Defenders of KIPP sent two comments in response to a post I wrote calling on KIPP to take over an entire small district. Both comments, one from Jonathan Schorr and another from Dr. Daniel Musher, questioned my integrity as a researcher and scholar (and implicitly, as a person, since the insults suggested that I lie, distort and manipulate data).
Be it noted that my post contained no personal insults of any kind. I did not question the integrity of those associated with KIPP. In fact, I said that I like Michael Feinberg, the co-founder of KIPP, who was very welcoming when I visited Houston in 2010. On the few occasions when I have written about KIPP, I have spoken of its success (see my last book). I am not known as a detractor.
But I dared to ask a question. Apparently that is forbidden behavior and turns you into a target.
A word of advice to Jonathan Schorr and Dr. Musher, the infectious diseases specialist who wrote a vitriolic comment: There is such a thing as civil discourse. When disagreeing, stick to the issues and the facts. Do not engage in ad hominem attacks. When you do, it implies that your facts are not adequate to your cause. It does not reflect well on you.
Many people, not part of KIPP, point to KIPP and say that our society need not alleviate poverty because KIPP demonstrates that its methods overcome poverty. If people are distorting KIPP’s purpose, KIPP spokesmen should say so, instead of attacking and insulting those who are alarmed by this fallacious reasoning.
Others say that KIPP is a model for public education. Make explicit what that model is: Strict discipline? Reliance on young teachers to spend 9 hours daily in school and to be on call 24/7? Longer days and weeks? Spending more? Are these methods scalable to a nation with 80,000 schools and 50 million students? Are they scalable to one small impoverished school district?
I reiterate to friends and supporters of KIPP: It is not appropriate to smear critics.
Engage with them. State your views in a civil tone. Rudeness and vitriol in public discourse do not speak well of your organization. Remember that people will draw conclusions about your organization by observing your public demeanor.
If you wish people to think well of KIPP, be cordial, be nice.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane,
You civility is amazing! Your ability to remain calm and level-headed, even after an hostile response full of vitriol, is admirable. Thank you for being an example to us, and those who oppose our views.
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FOK (Friends of Wendy Kopp) = KIPP. Her husband. Also. Even.
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Diane,
As a KIPP supporter, I agree with you that civility is important. But it’s also important to be honest about what we disagree with, and your post doesn’t exactly do so.
Here is an example: In your last post, you make this absurd statement: “Do [KIPP supporters] want the world to believe that poverty, homelessness, disabilities, extreme family circumstances, squalid living conditions have no effect on children’s readiness to learn?” Of course they don’t. And your phrasing the question this way is only meant to provoke anti-KIPP sentiment. It’s not an honest attempt at debate. What KIPP does demonstrate is that, even in such circumstances — which certainly affect children’s ability to be successful in school — students can overcome the barriers and succeed.
In this post, you list some of the things that make KIPP different: “Strict discipline? Reliance on young teachers to spend 9 hours daily in school and to be on call 24/7? Longer days and weeks? Spending more?” But you hardly provide honest assessments of these items. Instead you exaggerate. KIPP’s discipline is generally not any more strict than any other public school. What it is, however, is consistent and enforced. And it tends to employ (again, it depends a great deal on the school leader) some creative ways to encourage good behavior. Then there is the young teacher canard. Sure, some are young, but not all. And as KIPP ages, so, too, do its teachers. Nor are any of them on call 24/7. Most teachers tell students not to call after 8 or 9.
And, yes, to answer your question: All of these things play a role in the KIPP model. And all of them are important. So let’s talk about them. You often explain how hard it is to educate kids living in extreme poverty. Well, KIPP seems to understand that challenge and recognize that it requires tremendous effort — things like longer days, allowing students to call teachers at home, enforcing discipline. If you’re looking for a solution, why not start there?
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Alex,
Why won’t KIPP take over an entire district that is small and impoverished? That would end all suspicion that KIPP selects its students.
