved Students

Overview

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) is a national network of schools which cater to underserved students, helping them to eventually achieve enrollment in college. The program began in 1994 when instructors Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin began a fifth grade program at an inner-city school in Houston, Texas. The following year, a KIPP middle school was established in Houston and another one was established in the South Bronx in New York. According to KIPP's 2012 Report Card, in 2012 over 41,000 students attending 125 KIPP schools located in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Most (95%) of the students enrolled in KIPP students are African American or Latino, and 86% are eligible for free or reduced price meals.

KIPP schools are open enrollment public schools whose mission is to prepare underserved students for college and life. The schools are opened in high-need areas throughout the United States. All students are accepted regardless of their background and academic record. If more students apply than there are spaces available, spaces are filled by a lottery system. Currently, “over 80 percent of all KIPP students are eligible for free or reduced meal programs, and over 90 percent of KIPP students are either African-American or Hispanic” (Mathews, 2005, ¶ 13).

The hallmark of the program is that students, instructors, and parents alike all work hard to enable students to learn in a safe, structured environment. In keeping with the KIPP philosophy of "work hard, be nice," student success is measured not only by test scores and adequate yearly progress but also by how students relate with each other and develop as people. KIPP schools provide a college preparatory education and a broad-based curriculum. Students are in school longer each day and during the summer, which enables students to receive additional time on both core subjects and other subjects, such as art and music and elective classes (KIPP, 2007c). Typical school days run from 7:25 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. on Fridays. There are also half days on designated Saturdays. KIPP schools also have a longer school year than a typical public school, with school running 220 days versus the typical 180 required days for most school districts (Ness, 2004). This equates to close to 20 percent more school days for KIPP students and even more seat time when the extended school days are taken into consideration.

How Does KIPP Work?

KIPP contracts with its schools through what they call "trademark license agreements." For using the KIPP name, a school pays KIPP a percentage of its revenues - one percent the first year and three percent for every year after. KIPP uses the revenues to recoup the cost of some of its training programs and to offset the costs of the services it provides schools. New KIPP schools begin in a small way and usually with 80 or 90 students in the fifth grade. Then the school expands each year after that a grade at a time through the eighth grade with the original students comprising each new grade (Ravitch, 2005).

KIPP does not provide a curriculum for its schools, and it does not mandate either a common curriculum or particular instructional programs at its schools. However, school founders become their schools' principals, so they can bring in elements of the original KIPP school model based on the training they received before they were granted permission to create a KIPP school. KIPP does not help its schools with operational services, such as accounting or payroll.

The Five Pillars

KIPP schools run on the premise of five operating principles, which they call the "five pillars." These principles are:

• High expectations,

• Choice and commitment,

• More time,

• Power to lead, and

• Focus on results.

KIPP schools are expected to “have clearly defined and measurable expectations for academic achievement and conduct, and no excuses are made based on students' backgrounds. Students, their parents, and teachers choose to participate in the program” and as such are expected to make a commitment to the school to put forth the time and effort required to achieve success (Ashford, 2002, ¶ 24). KIPP schools operate on the premise that with an extended school day, school week, and school year, students will have more opportunity and time to learn skills while in the classroom, which in turn enables them to be prepared for more rigorous high school curricula and success in college. The power to lead gives KIPP principals control over their school budgets, curriculum, and personnel. This gives them freedom to move quickly to make changes whenever necessary to maximize the students' learning environment. By focusing on results and pursuing high results on standardized and high-stakes tests and other academic measures, students know they must reach a high level of academic success that will allow them to continue their achievements in high school and college (KIPP, 2007d).

The Point System

KIPP offers students some incentives to attend school and excel. KIPP students can receive credits or points that allow them to purchase items from the school store or join in on a class field trip. Every week students earn points based on their performance and conduct. Some of the behaviors for which students can earn credits include attending school, being on time, coming to class prepared, and completing homework. However, students can also be fined for exhibiting poor behavior, such as not being prepared for class, having a messy desk, lying, cheating, or stealing (Schewe, 2006). Students receive these credits in the form of a paycheck, and both the student and their parents must endorse the form when purchasing something from the KIPP store. Items at the school store include books, shirts, class supplies, and even computers (Grann, 1999).

