News

Students in the country's largest network of charter schools are learning significantly more than they otherwise would, according to a new report.

At many schools in the Baltimore City school district, one nurse makes the rounds at multiple schools. At KIPP Baltimore's charter academy on Greenspring Ave., multiple nurse practitioners, nurses and a doctor are at the school while classes are in session. It's part of a $5 million grant funded by the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation being utilized by the John's Hopkins Children's center. The initiative, called the Ruth and Norman Rales Center for the Integration of Health and Education, is headquartered at the children's center, and offers a "wraparound, fully-integrated model of health and education."

[Shareki Chaney, Rales Center, KIPP Baltimore]: ..."There are many ways we are making it happen at KIPP. We're engaging the parents at their level-whatever they may need, whenever they may need it. We're making them feel comfortable now that the health center is there."

Jennifer Stocklin, an 11th- and 12th-grade English teacher at KIPP Academy, has always loved knowledge, learning and being a student.

For decades, educators and elected officials in North Carolina have been grappling with the most effective ways to improve the quality of public education. Now, a new international study of science and mathematics achievement is showing us where we have succeeded, and where we can go from here.

The National Blue Ribbon Schools award given out each year by the federal government is considered among the highest honors a school can achieve, and of the 335 Blue Ribbon schools in 2015, only onr was from LA Unified. That school, KIPP Raíces Academy School in East Los Angeles, celebrated the award today in a special ceremony that was attended by numerous local politicians and LA Unified administrators, including school board member Monica Garcia, who was the event's keynote speaker. "America is better and safer and stronger because KIPP Raíces is in East LA," Garcia, who grew up just a few blocks from where the school is located, told the crowd.

KIPP opened a school in Redwood City this past year and East Palo Alto parents who send their children there have noticed a difference in academic rigor, services and attentiveness. "Our children are losing years of education they will never recuperate," said Karla Facundo, whose child attends the KIPP school in Redwood City.

Thousands of children in St. Louis live at or below the poverty line.That hardship creates a unique set of challenges that can impact education. Kipp Inspire Academy is trying to address those issues.

The late spring visit by Maya Tucci and Donny Applyrs, the co-founders and leaders of KIPP: Tech Valley's new primary school, was a reassuring experience, Taylan's parents said, after the educators left. Not that they had ever doubted the value of a KIPP education, where the acronym in the school's name stands for Knowledge Is Power Program. From the first moment they first set foot in a KIPP school - four years ago on the hunt for a middle school for their oldest child - they knew they had found the right place.

Many moms aren't ready for their little ones to be away from home. For working parents, the half-day schedule is tough to swing. So every year, administrators from KIPP Explore canvass the neighborhood making their pitch to parents: The charter school's high-quality, pre-kindergarten program helps erase academic gaps that typically plague low-income, English-language learners. Its curriculum puts the student body, which is 96.5 percent Hispanic, on pace for college, they say.