KIPP is now used as “evidence” that nothing need by done to address poverty. Just send more money to KIPP. Sorry, but I think that is fallacious and it enables many people to evade the hard choices facing this nation. We are in fact ignoring poverty, ignoring racial segregation and allowing social dynamite to accumulate in abandoned communities.
KIPP should take charge of one of those communities and bring its knowledge and wisdom to bear to show the nation what can be done and should be done.
Diane
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I have stopped being amazed at some of the postings on this blog. I think Mr. Little would do well to read and ponder the meaning of the subheading near the top of this web page: “A site to discuss better education for all.”
Please, sir, think about what this means. Diane did not write “better education for a fortunate few and too bad for the vast majority” or “I’ve got mine, you get yours” or “I found a solution for my kids so too bad for the rest of you.”
As has happened so often with postings here and on other blogs, it is in large part the commentary of the current crop of so-called “education reformers” that has convinced me that Diane and others are often spot on with their critiques.
What clinches the deal for me in this exchange is the last posting I just saw by Mr. Little: “Besides Diane’s response, there’s not much civil discourse going on here. Ironic.”
This is sadly dismissive and signals [I hope unintentionally] an inability to discuss the issues. This is not about personal issues involving you, or Diane, or those that post on this blog. Your defense of your ideas was inadequate and refuted. Perhaps it is time to consider the possibility that you are wrong.
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You really can’t make things so just by saying so. Nor are you the least bit justified in using terms such as “dishonest” in describing Dr. Ravitch’s remarks. You’re not helping your case here even in a small way by your patronizing tone and lack of substance. You sound as if your’re playing for the ears of your very own KIPP masters, absent here but nonetheless listening closely to monitor their spawn’s dissonant , ill made “contribution” to this page with its misleading yet superficially civil sounding venom.
Troll on, if you must. Ur a lite weight.
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Hey JDM,
Not sure that I meet the definition of “troll,” but ok. And not sure what you mean by “misleading yet superficially civil sounding venom.” Care to explain? I’d be happy to explain whatever I’ve set that’s set you off.
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Is it scalable? Is it really for all kids?
If KIPP is working for some kids, that’s great. I am thrilled by the success of every student.
KIPP can send kids back to their original school, no questions asked, if the student isn’t happy and can be counseled to do so if he is not performing well. No test, no application needed. This isn’t usually one of the options for the principal of the neighborhood school.
This self-selecting for the families that believe in and work well in the KIPP format is cherry-picking. That’s not a bad thing as long as we acknowledge that it is happening, and therefore is not scalable to all students in a district or to all schools. Peer dynamics are perhaps more important than teachers for many students, and being among motivated peers may help these kids without harming the neighborhood school – if we understand that that’s what we’re doing.
I’d love to see free, optional afterschool programs for every school that gives kids a great place to be with additional learning opportunities until 5 or 6 pm. We don’t need KIPP to do this for public schools – we just need the money.
I’d love to see longer school years instead of shorter ones. We don’t need KIPP to offer this – we just need to be funded for the time in the neighborhood schools we already have.
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Diane,
I agree that the challenge you propose would answer the research question. But it’s also asking a great deal — and it moves the goal posts. Three points:
1. KIPP is generally very successful. We can look at that two ways — either by finding lessons to apply elsewhere or by attempting to explain away that success. Gerald Coles’ blog post was an example of the latter. Very few KIPP critics take the time to look at the individual pieces of KIPP’s success and try to understand how/why the work. Or if, individually, they actually work to promote student success, or not. The approach of KIPP critics makes it easy to paint them as uninterested in anything other than bashing KIPP.
2. On this issue, one great example is KIPP in DC. It’s expanding and serving an ever-larger student population (I think 10 schools now). And it’s doing so successfully. They’re not avoiding hard choices. They’re confronting hard problems with a single-minded focus on helping students succeed. As KIPP expands in many cities, it’s doing exactly what you ask.
