More About Charters

Those of you who are interested in (or enraged by) charter schools (17 comments and counting here) might want to click over to This Week In Education and check out my new interview with Mike Feinberg, one of the founders of the KIPP schools, who talks about what it's like being hated by educators and loved by the media, and why one of the few KIPP schools to fail was in Chicago:  On The HotSeat:  KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg.

There's also an interview from last week with Paul Tough, who wrote that NYT Magazine cover story about what it takes to educate poor children, which focused in part on KIPP schools and on the division within education about whether to focus on poverty or school reform first:  NYT Magazine's Paul Tough On The HotSeat.

Comments

Alexander--why didn't you ask him about the tens of thousands of dollars CPS ended up paying those KIPP teachers for the overtime? His blowing it off as being "naive" is pretty arrogant, in my view.

Feinberg knew that the contract school model was not conducive or even consistent with his model, yet he insisted on the implementation of the program. He is responsible for the above posters claim and also the turnover in the leadership of the program. It is a travesty, but some people, like Feinberg, are not held accountable because they are "innovative."

[John White]

Or maybe even smart, committed people just make bad decisions sometimes when they're trying like heck to do the right thing. Let's think about character before we go after people. If we did that more, leadership would actually be able to innovate in the ways all other successful organizations' leaders do, and maybe there would be more out-of-the-box thinking in this rather stale industry.

KIPP has had rapid expansion across the US and with that there is a slight loss of quality control- Chicago is the perfect example- it was not the model- it was the leadership- ask any student, parent or teacher at that school- the two leaders that were there didn't have the skills to lead a school- and KIPP picked them to lead. That was the fundamental problem- if it had been a charter- it would have been the same problem.

11:12 am Yes, it works in right to work states where young folks can be treated like indentured servants and burn out in several years. Then they go to law school. It's so helpful for education, don't ya think?

[Dan Bassill]

I think the charter school leaders and traditional school leaders are both ignoring a few important issues in their strategies.

I've been creating maps showing where there are high concentrations of poverty and poorly performing schools in Chicago. In these areas schools will always struggle because the community does not send kids to school as well prepared, or as well motivated, as do more economically diverse communities.

Thus, until a strategy emerges that expands the network of adults and learning experiences available to kids in the non-school hours, the schools and teachers will continue to struggle to teach and prepare kids for careers.

The strategy I propose is one that supports comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that connect adults from many different backgrounds with kids, and keep the kids and adults connected for multiple years. An economist at the University of Chicago, James Heckman, recently encouraged tutoring/mentoring as a form of on-going support.

I demonstrate such maps, and a strategy to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org. I think there's a natural opportunity for charter school and tutor/mentor leaders to work together. They are both trying to accomplish something that traditional schools may never achieve.

[George Schmidt]

More than 20 years ago, a group of us in Chicago investigated and exposed the Marva Collins Hoax. It was very nasty at first, but over the course of a couple of months (and some good reporting, not only by my colleagues and me but by several others in print, radio, and TV), Marva was back in her corner as a right wing icon with little basis for her broader claims -- and none for her attacks on public schools and public school teachers.

As part of that review of the reporting on Marva Collins, the hoax was debunked locally by TV reporters (including Channel 2, which had helped create it) and others. The original hoax was still pushed by "60 Minutes" (which was one of two places where the hoax really took on life). At first, we believed that a little truth would outflank the truthiness of Marva's story telling. Only over time did we realize that we were seeing the first runs of a script that would be played over and over and over.

The main components of those hoaxes have been in place since then. Militarize a curriculum; fill a school with black children; force feed memorization lessons; and do a dog-and-pony show for any reporter who comes through to see the "miracle". (To this day, I'm enraged that so many people think urban black children should be drilled and marched and uniformed, while wealthy -- and usually whiter -- suburban children get so many creative options...).

Marva stuck to her story, even as it unravelled.

When Marva forced WBBM radio to send in two of its reporters to "see the truth" I was able to tell them which kids would recite which poems and which kid would announce (at age seven) that his favorite author was Fyodor Dostoevsky (but not be able to pronounce it correctly, in any iteration). Scripted lessons (er, "direct instruction") yield the same kinds of cheap results as other whores' tricks. Real human beings are more complex.

But it wasn't only dog-and-pony shows.

The rules also included: And always bad mouth public schools and public school teachers.

Back in the 1980s, those lies were supported by the right wing. Since then, the levels of support have grown, but the basic formulas are substantially unchanged. Just because the Heritage Foundation repeats the nonsense over and over and over and over doesn't make it more true in 2007 than it was in 1983.

KIPP is doing the same things on the grand scale today. Why? Because the cultural, racial, economic and political conditions for such frauds, whether in Baghdad or Chicago, are much more receptive today than they were in 1982 and 1983.

A key to the Collins KIPP con thing is replacing truly poor ghetto (project) black children with a large percentage of not poor (or even middle class) black children and resting on the assurance that most reporters are not going to ask the key question: "How much does your family make?"

Since most black children look alike to most white (and many black) reporters (and most reporters are not rude enough to ask for verification for silly claims, like "these are all poor kids...") getting behind the Wizard of Oz screens is difficult.

Marva Collins used black children and the white blindspots of Chicago reporters to launch her nonsense. Outfits like the Heritage Foundation kept it alive, with the help of media. KIPP is following the same trajectory here and across the country. It's why guys like that New York Times magazine reporter (Tough? Was that his name) see the miracle. They already have a certain kind of eyes for seeing; they don't ask the key questions. Then their editors "know" the same things, so the stuff goes through and into the minds of millions...

