Posted on 12/01/2003 2:38:53 PM PST by Temple Owl
No Shortcuts
Ira Carnahan, 11.10.03
KIPP DC students spend twice as many hours on the basics, and it shows.
KIPP DC: Key Academy, a middle school in a poor neighborhood in southeast Washington D.C., is no model of racial integration. Last year it didn't have a single white student. This year it has one. But the absence of white pupils certainly doesn't hamper the progress of its overwhelmingly black, low-income students and isn't something the staff and students would seem to have the time to worry about.
They're too busy working long hours on the basics. At KIPP DC students attend class from 8 to 5 Monday through Thursday, and until 3:30 on Friday. They also attend a half day on Saturday and an extra month in the summer. In all they spend two-thirds longer in class than the D.C. average. They also leave school with two hours of homework to complete each evening and their teachers' cell phone numbers. There are no excuses for not understanding the assignment.
The long hours and staff dedication pay off. The average fifth grader enters the school here with the test scores of an average third grader. But in less than a year most have caught up to grade level and within two years most test ahead of their grade. Such improvement is almost unheard of--except at other KIPP academies around the nation. KIPP Academy New York, for example, has been the number one public middle school in the Bronx in reading, math and attendance every year since 1998.
KIPP was launched in Houston in 1994 by Michael Feinberg and David Levin, two young dreamers who had spent two years working in the Teach for America program. It has been expanding rapidly since 2002 with the help of $25 million from Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher to train new principals. Right now KIPP focuses solely on grades 5 to 8, with 32 public charter and contract schools in 26 cities. But it has plans in the works for a high school and a preschool program, too.
What makes KIPP work? "The premise is that there are no shortcuts," says Feinberg. "There's no quick, easy, magical way that we can give kids all these academic, intellectual and character skills," he says.
During the week, kids at KIPP DC put in seven hours a day on reading and writing, math, social studies and science. That's twice as much as at a typical D.C. public middle school. KIPP saves most of the extras for Saturdays, when every student learns to play an instrument in the orchestra and can choose from such activities as soccer, ballet and chess.
The facilities are unimpressive. KIPP DC spent its first year operating out of a church basement, and it now occupies the second floor of an old commercial building that's been converted into a school. While KIPP cherrypicks teachers--only those dedicated enough for the long day--it doesn't take only the best students. Entrance is by lottery. And once kids are in, KIPP doesn't just kick them out if they have trouble fitting in or doing the work. In three years its D.C. school has expelled just one student.
Parents play an essential role here. Before a new student ever sets foot in KIPP DC, two staff members visit the child's house to meet with the family and lay out expectations: on-time arrival at school each morning; homework finished every night; and a visit by a parent to the school any time a problem arises. Suburban parents often gripe that their kids get too much homework, but it's typically a lot less than at KIPP, where students, parents and teachers all sign an agreement spelling out expectations.
Lisa Thomas, whose 11-year-old, Hope, entered KIPP DC in 2001, couldn't be more pleased. In two years Hope went from a floundering C student to honor-roll perennial. Worried one Saturday that her daughter might be getting burned out, she offered her the option of staying home. Hope wouldn't hear of it. "Under no circumstances does she want to miss a day from school," says Thomas. "Ever since KIPP, she talks about college. She talks about grade point averages. She talks about her transcripts. And she already knows where she wants to go to school. She wants to go to Princeton."
That's no accident. Feinberg and Levin are intent on preparing students for college--both academically and in their aspirations. College pennants line KIPP DC's hallways. Each classroom is named for the homeroom teacher's college.
As part of what Feinberg describes as KIPP's "whatever it takes" philosophy, the school uses both bribes and punishment to motivate students. Each week students get "paychecks" they can spend at the school store. The amount they get depends on how hard they work and how well they behave. Those earning enough "dollars" over the year get a trip to Disney World or another fun destination. Along the way they tour college campuses.
For discipline KIPP DC has "the bench." A student who is benched stays in class, but can't talk to other kids and is seated separately. Typically two or three kids in a class are benched at any time, since lots of infractions--including unfinished homework and talking back--can get a student sidelined. Compared with the barely controlled chaos in some middle schools (inner city and suburban), students sit quietly and focus when the teacher lectures, moving their gaze when the teacher moves--KIPP calls it "tracking." But they become spirited when it's time for a responsive drill in math or spelling.
Candidates for a principal's job must first complete a year of intense training, including two months of classes at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and two "residencies" at KIPP or other top public schools. Once in their schools, they have unusual freedom to deal with problems and try new ideas. "If we need to hire a teacher or fire a teacher, we can do that," says KIPP DC principal Susan Schaeffler. "We're not caught up in some of the union issues that the public schools are dealing with."
KIPP DC's mostly young teachers get a salary about equal to what they would make in a unionized public school, plus 15% to 20% extra for the added hours they put in. They also get cell phones, laptops and the chance to make a difference. Schaeffler recalls that when she tried on her own as a D.C. public school teacher to keep her kids in class until 4:30, parents of students in other classes wanted the same extra instruction; eventually her principal had to ask her to stop. She says, "I had the energy, I had the wherewithal and the motivation to take, in my opinion, my class to the next level. But the system wasn't supporting it. It was as though we all had to agree to be mediocre."
This is what is going to happen when we finally get a voucher program.
We are winning the war.
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