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For more information, contact Steve Mancini,
Public Affairs Director, at 415-531-5396
The Washington Post - "Looking at the Dropout Issue"
By Jay Mathews
June 30, 2008
Some of the most troubling questions about schools, such as what causes dropouts, have few clear answers because there is so little research. And the reason that data is lacking, at least in part, is that educators who would otherwise demand it are too busy with more even pressing issues, such as improving teaching and raising low student achievement. Read more ...
The New York Times - “2 School Entrepreneurs Lead the Way on Change”
By Sam Dillon
June 19, 2008
As the founder of Teach for America, a nonprofit program that recruits elite college graduates to teach in low-income schools, Wendy Kopp has presided over many triumphs, and the group’s annual dinner last month was another. It raised $5.5 million in one night and brought so many corporate executives to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York that stretch limousines jammed Park Avenue for blocks. Read more ...
Education Next - "Brand-name charters"
By Julie Bennett
June 1, 2008
If you had been a 10-year-old on the streets of San Lorenzo, California, in the summer of 2003, you would have had a hard time avoiding Jason Singer and Cathy Cowan. Singer, now 37, had enlisted Cowan, a teacher, to help him recruit 5th-grade students for the charter middle school he planned to open in just a few weeks. Read more ...
The Washington Post - “New Report From KIPP Charters”
By Jay Mathews
April 21, 2008
Educators argue often whether their work should be judged by test scores. There are thoughtful people on both sides of the debate. We journalists tend to focus on exam results because so many of our readers say that is what they want, and such information is relatively easy to get from regular public schools. Read more ...
Ebony - “From Atlanta to Africa; American youngsters embark on a journey of self-discovery in Ghana”
By Chandra R. Thomas
February 11, 2008
The lush greenery surrounding the NNonkonsuo Slave River Memorial Center in Ghana, Africa, is gone, abruptly replaced by darkness. At first the children appear to enjoy it, like that game when blindfolded kids awkwardly swing at a piñata hoping to make the candy come cascading out. Read more ...
Forbes - “Commentary: Mike Feinberg”
By Mike Feinberg
January 23, 2008
Twelve years ago, Rocio Mendoza entered KIPP Academy as a fifth-grader in Houston. Her parents, who emigrated from Mexico, did not have the opportunity to attend college. This past June, Rocio graduated from Stanford University and now works at a Houston law firm. Read more ...
Los Angeles Times - “L.A. charter schools get a financial boost; Philanthropist Eli Broad is donating $23.3 million to jump-start 17 new campuses run by two major groups.”
By Howard Blume
January 17, 2008
Arts and education philanthropist Eli Broad today will announce his largest investment to date in Los Angeles charter schools, $23.3 million to jump-start at least 17 new campuses run by two major charter-school organizations. Read more ...
USA Today - “More time in class equals better math skills”
By Greg Toppo
December 11, 2007
WASHINGTON — The idea that more time in school produces better results could get a small boost today with the release of international data from the Brookings Institution. The study finds adding 10 minutes of math instruction to an eighth-grader's day translates into a jump in math skills. Read more ...
Fast Company - “Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards 2008: 45 Social Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing The World”
December 1, 2007
Few low-income kids nationally attend college; for graduates of KIPP Academies, the rate is close to 80%. Why? KIPP recruits and trains leaders with both business skills and educational chops to open and run its schools. Students spend 60% more time in school, and they’re expected to succeed. Now, with 57 schools, KIPP plans to double within five years. The secondary effect: By building multiple schools in targeted areas, it challenges public schools to improve. Read more ...
Miami Herald - “What works -- Leave education to principals, teachers, parents”
By Leonard Pitts
November 28, 2007
GASTON, N.C. -- As I wandered about looking lost, I chanced upon a teacher who volunteered to lead me where I needed to be. When I told her why I was here -- a series of columns on What Works to change the culture of dysfunction that entraps too many African-American kids -- she told me I had come to the right place: KIPP Gaston College Preparatory and KIPP Pride, two charter schools serving 600 kids here in farm country. Read more ...
