Initiatives & Impact

Today, the Foundation's major responsibility is to support and sustain excellence in our schools. We are developing and implementing a number of programs designed to surface best practices, to incubate new ideas from inside and outside the network, and to pilot initiatives in regions. Recent key areas of focus include:

Leadership Development

The KIPP Foundation developed a Leadership Competency Model that serves as the anchor for Foundation and regional efforts to recruit, assess, develop and retain excellent leaders. Regions and schools are able to develop performance and development cultures based on a shared understanding of what it means to be an effective KIPP leader and how to grow both within a given leadership position and from one leadership position to the next.

The Foundation focuses on training leaders at all levels. Through the KIPP School Leadership Programs, the Foundation has trained over 100 individuals to found new KIPP schools over the past ten years. KIPP School Leadership Programs ensure the quality of education within a school over the long term, offering leadership development for succession leaders, emerging leaders and teacher leaders.

The foundational experience for our KIPP School Leadership Programs is the Summer Institute. KIPP Foundation requests proposals for a university partner to host its five-week KSLP Summer Institute during the summer: June 19-July 20, 2012. Click here to download the Request For Proposal. Responsive bids must be received by Friday, February 10, 2012.

Led by the KIPP School Leadership Programs team, KIPP has launched the inaugural KIPP Leadership Design Fellowship. The fellowship will provide an opportunity for participants to get an in-depth look at KIPP’s principal selection, training, and development model, explore a variety of other innovative school leadership models around the country, and join a cohort of reform-minded education leaders.

To and Through College

KIPP Through College (KTC) instills the academic, professional, and character skills needed for KIPP alumni to be successful in high school, college, and the competitive world beyond. KTC staff consist of high school placement, college counseling, and alumni support advisors who work within KIPP schools and regional offices to provide continued support during and after a student's time at KIPP. This support is customized by each region or school to meet the specific needs of their students, and can include: SAT/ACT prep classes, counseling, academic advisement, enrichment activities, and financial literacy classes for both students and their families.

KIPP has partnered with UNCF and CFED on a pioneering effort called Partnership for College Completion (PCC). PCC offers a comprehensive suite of academic, financial and social supports, such as incentivized college savings accounts, financial literacy education, college readiness training and merit-based college scholarships that will follow students from the sixth grade through to college graduation.

With seed funding from Citi Foundation and Citigroup, PCC is being piloted among 1,600 sixth, seventh and eleventh grade students in 18 KIPP schools in Washington, D.C., Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Houston. In the next year, the PCC pilot will grow to serve up to 27 KIPP schools, including expansion to the New York City region. During the pilot phase, we expect to gain valuable insights that will help us improve and refine the PCC program model to create a broadly replicable solution for college success.

Using Data

KIPP's Healthy Schools Initiative is focused on measuring key elements of school health across the network. These data are focused both on traditional measures of performance like test scores, and also longer-term outcomes like college matriculation and persistence. In addition, Healthy Schools examines the on-the-ground practices and conditions that make a school healthy. These data allow KIPP leaders to critically assess the performance of their schools, identify best practices by viewing data from across the network, and share strategies for improvement with one another.

Our major external evaluation effort, the National Evaluation of KIPP Middle Schools, released its first report on June 22, 2010. This effort began in November 2007, when Mathematica Policy Research was selected to conduct a longitudinal evaluation of KIPP's impact on middle school students. This rigorous study delivers information about both academic and non-academic outcomes. Findings from the National Evaluation will help KIPP identify opportunities for program improvement and to share knowledge and will be used to share insights with the broader education community. A second report is due to be released in late 2012.

Communities of Practice

Across the network, staff members who teach the same subject or share the same job functions, such as Development Director or Regional Leader, are building and participating in a number of "communities of practice" that the Foundation has helped to formalize. Communities of practice members gain new insights into common challenges and share knowledge through email listservs, professional development retreats, school-to-school visits, and web portals where members share helpful materials.

Supporting Our Growth Plans

Another major area of focus for the KIPP Foundation is the strategic growth of the network. We project that we will serve more than 55,000 students by the fall of 2015. We have found that growing KIPP in targeted regions contributes to the quality of schools and provides a platform for sustainability over time. Ultimately, we are committed to ensuring that all KIPP schools, in every stage of growth, are in a position to deliver on the promises that we make to students and their families.

Learn more about how you can make an impact by supporting growth and sustainability at KIPP.

KIPP is committed to a policy of equal treatment for all individuals. KIPP does not discriminate on the
basis of race, color, gender, handicap, age, religion, sexual orientation, national, or ethnic origin.