Charter schools that post unusually high academic gains are often accused of having unfair advantages over traditional public schools, including more advantaged students and more private money at their disposal. A new and highly contentious study released today attempts to prove that the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), the largest charter-school network in the country, is inundated with both in comparison to its regular public-school counterparts and other charter schools.
The study is likely to give ammunition to charter-school critics as evidence that KIPP's high test scores can be attributed to extra cash and a population of students that's easier to educate. But the study's findings are far from conclusive: The data used in the financial analysis are limited and, according to KIPP, often inaccurate, and the methodology used to examine KIPP students is problematic.
In the national battles over whether to increase the number of charter schools, research has been a weapon wielded aggressively by both sides. (Teachers' unions and their supporters are typically on the anti-charter side, and ed-reformer-types like Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the D.C. schools, and Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City schools, are on the other.)
But this study is different than many others because it accepts the fact that KIPP's academic outcomes are indisputably extraordinary, and seeks instead to dig more deeply into "the reasons for its success."
Most notably, the study, by Western Michigan University researchers at the Study Group on Educational Management Organizations, addresses the question of whether KIPP receives more money per student from government and private sources than other schools. Critics have wondered whether the chain's reliance on philanthropic dollars, which have helped fund its rapid expansion, can be maintained as the network continues to grow.
"Are KIPP schools sustainable, and are we overly reliant on philanthropic dollars?" are questions that KIPP also asks itself, Steve Mancini, a spokesperson for the charter network, told The Hechinger Report yesterday.
The possibility that KIPP is getting more money per student than its traditional-school counterparts also raises the question of whether it's reasonable to expect regular public schools to match KIPP's achievements, and whether increasing the number of charter schools is an efficient use of money -- an important question in tough economic times.
Here is what the study found:
In the 2007 school year, 12 KIPP school districts encompassing 25 schools received $12,731 per pupil from local, state and federal governments. Public-school districts where the KIPP schools were located received $11,960 (a few dollars more than the national public school average). Charter schools in general received much less on average: $9,579. Compared to regular public schools and other charters, KIPP received much more federal money, as well as more than double what other charters received in local funding.
Besides the extra government money that KIPP receives, the study found that the 12 KIPP school districtis reported $37 million to the IRS in private donations in 2008, about $5,760 per pupil on top of the nearly $13,000 per pupil they received from the government.
"We were surprised they were getting so much," said Gary Miron, a researcher at Western Michigan University and lead author of the study.
But KIPP vigorously rejected the study's data after reviewing it yesterday. "This report has multiple factual misrepresentations," Mancini said.
Mancini noted that the study focused on only 25 KIPP school districts out of 58 schools open at the time when researchers calculated the financial data -- missing schools in California, for example, which allocates much less money to charter schools than other states. According to KIPP's own estimates, its schools receive about $9,000 to $10,000 per pupil, on average, from government sources, a figure that is closer to what other charters receive.
As for the private money, Mancini said the study does not take into account the fact that a significant part of the donations goes toward paying for buildings, often a large cost for charter schools in districts that don't give them facilities. Miron, the study's author, said that school districts must also pay for buildings, but Mancini countered that these costs are generally not included in per-pupil calculations.
KIPP estimates that it receives only about $2,500 per student from private sources, putting the total (including government money) at around $11,500 or $12,500 per pupil, right around what regular public schools receive. The study does not include data on the amount of private money other charter schools receive, but, keeping in mind that KIPP is the largest and best-known charter network in the country, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume KIPP does better at fundraising and that other charters receive less.
The takeaway is that KIPP's model is not especially cheap, although KIPP does offer extras that traditional public schools don't -- like Saturday school and longer school days -- for a similar amount of money.
"I think what this study does is at least give us pause about inferring that the KIPP model is a low-cost model," said Jeffrey Henig, a political scientist at Teachers College who briefly reviewed the study before it was published, and who is affiliated with the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, housed at Teachers College. (The Hechinger Report is also located at Teachers College.)
KIPP uses a "no-excuses" model in which students and parents are required to sign performance contracts. Most of the students it educates are low-income. In fact, the WMU study found that KIPP enrolls higher percentages of low-income students than the public-school districts in which its schools are located.
But the idea that charter schools "cream" the best students from surrounding neighborhood schools and push out students who don't perform well academically is a persistent critique of the schools, and the study claims to have found that the hardest-to-educate KIPP students tend to leave the schools at high rates.
In particular, the researchers argue that 40 percent of African-American male students, a group that generally posts lower test scores, "drop out" of KIPP schools between sixth and eighth grade. (Most KIPP schools are middle schools.)
"KIPP schools are cycling out those low-performing students, but they're not replacing them," said Miron. This is thought to be advantageous to KIPP for two reasons: first, the schools get to keep the funding tied to the student for that academic year even after he or she leaves the school; and, second, a school's test score average goes up when low-performing students quit.
