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Last week, the Milken Family Foundation bestowed the first of its 2015 Milken Educator Awards - often referred to as the "Oscar of Teaching" - to Jessica Cunningham, a principal at KIPP DC College Preparatory.

A new report finds that students in KIPP charter schools experience significantly greater learning gains in math, reading, science, and social studies than do their peers in traditional public schools. The study, which analyzed data from 43 middle schools run by KIPP, officially known as the Knowledge Is Power Program, was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a research center based in Princeton, N.J.

Dale Russakoff's "The Prize" is an unsparing chronicle of five controversial years in Newark that began in front of a cheering audience on Oprah and ended this summer with the resignation of Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson.

The KIPP LA charter network, which has 13 schools in Los Angeles, spent about $18,000 last year on marketing in the city, network spokesman Steve Mancini said. "The recruiting approach from the beginning has involved a lot of shoe leather - going door to door and going to church meetings and youth centers and having that interaction with families," Mancini said.

Schaeffler oversees the network of KIPP charter schools in the city, a system that has grown from 80 fifth-graders in 2001 to 3,600 students in neighborhoods that include Anacostia, Shaw and Trinidad. That number sounds small, but if you could calculate which of the three school leaders is most responsible for boosting the number of college-ready D.C. students from tough neighborhoods, my money would be on Schaeffler.

KIPP results nationwide began to draw attention, critics predicted the network's principals and teachers would burn out from pressure and fatigue. KIPP leaders had the same concern. Four years ago, a working group led by KIPP network co-founder Dave Levin, in partnership with organizational psychologist David Maxfield, began to overhaul how KIPP principals operated.

Freddy Gonzalez, who previously served as the principal of KIPP Austin College Prep and now works as the KIPP Foundation's chief learning officer, said the schools incorporate literacy into every class, including science and math.

Students rapping about cataracts, the black plague and the solar system is all in a day's work in a science class taught by Tom McFadden, the self-proclaimed "science rapper." McFadden, a Stanford grad and Fulbright Scholar, used the hip hop he's long loved to teach students complicated subjects - creating rap videos with a scientific spin.

George Ramirez is a senior at Yale. He's majoring in physics and history. He's come a long way from the mediocre student he was as a youngster in the South Bronx. What changed in his life? When he was nine, he won the lottery. No, not for a check. But for a spot at his local KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) charter school.

From an early age it bothered Richard Barth that in the US children from low-income families had little chance of getting a good education - much less a college degree. Nine years ago he became CEO of the KIPP Foundation, which runs charter schools for underprivileged young people. There are now more than 160 KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools attended by close to 60 thousand students.