3. Your proposal, although I’m sure you mean it, is somewhat absurd. Consider this hypothetical: The Yankees pick up baseball’s best pitcher, call him Cy Young. And he’s amazing. He has an ERA of 1.00; when he pitches, the Yankees win. Unfortunately, the rest of the pitchers struggle. When the 4 of them pitch, the Yankees lose. This leads to a losing record for the Yankees, who are at the bottom of the league. A critic of Cy Young declares that he’s not that great; he’s just been fortunate to pitch against bad teams, or when the other teams were struggling. If he REALLY wanted to prove what a great pitcher he was, he’d pitch every night, against every team. As you can imagine, this doesn’t work out so well. After a week of pitching every night, he injures his throwing arm and has to go on injury reserve.
In this hypo is Cy Young a good pitcher, or a bad one? Is it reasonable to ask him to pitch every night? Probably not, just as the challenge to KIPP isn’t reasonable — at least not right now. If Cy Young knows that he’ll need to pitch every night, and has time to prepare, maybe he can pull it off after a few seasons of training. Same for KIPP. But moving the goal posts now, when the organization is still young, isn’t fair.
They’re pitching great, but they can’t save the public school team. Instead, here’s to hoping that the other pitchers mimic a few of Cy Young’s quirks.
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The baseball analogy is irrelevant and misses the point. You start your post with an invalid premise right off the bat (pun intended):
“1) KIPP is generally very successful.”
Certainly, in some self-referential way, you may declare KIPP “successful”, i.e., by placing the “goalposts” at a location convenient to KIPP.
But that is self-serving and misses the point of Dr. Ravitch’s challenge.
You have not defined success in a way that is useful to the discussion immediately at hand. Our context is the education of ALL children in ALL communities. KIPP does not exist in a vacuum. It consumes a scarce resource, public money, that is otherwise to be used for ALL those children in ALL those communities. It skims students with more advantages, thereby increasing the challenges of the public schools (and their remaining students) with which it competes by diluting their populations..
Thus any comparisons are invalidated and “successes” are meaningless. If your experiment can’t isolate confounding factors, you can’t learn reliably. Dr. Ravitch simply suggests a method that KIPP genuinely and verifiably teach us something we don’t already know about teaching children successfully – or better than we do – by using the same resources.
If it can’t be done, I can (civilly) accept your admission of that.
This leaves aside the matter of whether we can agree on what goals define success – a more fundamental question.
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“But moving the goal posts now, when the organization is still young, isn’t fair.”
If your organization is not up to Diane’s challenge, that is, to cope with the educational realities that public schools have to deal with everyday, then stop reporting that KIPP is superior to public schools.
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If one truly believes in his/her endeavors, there is no need for mudslinging. In fact, discourse is welcomed! Each time a reformer resorts to name calling, questions a dissenter’s credibility, and alludes to the state of the opponent’s mental health, the message is loud and clear: they know their actions are fronting something darker. The attacks show up when someone, like Diane, gets a little too close to the truth and starts asking the questions that might reveal what is really going on. KIPP won’t take on a small, failing school district because they know they cannot make schools successful for every single child. Being wildly successful only comes about when they are able to select their students. If they truly believed in their methods, they’d take the challenge and use their shortcomings as a way to improve their program. Deep down, they know the truth about their limitations, but instead of being honest, they have to get defensive and protect the KIPP reputation. Sort of reminds me of raising teenagers…
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“Our” paid messaging people of the unions and the democratic party are focused on whining about mean meanies being mean and being disengenuous, instead of being focused on how to beat the liars. Since I have a job already, and it isn’t messaging, I’ll struggle a bit trying to figure out & explain the republican thug party tactics, and the non-thug dismal responses.
The thugs know that there are lots of layers of messaging – you need the Powell types, and you need the George Will types, and you need the fire ’em up! emotional types. They actually fund all of it.
In the non-thug world the prevalent upper middle class ethos is to debate policy on facts and merits and to NOT work on emotional appeals. The non-thug world carries this ethos a step further by actually censoring those on its non-thug side who fight on the emotional level – instead of celebrating diversity and adopting ‘live and let live’ towards emotional appeals that their upper middle class affections cause them to be uncomfortable with.