Student, Parent & Teacher Commitment

KIPP schools require their students, parents, and teachers to sign a Commitment to Excellence pledge. By signing these pledges, everyone promises to adhere to the stated standards or risk being dismissed from the school. Although these pledges vary by school, the themes are similar. The official KIPP website provides sample forms that schools may use.

Students

Students commit to arriving at school on time by 7:25 a.m. and remaining until 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, remaining until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. on Fridays, and attending school on designated Saturdays. Students also agree to attend school in the summer. In addition, students may pledge to work diligently, behave properly, and make learning their priority. Students pledge to do their homework every night and come to class prepared each day. They promise to call their teachers if they get stuck on a problem or concept while doing their homework. Students also agree to adhere to the KIPP dress code, follow all directions, and respect their fellow classmates, teachers, and everyone in the KIPP community (KIPP, 2007e).

Parents

Parents commit to making sure their children arrive at school on time every day or board the bus every day. They also promise to make arrangements so their children can stay at school until it is over and can come to school on designated Saturdays. Parents also agree that their children will attend summer school, they will allow their children to go on field trips, and they will make sure that their children follow the KIPP dress code. Additionally, parents agree to always help their children to the best of their ability, which means they will oversee and review their children's homework, let them call the teacher at night, and try to read with them every night. They also agree to be available to school personnel when requested, inform the school whenever their children are going to miss school, and will carefully read anything the school sends home with their children. Parents also agree that they are responsible for their children’s behavior while in school, and that the school itself is not accountable (KIPP, 2007e).

Teachers

Teachers commit to arriving at school on time every day and staying until school is over. They also agree that they will come to KIPP on designated Saturdays for school and that that they will teach during the summer. Teachers agree that they will teach “the best way they know how and will do whatever it takes for their students to learn. KIPP teachers also agree that they will always make themselves available to their students and parents,” including evenings, and by supplying them with their cell phone number so that they are always accessible (KIPP, 2007e, ¶ 6).

Some schools have their students, parents, and teachers all sign a "Recommitment to Excellence" form every year to reinforce their commitment to the KIPP program and the standards expected of everyone ("KHHS Re-Commitment to Excellence," 2007).

KIPP Successes

According to KIPP's 2012 Report Card, in 2010, 96% of KIPP classes outperformed students in local districts on state tests in reading, and 92% outperformed local students on state tests in math. Among graduating seniors at KIPP high schools, 71% took at least one AP (Advanced Placement) test, and 48% received a score of 3 or higher on at least one AP test. Almost all (92%) of KIPP students graduate from high school, 83% begin college, and 40% complete a four-year college program; in comparison, for low income students as a whole, 72% graduate from high school, 45% begin college, and 10% complete a four-year college program.

KIPP's 2012 Report Card also reports results for the 19 cities with multiple KIPP schools (mainly large cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City), and the 12 cities with one KIPP school (which include Albany, New York; Dallas, Texas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and St. Louis, Missouri), and more information is available from the KIPP website (www.kipp.org/reportcard).

KIPP reports “that the average KIPP student who has been in a KIPP school for three years begins the fifth grade at the 34th percentile in reading and the 44th percentile in mathematics” based on norm-referenced examinations (Mathews, 2005, ¶ 11). After three years in the KIPP program, the same students are ranked in the 58th percentile in reading and the 83rd percentile in mathematics. Eighty percent of students who have graduated from a KIPP school in the eighth grade have enrolled in college, which is over 60 percent better than the averages of the communities these schools serve (KIPP, 2007c). The first pre-kindergarten and elementary school reports that after two years students are performing above grade level in reading and writing with students reading two grade levels above kindergarten level in both English and Spanish by the end of kindergarten (KIPP, 2007b). While all these numbers and successes are impressive, it must be noted that many students who begin KIPP in the fifth grade either move away or decide to leave KIPP and return to their regular school-district-run school, which means that the number of students who are still enrolled at the school after three years is relatively small compared to other schools and may affect these outcomes (Mathews, 2007, ¶ 7).

Further Insights

KIPP created a competition to identify one or two eligible communities each year. In 2006, they chose two new sites for schools and then decided to curtail the growth and focus on long-term sustainability of the schools that were already in existence. However, according to the

According to KIPP's 2012 Report Card, KIPP expects to be operating about 200 schools, serving over 60,000 children, by the fall of 2015.