CNN.com - “Ghana through the eyes of American teenagers”
November 7, 2007
Social Studies came alive for Atlanta charter school eighth-graders. They celebrated their graduation with a trip to Ghana, a West African country they only knew from their lessons. Community donations made it possible for more than 30 KIPP WAYS Academy students and their chaperones to set out on the journey. Read more ...
Good Morning America - "Education revolution; rethinking how kids learn"
By Bill Weir
October 21, 2007
We hear plenty on the woeful state of American public schools, but this morning a true success story and one that provides a reality check for any family with hopes of sending kids to college. It is called the Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP, and - it's a small network of charter schools, and it sends students on to higher learning at an astounding rate, but even if you don't have a KIPP school in your town, the way they teach and the amount they teach may make you rethink what it takes to guarantee your kid's success. Read more ...
ABC World News - “New Education Plan: 'Work Hard. Be Nice. No Shortcuts'; Knowledge Is Power Program Sends 80 percent of Its Students to College”
By Bill Weir
October 15, 2007
All too often in U.S. public education, ZIP code is destiny. Kids from poor neighborhoods are six times less likely to graduate from high school than their middle-class peers, and attempts to close that gap have been the source of exhaustive research and expensive battles. But as politicians argue over No Child Left Behind and school boards debate whole language versus phonics, a pair of teachers has quietly spent the past decade developing a magic formula that sends low-income kids to college at an astounding rate. Read more ...
The New York Times - "Our schools must do better"
By Bob Herbert
October 2, 2007
I asked a high school kid walking along Commonwealth Avenue if he knew who the vice president of the United States was. He thought for a moment and then said, “No.” I told him to take a guess. He thought for another moment, looked at me skeptically, and finally gave up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Read more ...
National Public Radio - "Desperate for a Grade-A Education”
By Farai Chideya
September 17, 2007
Farai Chideya talks with education experts about how to get your kids the best education possible. She's joined by Andrew Rotherham, co-director of Education Sector; Lana Brody, an education consultant who helps families with private school selection; and Mikelle Willis, founder and director of the KIPP Academy of Opportunity in Los Angeles. Read more ...
The Washington Post - "Op-Ed: Leaving No Child Behind"
By Tracy McDaniel, KIPP Reach College Prep
September 10, 2007
With House hearings on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act beginning today, The Post asked educators, lawmakers and others for their views of the legislation and what might improve it. Read more ...
National Public Radio - "When Schools and Parents Collaborate"
By Farai Chideya
September 6, 2007
News & Notes continues its month-long education series with a look at what happens when parents and teachers approach education as a team effort. Joining the discussion are Joyce Epstein, director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University; Pam Dickenson, a parent of two students at KIPP Tech Valley school in Albany, New York; and Daniel Ceaser, principal and math teacher at KIPP Tech Valley. Read more ...
Washington Post - “Inside the KIPP School Summit”
By Jay Mathews
August 7, 2007
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The first thing I noticed about the KIPP School Summit, the annual meeting of the country's most intriguing public school network, was the food. It was cheap, simple and abundant -- potato chips, popcorn, corn chips, juice bars, hamburgers and fajitas available outside the many meeting rooms last week. This was fuel for teachers half my age, about 1,200 of them, nearly all in their 20s and early 30s. Read more ...
USA Today - “Our view on improving education: An illusion gains credibility; For most, curriculum isn’t narrowing, despite focus on math, reading”
Editorial
August 6, 2007
At the recent CNN/YouTube debate among the Democratic presidential candidates, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was asked about education. Richardson replied that he'd scrap the No Child Left Behind law in favor of "a major federal program of art in the schools." Much applause from the audience. "Music, dancing, sculpture and the arts," he continued. More applause. Read more ...
The Wall Street Journal - “Smart Growth”
By Kane Webb
August 4, 2007
HELENA, Ark. -- A walking tour of this Mississippi River town's past, present and future could start at Bubba's Blues Corner at the south end of Cherry Street, a whisky bottle's throw from the Mighty River. Bubba Sullivan has a little of everything in his shop, including a healthy dose of Helena blues history (free of charge) and old 45 rpm records (25 cents each). Keep walking past the broken bottles and dilapidated buildings until you're across from the old train depot. Turn into what looks like a strip mall store that might sell wicker chairs and scented candles (or in this town, second-hand clothes and garage-sale trinkets). Read more ...