So – here is where things get twisted.
Let’s start with a bunch of liars who are toadies to aristocrats – aristocrats who want us all living as doormats, boot lickers, butt kissers, serfs and cannon fodder. The non-thugs debate the lies and a mistaken set of facts, with mistaken conclusions from mistaken facts. From all kinds of levels, the toadies attack the non-thugs, and they especially attack who-you-are, all the while lying about personal attacks not being personal, and lying about their factual lies not being a bunch of lies.
And the non-thugs get defensive, tighten the reins, don’t address head on that lying toadies will lie however possible for who they’re toadies to … because that would be personal & ad-hominey!!
And, finally … YAWN … about those “facts” and about that disagreeable emotional stuff – aren’t the facts of 3 decades of the 1% ripping us all off enough? Shouldn’t people be fired up cuz they get to work harder for non family wage jobs? cuz they have less access to health care for themselves and their family members? uz the “health” access they do have will bankrupt their future? cuz the surplus they’re saving for retirement is going through LBO CDO MBS casinos on the way to Wall Street mistresses, mansions, yachts and jets?
Shouldn’t they be fired up that the education of their kids is going to be run by a bunch of legalized pirates who’d put the East India Company to shame for shenanigans?
rmm
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Besides Diane’s response, there’s not much civil discourse going on here. Ironic.
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Alex, do you agree that for a hypothetical to be useful it should have at least some basis in reality?
The Yankees would never, ever pitch hypothetical Cy Young every game. The 2009 Royals didn’t do it with Greinke; the 1972 Phillies didn’t do it with Carlton.
And Greinke, Carlton, and both the hypothetical and actual Cy Youngs were great not just because of hard work, but because of how they were hard-wired. So your analogy has fallen apart on both the front and back ends: all pitchers who are great work hard and work right, but working hard and working right does not guarantee one will become a great pitcher.
You’ll have to do a much better job of explaining why it wouldn’t be reasonable–your word–to ask KIPP or any other charter operator that’s considered high-performing to take over an accept-all-comers district or school and compare results. That’s not ‘moving the goalposts,’ not as long as KIPP and other operators lord their superiority over the district model.
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Tim,
Your examples are exactly what I’m getting at — no team would ask this of a pitcher, both b/c it’s physically impractical and b/c it’s not part of the system of pitching that has developed in MLB. This relates to the current debate b/c KIPP began as a charter school, not a replacement of a school system. And, although it has grown by leaps and bounds, it remains a network of charter schools. The shift from a network of this sort to an operator of a district is profoundl; somewhat akin to the shift of asking a pitcher to pitch every game instead of every 5th game. That does move the goal posts. But I’m hard pressed to see who is saying the KIPP model (of a network of charter schools) is superior to the district model. They’re different, of course, both because of their orgins and their operating constraints. None of this should be controversial. Instead, the question we should be asking is: What is KIPP doing right that we can apply to the district model?
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Alex,
To address first things first. May the ghost of Cy Young forever haunt you for suggesting that he be a Yankee!!-HA HA (from a lifelong fan of the best franchise in the history of the National League-goin for twelve in twleve.)
What I’d like to see from you is a list of all the KIPP start up schools– how long they were/are in existence, what is the cohort graduation rates, what are the teacher attrition rates for each and every school. Also things like teacher and administrative salaries, and dollars spent per pupil. Has/Does each and every KIPP supply transportation, after school programs, art, music, etc. . . ?????
In other words a true accounting of what KIPP has actually done in the years since its founding.
Thanks,
Duane
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Duane,
Many apologies for the historical misstatement! No insult implied. And that’s quite a list you’re after. I know KIPP has a great deal of data on the website, but I don’t think they’ve ever aggregated in the manner requested. That said, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a similar list (in a single place) for any large school district or state-wide district. Many of these things (transportation/after school programs, art, etc) vary on a school-by-school level, even within a single public school district.