Training KIPP Personnel

KIPP has created a foundation that focuses on recruiting and training instructors to open new KIPP schools in other high-need communities. Through the program, instructors are trained to become school leaders through a program of coursework, residencies at other KIPP schools, and approval from existing KIPP staff (KIPP, 2007a). Before leading a KIPP school, prospective principals must be accepted into and complete a KIPP-sponsored leadership program. There are two different leadership programs for training available: The Fisher Fellowship and The Miles Family Fellowship. The Fisher program offers prospective principals a one-year program that will prepare them to begin a new KIPP school. The Miles Family Fellowship takes two years to complete. Participants receive one year of support and leadership experience by teaching at a KIPP school. After teaching for a year, they are then considered for the one-year Fisher program to prepare them to open a new KIPP school and be its principal (KIPP, 2007h). The two-year option can give candidates a very good idea of what is entailed in running a KIPP school and what the expectations are of everyone affiliated with a school because they experience it firsthand.

Viewpoints

There are some critics of the KIPP program, but mostly there are those who doubt that all public schools could replicate KIPP's success. For example, it is doubtful that every school in the nation would be able to get the level of commitment required from parents, students, and teachers that is necessary under the KIPP formula (Hester, 2003). Some critics believe KIPP has proven to be successful simply because it is a charter school. However, analysis of federal statistics completed in 2004 regarding charter schools showed that students “did not have higher achievement rates on average than regular public school students and in some cases had lower scores” (Mathews, 2005, ¶ 9). Critics also dispute how representative KIPP students actually are of low-income communities.

One survey of four “KIPP schools found that KIPP students starting the program in the fifth grade tend to have more motivated parents and better test scores than their community averages,” but KIPP officials do not believe there is any significant difference in the skills of their students and students who choose not to enroll in a KIPP school (Mathews, 2005, ¶ 4). However, the same study also found that there was no evidence to dispute the fact that KIPP can provide students “with the motivation and opportunity to do well that they may not get in a regular public school” (Rothstein, n.d., as cited in Mathews, 2005, ¶ 4). There are also critics who say that KIPP student scores have increased so much because they recruit students who have motivated parents.

This argument is not necessarily sound, however, because these students had the same parents when they were not doing as well in their regular public schools. The KIPP program does not require so much from parents to make it overwhelming for them, and they are not even expected to help their children with homework. All they have to do is make sure that their children complete their homework, sign off on it, read whatever is sent home with their children, and make sure their children get to school on time. If they do not hold up their end of the bargain, then their children are disciplined and they are asked to come to school to discuss the challenges they are having with their commitment to the KIPP program (Mathews, 2005).

Angrist and colleagues (2012) examined the charge that KIPP schools show better achievement than ordinary public schools because they have fewer students with special needs or who are English Language Learners. According to KIPP's 2012 Report Card, nationally 9% of KIPP students receive special education services, and 15 are designated as English Language Learners. Looking at students at KIPP Academy Lynn, in Lynn, Massachusetts, they found that this hypothesis was not supported. Instead, as a group special education and limited English proficiency students showed the greatest gains of any students, improving their reading scores by about 0.35 standard deviations each year.

KIPP also requires unique teachers and principals. It is not unheard of for principals starting a new school to be out in public in front of grocery and department schools with flyers in hand making sure that residents are aware that there is a new alternative to their child's current school. Local teachers from the regular school district have been known to encourage some of their students to consider transferring to a KIPP school (Mathews, 2005). Principals have also been known to go door-to-door in neighborhoods to make sure that families in the neighborhood are aware that they have a choice about their child's education and recruit new students (KIPP, 2007c). Instructors must have even more commitment to their profession than other public-school teachers because they are expected to stay after school if their students need them and be willing to accept telephone calls from both parents and students at all hours of the day and night. In fact, Yeh (2013) argues that the primary reason for the success of KIPP schools is their ability to attract extremely dedicated teachers; since there are a limited supply of such teachers in the nation, Yeh argues that the KIPP program cannot be scaled up to the national level.

