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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.

KIPP Truth Elementary, part of a national network of charter schools and one of four KIPP schools in Dallas-Fort Worth, moved into a new campus on the corner last month. Surrounded by a vacant car wash, old auto shops and shaky single-family homes, the sprawling 77,000-square-foot building looks out of place. But the location of the new building was no mistake. Michael Horne, head of schools for KIPP DFW, said the mission of KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) is to come into communities where children are generally underserved educationally and to provide them with options.

Staffers recommended the board vote yes on the revisions to the charter petition for KIPP Bridge Charter School, located in West Oakland. Many parents and students spoke in favor of the school and the school's leader, principal Lolita Jackson, asking the board to vote yes on an expansion. The school currently serves grades 5 through 8, but the charter revisions will allow the school to expand its services to include transitional kindergarten to fourth grade. "With this elementary school, we will be laying the foundation. We will be training our children in the community of West Oakland on how to study, how to learn, but most importantly, how cool it is to be smart," said Michael Walker, parent of a fifth grade student at KIPP Bridge. "He's actually doing well. He came in reading a little below his level, but they brought him up," said Walker of his son.

It's the afternoon lull at Bongo Java East. Five students from KIPP Academy are tripping over each other behind the counter, trying to show off what they've learned. Grinding espresso beans. Packing the grounds. Steaming milk. "Let's see how this goes," 10th grader Ayanna Holder warns as she knocks a steel pot of scalding milk on the counter. It keeps foam from forming.