Miracle solution or not?
A new study of the five Bay Area KIPP schools by the respected research firm SRI International confirms what we already knew: KIPP students overall perform well academically, usually outperforming their peers in other schools.
But it also confirms what those who look beyond the test scores have found: Those KIPP (two in San Francisco, one in Oakland, one in San Jose, one in San Leandro) schools suffer from very high student attrition. .
Sixty percent of the students who enter the Bay Area KIPP schools in fifth grade leave before the end of eighth grade (page ix of the study, repeated in several places throughout). And the study also confirms what some might suspect -- it's consistently the lower performers who leave:
"On average, those who leave KIPP before completing eighth grade have lower test scores on entering KIPP and demonstrate smaller fifth-grade effects than those who stay," the study reports on Page ix.
To clarify one point that confuses some observers: Traditional public schools also have high turnover (called mobility in the education world). And high mobility is associated with the less-stable lives of low-income families. That is, families who move often are more likely to be poor and lower-functioning -- meaning that their kids are more likely to be low achievers. But when students leave traditional public schools, they are replaced -- most likely by similarly high-mobility kids with similarly unstable lives. By contrast, when students leave KIPP schools, they are not replaced.
Thus, when 60% of KIPP students leave and they tend to be the lowest performers, to state the obvious, KIPP is left with the top 40% of the class. That's not what happens when students leave traditional public schools.
The study does not address the questions that information immediately raises:
- What would the impact be on the traditional public school down the street if its lowest 3/5 of achievers left?
- How much impact does that attrition rate have on the success of the 2/5 of students who remain at KIPP schools, if it could be separated from the impact of KIPP's distinctive culture , methods and practices?
Why did the students leave?
The study noted:
"Although an in-depth analysis of why students (or their families) chose to leave the Bay Area KIPP schools—and how stayers and leavers experienced KIPP—was beyond the scope of this study, we did ask school leaders why students left their schools. Whereas most leaders noted that the schools lose many students to family moves, they also elaborated on the issue of fit. As one school leader explained: I think for a cohort of students and families, it was harder than they thought it was going to be.
Our expectations were more than they had anticipated. [For example,] [w]hen we said we were going to give 2 hours of homework [a day], they didn’t really believe that it was going to be that much. " (Page 14; emphasis in the original)
One area the study would have looked at is the impact of KIPP's culture, methods and practices on the students who make it through eighth grade. But it couldn't, because the high attrition rate -- and the fact that the students who leave are likely to be the lower performers -- made that impossible, biasing the sample:
"We could not estimate longitudinal impacts because of student attrition and in-grade retention. Because of both the number of students who left and the fact that those who left are systematically different from those who stayed, longitudinal comparisons would be biased," the study stated (page ix).
The study confirmed two other points that have been raised about KIPP.
- KIPP schools cost more than traditional public schools: "...(I)mportant for sustainability, at least in the California KIPP schools, is a continued influx of supplemental private funding for operating costs. The Bay Area KIPP schools could not function without substantial resources above and beyond the state per-pupil expenditures they receive." (Page 80)
- Because of the intense demands placed on KIPP teachers, faculty turnover is very high, raising questions about long-term sustainability of such programs:" Leading and teaching in a KIPP school are hard jobs, and turnover in the five Bay Area schools is high for teachers. ... How much turnover can KIPP schools tolerate and still retain the essence of their cultures? Over time, will the pool of candidates for school leaders and teachers continue to meet the schools’ needs?" (Page 80)
The study also confirms the observations that I and others have made about claims of KIPP's rate of alumni matriculation to college: The claims are based on a very small sampling. (I believe that they're largely repeated by journalists who don't grasp that fact.)
" Because college attendance begins 8 years after students enroll in fifth grade in KIPP, only students from the original two founders’ schools have reached college age. Those two schools, begun in 1995, report that 80 percent of their graduates have enrolled in college. Because most KIPP schools began in 2003 or later, large waves of potential college attendees will begin completing their senior year in 2011.' (Page 81)
I've already been interviewed about the study findings, as a "KIPP critic." It may sound like hairsplitting, but I really don't view myself as a critic of KIPP itself.