Since its inception, there have been six schools that are no longer designated KIPP schools (Mathews, 2007). Schools can lose the KIPP brand name if, in KIPP's opinion, they do not live up to KIPP standards (Ravitch, 2005). However, before that happens, they are given an opportunity to improve and meet whatever benchmarks KIPP has imposed. Two schools of the six have left KIPP voluntarily-one because of philosophical differences with the program and one because they wanted more local control. Schools can involuntarily lose the KIPP name for a variety of reasons, such as not having a viable financial plan, not being able to recruit enough students, and not following the five KIPP operating principles. Despite these challenges, more than 90 percent of schools started by KIPP since 1995 are still operating under the KIPP name (Mathews, 2007).

Terms & Concepts

Adequate Yearly Progress: Adequate yearly progress, for No Child Left Behind Act purposes, means that test data must be collected and analyzed in relation to student learning to report student and school proficiency, and the standards that determine proficiency must be raised over time with an increased number of students meeting the standards.

Charter School: Charter schools are public educational institutions that are independently run and not part of school districts. They receive state funding, have greater flexibility, and students are eligible for the same state and federal programs that are available to students served by school districts.

Norm-Referenced Examination: Norm-referenced examinations are assessments administered to students to determine how well they perform in comparison to other students taking the same assessment.

Standardized Testing: Standardized testing is the use of a test that is administered and scored in a uniform manner, and the tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent.

Bibliography

Angrist, J. D., Dynarski, S. M., Kane, T. J., Pathak, P. A., & Walters, C. R. (2012). Who benefits from KIPP? Journal of Policy Analysis & Management 31 , p. 837-860. Retrieved December 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=79862822&site=ehost-live

Ashford, E. (2002). At KIPP schools, more time in school translates into higher test scores. National School Boards Association. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.nsba.org/HPC/Features/AboutSBN/SbnArchive/2002/November2002/tKIPPschoolsmoretimeinschooltranslatesintohighertestscores.aspx

Ellison, S. (2012, Nov./Dec.). It's in the name: A synthetic inquiry of the Knowledge is Power Program. Educational Studies 48 , p. 550Ð575. Retrieved December 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=83776520&site=ehost-live

Grann, D. (1999). Back to basics. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.cs.unm.edu/~sto/maunders/educate/grann.html

Hester, J. (2003). Ethical leadership for school administrators and teachers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

KHHS re-commitment to excellence. (2007). Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipphouston.org/kipp/Recommitment%5fEN.asp?SnID=929130157

KIPP (2007a). Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/

KIPP (2007b). About KIPP: School achievement. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/01/schoolachievement.cfm

KIPP (2007c). About KIPP: FAQ: Frequently asked questions. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/01/kippfaq.cfm

KIPP (2007d). About KIPP: Five pillars. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/01/fivepillars.cfm

KIPP (2007e). About KIPP: Commitment to excellence. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/01/commitment%5ffull.cfm

KIPP (2007f). Bring KIPP to your area: Overview. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/07/

KIPP (2007g). Lead a KIPP school: KIPP school leadership program. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/03/cities.cfm

KIPP (2007h). Lead a KIPP school: Overview. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.kipp.org/03/

Mathews, J. (2005). Assessing the KIPP schools-a new perspective. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9576-2005Mar29.html

Mathews, J. (2007). Looking at KIPP, coolly and carefully. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042400558.html

Ness, M. (2004). Lessons to learn: Voices from the frontlines of Teach for America. New York, NY: Routledge.

Ravitch, D. (2005). Brookings papers on education policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Schewe, A. (2006). No excuses or short cuts at Atlanta charter school. Retrieved November 19, 2007 from

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/02/kipp.ways/index.html

Yeh, S. S. (2013, April). A re-analysis of the effects of KIPP and the Harlem Promise Academies. Teachers College Record 115 , p. 1Ð20. Retrieved December 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Carnoy, M., Jacobsen, R., Mishel, L. & Rothstein, R. (2005). The Charter School Dust- Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

E.W.R. (2011). Inspiration for KIPP schools, teacher Harriet Ball, dies. Education Week. p. 5. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=58699703&site=ehost-live

Hess, F. (2004). Common Sense School Reform. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ouchi, W. & Segal, L. (2003). Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.