KIPP has already failed in Chicago, despite hanging on and recently getting more money and seats from Arne Duncan. One of the reasons KIPP failed (and merited that deligful "F___ KIPP" graffiti you can still see scrawled on the Renaissance 2010 sign on the northeast corner) at Williams was they actually had to serve the children Williams was serving. And most of those children were still from Dearborn and Ickes. And that's a challenge no matter how many times you scream about "Renaissance 2010" etc., etc., etc.

So KIPP bailed out at Williams -- amid all that sludge rhetoric. Sort of like the octopus and the ink squirt.

Anyone who is interested in current discussions of KIPP might want to visit Jerry Bracey's discussion group (Gerald Bracey, who write the "Research" column for the monthly Phi Delta Kappan), EDDRA. (eddra@ yahoogroups.com; or contact Bracey directly at gbracey1 @verizon.net).

Some of the most interesting (and tough) people in the USA have been discussing KIPP there for the past couple of weeks. The KIPP "business model" is actually more than 50 percent propaganda (marketing) model that has little to do with educating children and a lot to do with manipulating public perceptions based on some really ugly assumptions about the emotional and intellectual needs and abilities of black children.

I've been following the EDDRA threads. Especially interesting are the comments by people who visited KIPP schools in St. Louis and Oakland (and who knew a little about inner city education and its challenges).

It turns out that KIPP runs the same scam from coast to coast. Naturally, "60 Minutes" is back in play with it. Because of the white blindspots and cheap excuses for reporting (basically, recycling the clips files) that permeate media nowadays, KIPP (like Marva Collins before it) is still getting away with the teacher bashing -- and public school bashing -- big lies.

But here comes the fun part, and it's just beginning:

Like Marva Collins, KIPP is also generating refugees, both teachers and families whose children were abused, then discarded.

In the first months after they realize they've been exploited (teachers; students) and fleeced (students and their families), these people usually keep their mouths shut. It's often out of shame ("How could I believe all that..."). It's sort of like a lover who was too infatuated to realize a closer look would have helped. You feel soiled.

At a certain point, maturity and ethics catch up. Then the person (teacher; child; family) realizes he or she has to speak out, or others will be victimized by the same con game.

Anger kicks in. Not everyone says, "I'm outta here!" and goes into a 12-step program, blaming herself forever.

Some say, "I can't let that happen to anyone else." (One of my favorite Dixie Chicks songs on this subject is "Goodbye Earl" -- Passion followed by anger followed by justice. )

It takes some time, but it's possible.

It's called "Payback." As some of my colleagues said nearly 40 years ago next month at places like Hue: "It's payback time, and payback's a ____________."

Payback is starting to happen with KIPP. The next ten years will be a lot of fun in the KIPP beat. Heck hath no fury like a former disciple scorned...

While we're at it. I hope someone will look beyond racial and cultural differences when talking about Chicago's "top" students in the next cycle of "Class of 2007" stories. (That Sun-Times thingy on unschooling was simply silly, so we'll skip that).

If a child's family gives him (or her) a Lexus as a 16th Birthday present, that is a good indicator that that family is not working class (or even "lower middle class"). Right? Does it matter if that child is white, black, Asian, or Latino?

We'll see how far the blindspots stretch in the next couple of months. Front row seat and all that, whether with KIPP or with other Chicago fairy tales.

Merry Christmas

Any parent who gives his or her child a Lexus as a 16th birthday present is a fool. But I don't see the relevance of it--did I miss something? Was that referenced in an article?

[cermak_rd]

George,

If KIPP isn't an answer, then what is? How do you take kids living in poverty and give them a fighting chance for a middle class life? How do you provide an opportunity for advancement? I've seen the studies that show that they start out behind in vocabulary and concepts and don't learn as quickly once in school as the other children who've had more affluent backgrounds.

Given that we can't change our economic model, we have to provide these children the extra help they need to compete with the more affluent children. KIPP offers a longer day, a longer year, and tricks that more affluent children pick up from non-school experiences (make eye contact, read along...). Charters offer a removal from classrooms that may include troubled children that disrupt their opportunities for learning. If these aren't at least some answers, what is?

[I.M. Stillanoptimist]

2:42, my question to you is why can't the economic model be changed? Even you seem to agree that it is poverty and its vicissitudes, together with entrenched 400 year old American racism (both the clothed and the more apparent kinds) that animate these unequal neighborhoods and schools. Please think about Katrina and the public response before you disagree with me.

The tutoring mentoring idea earlier on the board is to me like the charter notion: take the "smart" black kids out and send them to Andover or Exeter. Let the rest fester! Real Social Darwinism at its finest. But this is an acceptable "solution" to many, I believe.

Another "solution" is the military state. Provide "military academies" to give these poverty stricken black kids who don't respect education and whose parents (if they have any)are shiftless and lazy, an opportunity. Uncle Sam (or the Corporation) will be their Parent!

If the teachers, who ostensibly care, won't lend a critical eye to how severely Chicago's poorest, most disenfrancished and Blackest students are being "shafted" by policies that are "suppose" to undo the the social disaster, who will?

I stand and I weep for my brothers and sisters. We suffer for a lack of knowledge and an unwillingness to recognize truth for what it is.

You should visit a KIPP school!

[Account Deleted]

http://www.spainwatches.com/spain-graham-watches-35.html wow, I’m impressed! really. it’s a great project that will help people in many ways.
I wish we could have used such technologies when I was getting education…
everything would have been much easier:)