Forbes - “Katrina's Surprise”
By Kerry A. Dolan
July 27, 2007
In the hurricane's aftermath, a charter school in New Orleans defies the odds and thrives. Read more ...
USA Today - "Our view on race and schools: Setback for equal education; Supreme Court takes away key tool for promoting racial diversity"
Editorial
June 29, 2007
Students, parents and educators have good reason to be confused about mixed messages from Washington. The federal No Child Left Behind law demands that schools reduce learning gaps between racial groups. On Thursday, however, the Supreme Court took away a key tool for achieving that goal. Read more ...
The Wall Street Journal - “Big Easy, Bigger Test”
By Tom Bethell
June 11, 2007
NEW ORLEANS -- It's not often that large, public institutions get a chance to rebuild from the ground up. But that's more or less what New Orleans public schools have had to do since Hurricane Katrina came ashore nearly two years ago. The results may be better than many had feared, when survivors were still being plucked from the flood waters. Read more ...
National Public Radio - “New Orleans School Making Progress After Storm”
By Larry Abramson
May 16, 2007
Some New Orleans schools are still struggling with broken infrastructure and other problems as the end of the first real academic year since Hurricane Katrina approaches. But the sounds of progress are loud and clear at the KIPP Believe College Prep charter school. Read more ...
The Wall Street Journal - “Kudos for KIPP”
Editorial
March 26, 2007
Rare is the occasion when these columns have reason to applaud more spending on public schools. But news that the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) will receive $65 million to create new schools in Houston is worth a standing ovation. Read more ...
The New York Times - "Charter Group Will Enroll More Pupils in Houston"
By Tamar Lewin
March 21, 2007
The Knowledge Is Power Program, a charter school network widely praised for its results with low-income students in its 52 schools nationwide, yesterday announced a $100 million plan, financed by private donations, to expand its Houston operations over the next decade to serve about 10 percent of the city’s public school population. Read more ...
The Washington Post - “Charter School Effort Gets $65 Million Lift”
By Jay Mathews
March 20, 2007
The charter school movement, begun 16 years ago as an alternative to struggling public schools, will today make its strongest claim on mainstream American education when a national group announces the most successful fundraising campaign in the movement's history -- $65 million to create 42 schools in Houston. Read more ...
The Associated Press - “Massachusetts leading national effort for longer school days”
By Nancy Zuckerbrod and Melissa Trujillo
February 23, 2007
School principal Robin Harris used to see the clock on her office wall as the enemy, its steady ticking a reminder that time wasn't on her side. But these days Harris smiles when the clock strikes 1:55 p.m. There are still two more hours in the school day and that's two more hours to teach math and reading, as well as art and drama. Read more ...
USA Today - “Beyond 'No Child'”
Editorial
February 22, 2007
Walk into any school, and you'll find plenty of opinions — many negative — about the No Child Left Behind law, now almost five years old. Some complaints, particularly about bureaucratic rules, make sense. But too many are simply resistance to the accountability the law imposes. Read more ...
National Public Radio - “Study Looks at Longer Day for Public Schools”
By Larry Abramson
February 7, 2007
People with responsibility for improving public schools have debated many proposals including a simple one. Maybe kids need to spend more time in school. Educators and thinkers meet today in the nation's capital to figure out whether making kids work overtime is the right answer and whether it's worth the cost. Read more ...
New York Times - "What It Takes To Make a Student"
By Paul Tough
November 26, 2006
Can teaching poor children to act more like middle-class children help close the education gap? Read more ...
CNN.com - “No excuses or short cuts at Atlanta charter school”
By Audrey Schewe
October 5, 2006
Students at the West Atlanta Young Scholars Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, are expected to go to college. Known as KIPP WAYS, the school is one of the more than 50 "KIPP" public charter schools serving students from low-income urban and rural communities across the country. KIPP stands for Knowledge is Power Program. Read more ...