I'm a critic of the notion that KIPP schools have found the solution to educating the most challenging of our students. The study confirms that at least in those five schools, KIPP has succeeded in educating a high-functioning subgroup of the most challenging of our students, and we don't know how that subgroup -- roughly the top 40%, isolated from their lower-functioning peers -- would have done in another setting. And we also don't know how a traditional public school would have fared in educating just that top 40%, if they could be isolated from their lower-functioning peers.
But the study does help dispel the "miracle solution!" myth, which I believe is an important start in moving toward real solutions.
Comments
Caroline:
I enjoyed your blog post.
I am very much in agreement with your comment challenging the 'miracle solution': "I'm a critic of the notion that KIPP schools have found the solution to educating the most challenging of our students. The study confirms that at least in those five schools, KIPP has succeeded in educating a high-functioning subgroup of the most challenging of our students, and we don't know how that subgroup -- roughly the top 40%, isolated from their lower-functioning peers -- would have done in another setting. And we also don't know how a traditional public school would have fared in educating just that top 40%, if they could be isolated from their lower-functioning peers.
But the study does help dispel the "miracle solution!" myth, which I believe is an important start in moving toward real solutions."
I see myself not as a critic of KIPP, or any other charter school, but a critic of the California charter school laws that have created a system that does not work, and I believe cannot work. Charter schools were created by pressure from the true believers in deregulation and privatization and the testing standards movement as the method that will improve education in America.
Charter school law created corporate charters schools independent of the district that created them but at the same time left to the same district the responsibility to supervise corporate charter schools because they are public schools. Yet, because of the atmosphere of deregulation and the idealism of disciples of Milton Friedman's belief in market competition bringing about a superior education system, there has not been the rigorous regulation that would aid a district in oversight and supervision of charter schools. There is not even a law requiring that a charter school board stay within the chartering school district. Nor is there a regulation that the governing board be democratically elected. Nationwide management groups such as KIPP work against local control of the public's charter schools. These management groups create the appearance of success without having to be more truthful than a political ad.
I believe charter schools are part of an experiment that has not worked in California and needs to be reformed, or dropped. I also believe that charter school laws undermine the institution of public education. Local control is broken because a corporate charter can locate anywhere it wants and school boards can no longer control the placement of schools. In the past, communities had one school board serving a district. In effect the creating of charter school with each having a governing board playing a role like a school board leaves the public behind. Only those parents enrolled in a charter school may have knowledge of how a charter school is being governed. The idea of a public school is broken because the local taxpayer knows so much less about newly created charter schools.
Perhaps regulation can cure the problems with broking down the idea of the public being involved in public charter schools. But, leaving the public behind is the reason I am a critic of California's charter school laws.
Jim Mordecai
While I think your takeaways from the SRI summaries are mostly to the point, I disagree with a few of your points.
From my understanding, the concept of a KIPP school and the idea of a "miracle solution" are in direct contradiction. KIPP seems to be all about hard work. The concept of a KIPP school as I know it is that to get results, all the parties involved must put in sweat and tears and extra long hours of work. This is the exact opposite to the idea of a "miracle solution". It is however a logical and realistic solution. I am confused to how you got the understanding that KIPP was claiming to be a miracle solution.
I think at the end of the day, success in whatever realm always requires hard work, dedication and resources.
To Jim's comments about regulation: I feel that "regulation" isn't always the answer but maybe "good" regulation will help. But good regulation would require our government to value education and to dedicate the required resources to it. It would also require a country of citizens and voter who demand that.
Fair enough. I think the portrayals of KIPP as a "miracle solution" aren't usually deep enough to address that issue (it's not a miracle; it's hard work).
However, some also portray KIPP as having the ability to motivate all students, from low-functioning to high, to DO that hard work. I've been called a racist by commenters on this very blog for questioning that.
H.C."
KIPP and charter schools under the current charter school law has surely insufficient regulation to provide public school oversight by trustees of the public school budget money.
However, what I am pointing to is the systematic lack of democratic processes when public schools become semi-private corporations in the form of charter schools.
The KIPP proposed consolidated millionare filled KIPP board does not have local KIPP school representation required nor the requirement to have its Bay Area governance board elected by the Bay Area KIPP schools parent population. KIPP is called a public charter school but its governance is more like a Wall Street governance board than a public school board.
Jim Mordecai
How many of the KIPP school board members and administrators send their own kids to a KIPP school? My understanding is that it is zero. If true, why is that?
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