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In the last year there has been quite a bit of media and policy attention put on urban education reform. Feel-good stories about the success of certain charter school models like the Harlem Children's Zone's Promise Academy, The Uncommon Schools network, and the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) abound. These schools, the media narrative goes, are poor, black and brown kids' great hope - promoting higher test scores, increasing high school graduation rates and advocating for higher levels of college attendance. They are certainly newsworthy, but a closer look reveals that the story of their success is more complex than portrayed. According to research available on the KIPP website, though almost 85 percent of the students graduating from their schools go to college, only 30 percent actually graduate. Of course, high school graduation is a worthy goal, and some college-level work is better than none. But according to the 2011 College Board report, in order to impact poverty rates, increase the qualified workforce for American businesses and ensure economic growth nationwide, college graduation is key.

"KIPP schools provide a valuable service to low-income students. It may not be scalable to a degree that will truly turn around education in struggling communities, but if nothing else KIPP should be studied to see if some of its DNA can be replicated and grafted onto the public school system."

Jay Mathews, a longtime education reporter at the Washington Post and author of its Class Struggle column, is the rare journalist who seems to like telling hopeful stories. Decades ago he wrote Escalante: The Best Teacher in America, about the teacher who was later featured in the movie Stand and Deliver. And now he's written another cheerful profile, this time of Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, the founders of the uber-successful KIPP schools. This week, Mike Petrilli talks with Jay about his book, Work Hard, Be Nice, about what KIPP means for the larger education reform debate, and whether Hollywood has bought the rights to his story. (An excerpt of Work Hard, Be Nice, was published in the Spring 2009 issue of Education Next.)

Johns Hopkins researcher, Bob Balfanz, defined a "dropout factory" as a school that graduates fewer than 60 percent of its 9th grader four years later.  Wonder what Balfanz would call a middle school that loses over 60 percent of its new students in one year!  And yet that is exactly what is happening at the KIPP testing chain gangs that are billed as the future schooling model to emulate for urban America.

"One of the big questions about the highly successful high-poverty KIPP charter schools is whether it's fair to draw broad policy lessons from them given differences in the student populations they educate compared with regular high-poverty public schools."

D.C. teacher Stephanie Black sent me an absorbing e-mail that began with a favorable review of my book "Work Hard. Be Nice" on KIPP school founders Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg. Then she explained why her positive feelings about the KIPP charter school network had deepened her distaste for the D.C. teacher evaluation program, IMPACT.

Educators and policymakers have for years debated the academic performance of charter schools, when compared against traditional public schools. Now a new report focuses on charters' financial performance-and concludes that many well-known charter school networks spend more money than comparable, regular public schools. The report, released by the National Education Policy Center, examines charter schools' spending, as measured by their 990 filings through the Internal Revenue Service, and other state and local data. It focuses on charter school spending in three states: New York, Ohio, and Texas, over a three-year-period, from 2008-2010. But the findings are being strongly disputed by one of the charter operators cited in the report, KIPP, whose spokesman called its cost comparisons a "fiction" and said it does not present charter and regular public school expenses consistently, or transparently.

The Walton Family Foundation is announcing its plans today to donate $25.5 million to the Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP, charter network.

"Costco's monthly magazine, Costco Connections, with a circulation of 8 million, contacted GEM a year ago asking us to debate on the issue of teacher seniority. I wrote that piece in opposition to E4E leader Sydney Morris (GEM/E4E Debate Seniority in Costco Mag: I Go Manno.... ). This year Costco was kind enough to come back to us on the charter issue and they suggested Julie Cavanagh do the article based on her role in opposing the charter school movement. In the August issue Julie debates KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg."

"The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is at the center of the debate over charter schools and the future of American public education-but what does it mean to the students who define its mission? A Patch Special Report. "

The key to the success of KIPP schools, to my mind, is the network's commitment to finding the best possible leader for each school and leaving that person, and the teachers he or she hires, to decide as a team what methods work best for students. All they have to do is show, with test scores, that their students are showing significant achievement gains that will put them on a path to college.

