KIPP: Reaching underserved middle schoolers

Kappa Delta Pi Record, Winter 2003 by Choi, W Christine

THE FIVE PILLARS

In historically underserved urban and rural areas, a public school model gives middle-schoolers an improved chance at college and life.

Once a prosperous agricultural center, Helena, Arkansas, is quietly fading like its stately but peeling Victorian homes. Vines smother the shuttered high school, a reminder of the town's dwindling population.

One block of Helena's historic downtown, however, bursts with energy and hope. A renovated train depot houses a new public school-KIPP Delta College Preparatory. Founding Director Scott Shirey has led his teachers into housing projects to recruit parents and students. "Only 75 kids in Arkansas have this kind of chance," he tells them. "At KIPP, the most important date is when you'll go to college." This past summer, the school opened to 75 fifth-graders, with a plan to add a grade each year up to eighth.

What Is KIPP?

KIPP, which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, is a fifth-- to eighth-grade public school model that has seen success in dissimilar places such as the South Bronx, Houston, Washington, D.C., and rural North Carolina. The program seeks to plant schools in historically underserved urban and rural areas-including towns like Helena-across the country. More than 90 percent of KIPP students are African American or Latino, and more than 80 percent qualify for the federal free- or reduced-- lunch program.

In 1994, fifth-grade teachers Michael Feinberg and David Levin created KIPP after watching students' academic performance wane once they entered large and overcrowded middle schools. They started an extended-day and year program for 50 fifth-graders in inner-city Houston. KIPP students got noticed when they quickly made higher-than-average academic gains each year.

In Arkansas, where fourth-- graders overall achieved an 18 percent passing rate in reading and 13 percent in math on the 2000 state exams, KIPP may be the ticket to a better future.

How KIPP Has Grown

In 1995, Levin opened KIPP Academy in the South Bronx, which the New York Senate has recognized as the highest performing public middle school in the Bronx in reading, math, and attendance every year since 1998. KIPP Academy Houston has been named a Texas Exemplary School by the Texas Education Agency for every year it has been in existence. Students' test scores are consistently among the highest in their respective districts. Whereas schools typically exempt between 10 to 20 percent of students, almost all KIPP students are tested.

After a feature on 60 Minutes, KIPP was encouraged to expand into other high-need regions. With the support of Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher, KIPP started offering educators training and support to start and lead their own schools. In 2001, three schools opened; by last summer, 10 more schools were launched, including the one in Helena. Another 19 charter and district-contract schools are expected to open in the summer of 2003.

No two KIPP facilities are alike; some begin in church basements, others are schools within schools, and some occupy their own buildings. All have this trait in common: they are located in historically underserved areas and are brimming with adults and children who choose to be there and who are working hard toward a better future.

Unlike for-profit education management organizations, KIPP does not profit financially from schools and does not dictate curriculum, hiring and firing, or budgets. KIPP schools share a simple model, known as the Five Pillars.

More Time

Nearly 1,800 fifth- to eighth-- grade students nationwide attend KIPP's academically rigorous schools from 7:30 A.M. to 5 P.m. each weekday, for four hours every Saturday, and for a month in the summer. For KIPP students, a longer school day, longer school year, and mandatory summer school mean more time to acquire knowledge and skills to prepare for competitive high schools and colleges.

Sandra Diaz, parent of a seventh-grader at KIPP Academy New York, was at first shocked: "How could they send my son home with this much homework and expect him to be back there by 7:25 A.M.? It was ridiculous. Then I realized I was the only one complaining. Chris wasn't complaining; he was doing the work."

Few academic programs use the extended-day strategy effectively. While some tack on time before and after school, many of the activities offered are disconnected from classroom instruction. KIPP's schedule fuses regular classroom hours and extended hours, allowing students to benefit from a unified instructional program through one dedicated faculty in one facility all year long.

Choice and Commitment

KIPP requires participation from students, teachers, and parents. Parents sign a Commitment to Excellence Form that requires them to support school expectations, ensure attendance, and help with homework.

Sometimes students must nourish parents' support. "My mother would tell me it was too early to get up, but I wanted to go to school," said Natalie Perez, a seventh-grader at KIPP Academy New York. "People tease me for being in school so long, but they did not even get past middle school."