KIPP aggressively contests this finding, however. Mancini pointed to a study KIPP commissioned from the nonpartisan research group, Mathematica, which followed individual students over time. The WMU study used aggregated data taken as a snapshot and compared KIPP attrition rates to the rate of students who moved out of the school districts in which KIPP schools were located. Mathematica researchers said that a student leaving an individual school is not the same phenomenon as a student leaving a district.
"You have to do a school-by-school comparison," said Brian Gill, one of the co-authors of the Mathematica report, which found that, on average, attrition at KIPP schools is about on par with schools in surrounding neighborhoods. "There's a real danger from people drawing inferences from this that aren't supported."
The WMU study also assumes that all missing students have left the school and that none are held back a grade. In fact, many KIPP schools have policies that require low-performing students to repeat a grade, and they have been shown to enforce such policies at higher rates than other schools. Miron contends that students who are held back are more likely to leave, a phenomenon that we examined in a previous story.
That some KIPP schools don't replace students if they leave is true, however, and both Mancini and the Mathematica research team said they have been looking into this phenomenon.
Next week, Mathematica will release a new study on the matter, but as with most charter school studies, it's unlikely to be the last word.
John Thompson: KIPP and Its Critics Are Both Right
Whitney Tilson: Rebutting 7 Myths About Teach for America
Sarah Butrymowicz: Charters and Traditional Public Schools: Partners Rather Than Rivals?
Alexander Russo: How A Charter School Turns Union
KIPP: Knowledge Is Power Program | Charter Schools
A Charter School's Performance Questioned in New Study
$19.4 million announced for charter school grants
Secrets Behind KIPP Bump Pt !: DemographiÂÂcshttp://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/04/secrets-behind-kipp-bump-part-i-student.html
Secrets Behind KIPP Bump Pt II: Keeping the Best, Dumping the Rest http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/04/secrets-behind-kipp-bump-part-ii.html
And in case you missed parts 1 and/or II
“Secrets Behind KIPP Bump Pt !: DemographiÂcs http://wwwÂ.schoolsmaÂtter.info/Â2011/04/seÂcrets-behiÂnd-kipp-buÂmp-part-i-Âstudent.htÂml
Secrets Behind KIPP Bump Pt II: Keeping the Best, Dumping the Rest http://wwwÂ.schoolsmaÂtter.info/Â2011/04/seÂcrets-behiÂnd-kipp-buÂmp-part-iiÂ.htmlâ€
But, the kids in the movie built the rocket on their own, outside of school. Schools are increasingly asked to provide the desire to learn as well as the means, yet funding cuts to programs and testing as the ultimate goal have stripped many schools of the inspiring programs that give education pertinence. Obama has called for innovation (of the exact sort seen in this great movie) yet his policies do not promote it.
We live in a culture that asks a lot of our schools but does little to actually support them. If KIPP draws money into education great, but in no way does KIPP or any other un-scalable urban charter of its sort represent meaningful reform. Once the current flawed system of testing and accountability is removed, there will be much more room for the meaningful learning of the sort Homer Hickam and his friends experienced in the poor town of Coalwood.
What I find here is a pointless debate about funding, essentially back-hand attack on a public school model (KIPP isn't all charters) by suggesting it cannot be done without extra private money. Once again, the media is caught up with the most superficial fads and surface debates in the very complicated world of public education. Joel Klein. Michele Rhee. Bla bla bla.
The only substantive issue here is about "creaming." KIPP prides itself on targeting struggling students in disadvantaged communities. That's actually their entire philosophy. However, when they are setup as schools-of-choice, they often don't have the resources to handle the full range of special needs that communities have. And schools of choice apologetically have very high expectations for students, parents, and teachers. That's not entirely a bad thing, although it CAN lead to self-selection and drop outs.
What would make for a much more interesting story is to investigate the intense efforts that some of these schools make to provide softer, emotional supports for struggling students in the face of those high expectations.
They are public schools and under public oversight. The only difference is that they are operated independently of the local school district. The entire premise of your thinking on this is flawed, although I do respect where you're coming from. And to be blunt, there are MORE district public schools than charters doing which are what you're accusing charters of doing. Magnets, gifted programs, and other traditional public schools of choice dump and deflect students at a much larger scale than charters.
Where I 100% agree is that schools of choice cannot solve the overall problems when they can "dump" kids or avoid providing the full array of services to kids (some can't, legally, not by will).
We need stronger k-6 local schools that serve the entire community and all the needs of the children.
"No Excuses" schools do not try anything new and innovative they simply make the school day more efficient, and more regimented. There is no new teaching method. There is nothing revolutionary going on. They simple utilize every moment of their teaching time to teach. They are slaves to the standardized tests, and teacher knowing that.
Like I said I am for the IDEA of charters, but the practice where they are more and more all just "No Excuses" schools that use the same methods under different names angers me. I want to open a school using different methods and a different model and something that I think is truly new. However there is no room for me because I REFUSE on principal to teach to a flawed, faulty, narrow test that does not even measure what it claims to.
When we can open up a charter that is actually doing something new, let's talk. Until then I am at BEST a tepid supporter.
That's a self-defeating myth.