We compare the spending of charters to that of district schools of similar size, serving the same grade levels and similar student populations. Overall, charter spending variation is large as is the spending of traditional public schools. Comparative spending between the two sectors is mixed, with many high profile charter network schools outspending similar district schools in New York City and Texas, but other charter network schools spending less than similar district schools, particularly in Ohio. We find that in New York City, KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon Schools charter schools spend substantially more ($2,000 to $4,300 per pupil) than similar district schools. Given that the average spending per pupil was around $12,000 to $14,000 citywide, a nearly $4,000 difference in spending amounts to an increase of some 30%. In Ohio, charters across the board spend less than district schools in the same city. And in Texas, some charter chains such as KIPP spend substantially more per pupil than district schools in the same city and serving similar populations, around 30 to 50% more in some cities (and at the middle school level) based on state reported current expenditures, and 50 to 100% more based on IRS filings. Even in New York where we have the highest degree of confidence in the match between our IRS data and Annual Financial Report Data, we remain unconvinced that we are accounting fully for all charter school expenditures.

Here the report lets the cat out of the bag: one of the keys to effective CMO behavior management is bribing students to behave. The report notes that "paycheck" of merit/demerit systems are the "backbones of culture-building efforts." At KIPP schools, one of the CMOs honored as "successful," students are, on average, paid $40-$50 a week to incentivize compliant behavior.

"But, beyond this back-and-forth over the churn in these schools and whether it affected the results of this analysis, there's also a confusion of sorts when it comes to discussions of student attrition in charters, whether KIPP or in general. Supporters of school choice often respond to "attrition accusations" by trying to deny or downplay its importance or frequency. This, it seems to me, ignores an obvious point: Within-district attrition - students changing schools, often based on "fit" or performance - is a defining feature of school choice, not an aberration."

"The findings reviewed in this section refer to the results for the most appropriate comparison-the sending schools comparison-unless otherwise noted. Full results are in the body of the report or in the appendices. The CMOs included in this particular study included: KIPP, YES Preparatory, Harmony (Cosmos), IDEA, UPLIFT, School of Science and Technology, Brooks Academy, School of Excellence, and Inspired Vision."

"Advocacy that remains blind to evidence is a dangerous thing-especially in the pursuit of equity and democracy."

In yesterday's State of the City, Mayor Bloomberg said he would encourage Eva Moskowitz' Success Academy charter chain and KIPP to accelerate their expansion.  He may have a fight on his hands. First, see the stickers being pasted all over the glossy recruiting ads in the Williamsburg subways and bus stops for her new charter, to be co-located in MS 50.  (thanks to GothamSchools for the photo to the right.) According to many observers, Eva Moskowitz is recruiting almost exclusively in the northern, primarily white sections of Williamsburg.  (This is a practice she followed  with  the Upper West Success charter on the Upper West side, holding recruiting sessions in the Trump hi-rise condos and at the Jewish center, and producing thousands of glossy promotional flyers in English and almost none in Spanish -- despite the charter law which requires the recruitment of English language learners.)    In Williamsburg, a new coalition, called the Southside Community Schools Coalition has emerged to fight the charter, and its openly racist tactics,  including long-time educational leaders and activists like Luis Garden Acosta, founder of El Puente,  Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, CM Diana Reyna, several local churches, and the District 14 Community Education Council.  An excerpt from their message is below

I was intrigued by this post from Jay Greene today, in which he points out that public schools can learn from charter schools and perhaps can implement some of their successes. Specifically, Greene is referring to KIPP-like "no excuses" charter schools as a model, and their strategies for improving outcomes including much extended school time (longer day/year).  As the basis for his argument, Greene refers specifically to Roland Fryer's updated analysis of Houston's Apollo 20 schools - which are - in effect, models of no excuses charters applied in the traditional public district.

Doris and Donald Fisher, founders of the GAP clothing company, began contributing to education-related causes through various philanthropic organizations in the late 1990s. The Doris and Donald Fisher Fund is the current foundation, although it was formerly known as the Doris and Donald Fisher Education Fund, is still sometimes abbreviated as D2F2, and earlier was known as the Pisces Foundation. The Fishers were early supporters of Edison Schools, and have been major supporters of KIPP and Teach for America. Although I cannot find some of the Fisher's earliest IRS 990s, the family also supported a young organization, The New Teacher Project, founded by Michelle Rhee. As noted on the Fisher's 2011 Form 990, the foundation contributed $250,000 to Rhee's newest organization, StudentsFirst. I gathered Form 990s for the fiscal years ending in 2003 through 2011, and pulled information about contributions made during each of those years. You can find all of these Form 990s through Guidestar.org or Foundation Center's 990 Finder. You can see the information I pulled in an Excel file on my Data page or check out the results below.

KIPP will no longer operate a charter school here. The school's board of directors has retained American Quality Schools to serve as its educational management organization.