National Public Radio - "For Charter Schools, New Orleans Is Citywide Lab"
By Larry Abramson
October 3, 2006
Larry Abramson, the national education reporter for NPR, did a three-day series on public education in New Orleans for Morning Edition. On October 3, he featured KIPP Believe College Prep. Read more ...
National Public Radio - "Are Charter Schools the Answer for Failing Students?"
By Cory Turner
September 15, 2006
News & Notes · "Educators and lawmakers across the country are trying to overhaul the nation's failing schools. Could charter schools be the answer?" Read more ...
The Associated Press - "Denver Teacher Wins $100,000 Award"
By Melissa Trujillo
June 13, 2006
DENVER -- A Denver teacher has won the first $100,000 Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award, which is to be presented Tuesday at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Read more ...
The New York Times - "Harlem, a Test Lab, Splits Over Charter Schools"
By Susan Saulny
June 2, 2006
The schools sit side by side in a handsome red brick building in Harlem overlooking Morningside Park. But they could not be more different.
The fifth and sixth graders at KIPP Star College Prep Charter School earned some of the highest scores in central Harlem on last year's citywide reading exams. At Public School 125, only 36 percent of the third- through sixth-grade students met city and state reading standards last year. Read more ...
The Oprah Winfrey Show - "Oprah's Special Report: American Schools in Crisis"
April 12, 2006
KIPP co-founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, and KIPP students in Washington, DC, and Houston, TX, were featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 12, 2006. Read more ...
The Washington Post - “A Miracle in the Making?; KIPP turns its efforts toward elementary schools”
By Jay Mathews
April 2, 2006
Laura Bowen wants to create the best elementary school in the District. That doesn't seem very realistic, considering that she is only 28 and that the public school will be located in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. But the KIPP charter school instructor has had success teaching low-income middle school children in Washington, and she saw something at a new school in Houston recently that convinced her the project is not as nutty as it might sound. Read more ...
US News and World Report - "Two Guys...and a Dream"
By Susan Headden
February 20, 2006
Ask Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin what drove them to write one of the greatest educational success stories in recent times, and their answer seems reasonable enough: "ignorance." Except that the ignorance they speak of wasn't that of their students; it was their own. "We didn't know what we didn't know," says Feinberg. "No one said how impossible this was going to be." Read more ...
The New York Times - "Pillars of Cultural Capital"
By David Brooks
October 6, 2005
Eleven days ago, I wrote a column on the growing unfairness of American life. The column was about the economic and social stratifications that are setting in as the information age matures. Highly educated parents pass their advantages down to their children, while the children of less-educated parents fall further behind. Read more ...
PBS Documentary- "Making Schools Work"
By Hedrick Smith Productions
October 5, 2005
KIPP was featured in the recent prime-time PBS special, Making Schools Work. The program, with Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Hedrick Smith, profiled public schools and districts across America that are boosting student performance and closing the achievement gap. Appearing in the program were Mike Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP, and the dedicated students and teachers of KIPP 3D Academy in Houston, TX.
Read more ...
USA Today - "An urban success story"
Editorial
October 4, 2005
History tells us that real change occurs when the improbable tips into the thinkable. With civil rights, that tipping point occurred in the early 1960s. For the environmental movement, it was the early 1970s. Now there's evidence that urban school reform just might be reaching a tipping point. Read more ...
The Washington Post - "Study Finds Big Gains For KIPP; Charter Schools Exceed Average"
By Jay Mathews
August 11, 2005
Twenty-seven KIPP charter middle schools, including one in the District, have posted "large and significant gains" beyond what is average for urban schools, according to a report by the Educational Policy Institute. Read more ...
Newsweek - "Other Winning Equations"
By Barbara Kantrowitz
May 16, 2005
There are many ways to make a high school great. Newsweek's Best High Schools List uses one measure, the number of students who take AP and International Baccalaureate (IB) tests. But innovative educators across the country are creating hundreds of new ways to meet the particular needs of their students. Only one of the schools below, Wilson Magnet in Rochester, N.Y., made Newsweek's List, but all are leaders in their own way. What these schools have in common are dedicated educators who look, listen and find unique ways to help their students learn. Read more ...