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Alex,
Twasn’t an insult to me, just to the baseball gods. And I don’t know about you but I’ve seen much damage done by the baseball gods to mere mortal ballplayers when they insult the gods. You know like walking the pitcher with two outs after being 0-2 on him or the batter swinging at the first pitch after the pitcher had walked the bases loaded on twelve straight pitches-both guaranteed to PO the ball gods.
Yes, you’re right it would be hard for a district to come up with such information in one place. But most districts have been around for a lot longer than KIPP. One would think that those in charge of KIPP would have that information somewhere and it would behoove them to complile it and then put it out there for all to see. Otherwise what we have are just incomplete statements of “worth” by KIPP, which for me then have the force of marketing and advertising campaigns, meaning basically worthless, as indicators of long standing quality/success. High standard of proof? You betcha!!
Duane
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Genuinely confused here.
Didn’t Mr. Schorr make this point two days ago on his blog after THIS blog dragged his family into the “debate”?
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WoW! That’s three for three this morning, Diane. You Rock, Girl!
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Dr. Ravitch, I agree with everything you’ve said about civility but your call for civility is a bit late. Two days late, to be exact. I’d like to point out two things: (1) Jonathan Schorr responded to your original challenge to KIPP with what I thought were well-reasoned remarks. Were there phrases in his response that you can consider jabs or “snarky” as you called them? Probably. But no more than the jabs you took at KIPP in your original post: “…KIPP should find an impoverished district that is so desperate that it is willing to put all its students into KIPP’s care” or the snarky comments that have come since: “Come on. The eyes of the nation are on you…Don’t be afraid. Show your stuff…” I’ve read his original response again and I don’t see anything that suggests, as you’ve stated above, that you “lie, distort and manipulate data.” I don’t see any attacks on you, personally, or your family. (2) Two days ago, you chose to make this argument personal by dragging Jonathan’s dad, Daniel Schorr (who passed away two short years ago), into this debate. And you even quoted another blogger who smeared not just Jonathan but Marian Wright Edelman’s sons: “What is it with the offspring of principled people like Daniel Schorr and Marian Wright Edelman? I’ll never be famous or revered, but dammit, my kids are never going to sell their souls.” This could have been a wonderful (albeit contentious) debate between two brilliant minds who, at the end of the day, I believe, want the same thing for our kids.
Civility? Hardly. Bringing someone’s family into a debate about better educating kids? Shameful. How many underserved students were helped as a result of this exchange? Zero.
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Sorry, I disagree with you. There was nothing uncivil in my original post about KIPP.
Jonathan Schorr responded by personally insulting me and questioning my integrity, citing that great scholar David Brooks as his source. So far as I know, David Brooks has never read a book of mine, and in the article to which Schorr referred, Brooks did not offer a single example to back up his scurrilous comment about my use of data.
I referred to Jonathan’s father because I knew Dan Schorr. He was a man of the left who exposed the machinations of the super-rich. Jonathan now works at the NewSchools Venture Fund, which is a nexus of the super-rich. I think that is sad, and yes, it is relevant because of what the NewSchools Venture Fund does.
The NewSchools Venture Fund gathers money from the wealthiest foundations in American to promote the privatization of public education.
Talk about shameful.
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Seems to me that the Harlem Globetrotters vs the Washington Generals would be the apt sports analogy concerning KIPP’s carefully constructed “success.”
Wonder how would they fare in the big leagues, where you have to face all comers?
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I don’t thing the problem is KIPP or other no nonsense schools. I think they are full of hard working and dedicated individuals just like the ones that work in public schools. The problem is when others use these as reasons to strip away our rights as workers or to turn around schools in our communities and causing havoc. I think what we want is for the leader of one of these schools to say, “we don’t want to be used as tool to attack other teachers or destroy other school communities.”. If the head of KIPP said that it would so helpful to creating a more civil education community.
On another note it is pretty clear this idea isn’t scalable, just look at Cole MS here in Denver. Also the Cole BuilidIng has since been filled with another no excuses charter that managed not to have to take the neighborhood kids and has been “successful”
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