No Shortcuts
Forbes, by Ira Carnahan
(November 10, 2003)
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 they 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 idea.s "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 an
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."
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