USA Today - "Charters: Success or failure?"
Editorial
January 4, 2005
To parents of children in the 3,000 publicly funded, independently run charter schools across the USA, the news must be bewildering. One day education researchers say charter schools are great; the next day brings reports of charter failures. Read more ...
Reader's Digest - "Playing for keeps"
By Lynn Rosellini
October 2004
IT STARTED WITH a violin. The girl skipped home from school that day, the case dangling by her side. Past the drug dealers. Past the burnt-out cars. Past the massive brown housing projects of the South Bronx. Up in the apartment, she locked herself in the bathroom and sat down. She opened the case, touched the strings, ran her fingers along the polished wood. “So beautiful,” she murmured. Read more ...
The Washington Post - “School of Hard Choices: In the KIPP Academy Program, It’s Motivation That’s Fundamental”
By Jay Mathews
August 24, 2004
When Mike Feinberg, then a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate, and Dave Levin, just out of Yale, met at a 1992 summer teacher training institute in Los Angeles, they were typical of young people signing up for the Teach for America program -- smart, idealistic, confident. That summer they spent as much time playing basketball as they did learning how to handle a classroom. Yet when they got into Levin's rotting gray Taurus, loaded with soft drinks and Doritos, and headed for their new jobs in Houston, they thought they had all the solutions to the problems of educating low-income kids, and even outlined a grand strategy while they drove through the Mojave Desert. Read more ...
The Christian Science Monitor - “Starting from scratch: A young principal spends her summer pounding the pavement in search of students to fill her new school”
Joanne Jacobs
July 6, 2004
SAN JOSE, CALIF. – "I will arrive at KIPP He-ar-et-wood Ac-a-de-mee-a every day by 7:25 a.m. Monday- Friday." Fourth-grader Delia Bustamante struggles to read the student's "commitment to excellence" for the charter middle school she'll start later this month. Read more ...
US News and World Report - “Closing the gap: While the nation still struggles to fulfill the promise of Brown, these schools are proving that high achievement can also be colorblind”
By Lynn Rosellini
March 22, 2004
Martin Robinson, 14, didn't have much use for elementary school. He interrupted teachers, talked in class, and ended up having to repeat the fourth grade. In the evenings, battles raged over the homework he never wanted to do. Read more ...
Newsweek - "Gates Foundation: Now, to High School"
By Pat Wingert
March 22, 2004
Ten years ago two frustrated but idealistic teachers created an experimental middle school in Houston to help underachieving inner-city students. The first KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Academy achieved impressive results with a deceptively simple plan: academic rigor, discipline, accountability. Read more ...
Forbes - "No Shortcuts"
By Ira Carnahan
November 10, 2003
The article focuses on the success of KIPP DC: KEY Academy, which was founded in 2001 by Susan Schaeffler. When asked by Forbes's Carnahan about what makes KIPP work, KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg explains: "The premise is there are no shortcuts." Read more ...
People - "Second-Chance School: A fledgling Oklahoma City program turns hard-luck kids into success stories"
By Susan Horsburgh and Joy Sewing
May 5, 2003
Oklahoma City native Tracy McDaniel founded KIPP Reach College Prep in 2002 because, "he wanted to make a difference for children in his community." University of Texas Professor Darwin Winick tells People magazine, "KIPP schools use their time well." Read more ...
Newsweek - "At the top of the class"
By Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz
March 24, 2003
Adalberto Garza's 13-year- old son, Adalberto Jr., was tagged a problem learner in his Houston elementary school. He's dyslexic and, because his first language is Spanish, English-speaking teachers often had difficulty understanding him. "His accent and his way of talking made him seem as if he had a mental handicap," his father says. But after Adalberto Jr. enrolled at KIPP Academy Houston, his grades shot up. At KIPP, Garza says, the teachers "are truly interested in our children." Read more ...
The New York Times - "A chance to learn"
By Bob Herbert
December 16, 2002
The first thing you notice about the school is how quiet it is. The kids are absorbed in their studies and except for the low roar of conversation in the cafeteria during lunch, or the enthusiastic screeching of band practice, you hardly hear a sound. Read more ...
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