Maybe it's time we stop "innovating" and focus on effective organizations and effective systems? What the KIPP model has done is focus 100% on staff and leadership. The new principals spend a year or so as apprentices. It's a completely leadership-based model, not about instructional "innovation."
And KIPP isn't just about charters. The first two KIPPs were not charters and many since have not been opened as charters. Making this about charter schools is for us to entirely miss the point.
There needs to be space for innovation, and for proven methods. There cannot be one at the expense of another. What I see happening with most charters is a movement towards CMO's and EMO's in the No Excuses model. This is a model that works very well for some students, but others are not served well by it. I know that I would not have been well served by a No Excuses model.
Also notice that I said that I am a tepid supporter. What I meant by that is that I support them in that they are doing good things for many students, however I think they can do better. I am not whole hog for the charters but I think that we should keep them.
I think that there is no one single education solution, and that one size does not fit all. I think that KIPP and other No Excuses schools are part of solution, and that proven methods are part of the solution. However to ignore anything new and innovative would do as much a disservice to the students as we are doing now.
Also I am not a KIPP expert, I was unaware that the first two were not charters. They are most well known as a group of charter schools and that was the framework I was working under.
Please don't tell me it is the unions, I just spent the weekend at a conference were teachers in a highly unionized state were having great success once their administration decided to invest in change.
The question, then, is what is done with the funding and what's the return. Charters make their financial decisions at the school level, which may be the most important factor.
The first two KIPPs were this Austin program and the Bronx program. Neither began as charters, but simply as middle school programs for struggling students. They were so successful with their academics and their arts programs, that school systems around the nation begged for them to expand. KIPP prefers to open charters simply due to the flexibility granted to them.
Replicating educational success is not easy.
Let's just not think too much about the cherries that don't get picked.
This is not cherry picking. The family wants to go to KIPP and they won the lottery. The child wants to learn! I guess if you want to learn you are a cherry! 90% graduate and go to college. In the remaing population less than 50% get a HS diploma. That is a deplorable result.
However... I agree w/ Rene Epicurus that charter schools are simply a "kindler, gentler" way towards privatization of education.
The problem I have w/ charter schools is the same as many people have already commented... they get to "pick" their students. Even a school like the one my daughter will be attending... that works on a first come/ first serve basis... reserves the right to dismiss your student if they don't perform well (a "d" is considered a failing grade). Neither have I been able to understand if charter schools "work" so much better than public schools... why not just run the public schools like a charter school... and opt to send the students who are "learning challenged" to the charters (since they do a much better job at educating).
And yes, making all public schools "charter like" is the entire idea of the charter movement. Anybody making them out to be about "privatization" really doesn't understand the movement and it's history.
The well-documented intent of privatization advocates is funneling PUBLIC monies into PRIVATE coffers.
Once you understand the ideological/economic thrust of privatization, you understand the profit motive is primary, which means EVERYTHING else is secondary.
Charter schools (FOR PROFIT institutions) have less reporting/standardization requirements than true public schools; this is MORE pronounced amongst traditional private / sectarian schools; in both cases such schools can be more selective of students, unlike public schools.
Technically, “charter†schools are considered “public†but “for profitâ€; I stress this because it bears repeating, everything flows from there.
Profit-FIRST; cost containment-NEXT; quality education-MAYBE as a side benefit of other propitious circumstances like forcing parents to sign “contracts†to provide FREE LABOR to “charter†schools.
Just imagine if governments forced parents into similar contractual agreements; conservatives would bellow to the heavens about the “tyranny of intrusive governmentâ€.
Yet charter schools get away with giving themselves this unfair advantage?
Take this to its logical conclusion and you get HIGHER illiteracy rates, LOWER graduation rates, and LESS people attending school once public education has been completely gutted (long-term intent of "school choice" advocates).
For a cautionary tale of what we might expect from a “private†educational model, read the history of illiteracy, dismal graduation and post-secondary school attendance rates, PRIOR TO the advent of public education.
I do agree with you that all comparisons should be done according to scale and on a level playing field; but it's obvious the advocates of "charter" and "private" schools are more interested in rigging the game in favor of their foregone "choice".
If these people were really interested in "education" they'd institute incremental changes in the public system and set-up fairly-applied metrics to monitor results on-going; not go "scorched-earth" and "starve the patient" then say "see? we told you so"!
This has nothing to do with private schooling.
I wrote that charter schools are "for profit" and they are.
Could be an important 'tell'
Of course they are. Why is anyone surprised?
"That some KIPP schools don't replace students if they leave is true, however, and both Mancini and the Mathematica research team said they have been looking into this phenomenon." Does looking into this have the same meaning as the check is in the mail?
KIPP schools are mostly middle-high school and take in students via a LOTTERY. Preference within the lottery pools may exist for disadvantaged students and these schools almost exclusively open in disadvantaged areas.
If a struggling student drops out of a KIPP school, they are replaced by the next person on the lottery waiting list. For this researcher to suggest that there's some intentional game to "avoid" struggling students is extremely thin reasoning.