Paul Thomas is unimpressed by the latest study of KIPP by Mathematica Policy Research.
He firmly rejects the “no excuses” model of schooling, in which students are constantly monitored and disciplined for the smallest infractions. He believes it is classist and racist.
His main point is that the means do not justify the ends. If one’s only goal is higher test scores, they can be produced by coercion. But that is not good education. It old be akin to amputating a limg as a means of weight loss: it works but why would you do it.
Thomas quotes David Whitman, who wrote a book lauding “the new paternalism.” It is called “Sweating the Small Stuff,” a paean to no-excuses schools. (One of them, the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, may be closed because of financial improprieties by its intemperate founder [not because the school–intent on getting higher test scores–has few students of American Indian origin]). Interestingly, Whitman is Arne Duncan’s speech-writer. This explains in part why Duncan is such a big fan of “no excuses” schools. Schools for “other people’s children.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The bigger problem here is that even if KIPP worked it’s not scalable. Education reformers often speak to the power of unions as a barrier to
this sort of reform, but this is misleading. The problem is not that
every school could be like KIPP if only somehow we had no unions and
people stopped demanding to leave at 3 every day. No, KIPP doesn’t
require extra effort beyond minimal and just doing a good job.
Working at KIPP means you get up at 5:30 every day and go to bed at
11. I means you call up students and families every night and it means
you spend most of your free time working on lessons. It means you
can’t buy a house, you can’t start a family, you can’t have much of a
personal or social life. It means, in fact, that you can’t live life
as a regular adult. Now some very motivated people can do this and
succeed, but they have to be 27 years old, and they burn
out after a few years and get some other job. KIPP teachers say this; everyone in a KIPP school knows this.
Isn’t this just the sort of thing we used to excoriate in totalitarian societies?
From a favorable (4 star) Amazon review of Whitman’s (fortunately out of print) book: “In defining the term “paternalistic” Whitman builds on the prior work of Lawrence Mead, who once wrote that “the problem of poverty or underachievement is not that the poor lack freedom. The real problem is that the poor are too free”.”
Wowsa. That’s a mind-blower. Yeah, the poor are too free – that’s why we have to lock them up in record numbers.
I think I’m heading too far down the rabbit-hole trying to understand how anyone can think that “paternalism” is a good thing, so I’m going to put the keyboard down now and back away slowly. Have a nice evening, all. And for my fellow Chicagoans: happy shoveling.
This makes me recall how slave owners used to claim that slaves who ran away did so because they were mentally ill and did not understand that being enslaved was to their benefit.
If this is so wonderful, why aren’t the children of those who advocate for it, promote it, create it, fund it, try to impose it, etc., attending identical institutions?
Michael,
I do think kids of different classes may need different discipline environments. At Berkeley High and eclectic schools like it, the intellectuals’ kids generally do not need tight discipline; but many of the lower-class kids do. It’s a question of internalized controls. It’s not so much a question of race as a question of home-conditioning. I once had an out-of-control bad-boy Hispanic student in my 12th grade English class who returned to me a year later after entering the Marine Corps. He told me how grateful he was for the discipline and structure. It was what he needed.
BS. Kids from poorer families are usually subject to harsher discipline/control/punishment than do their middle class peers. You ever been to a Black church, especially in a poorer neighborhood? You don’t see any kids running around or making any disturbances during the service (nor do they typically have a nursery for little kids). Kids learn early that you sit down and shut up or you’re going to get a backhand across your face.
The problem is that controlling, punitive discipline does not lead to self-control. Kids learn to behave only so long as they are in danger of being punished, then they let loose when Mom and her backhand aren’t around.
What middle class kids are more likely to internalize is that they are loved and lovable. Their parents have taken the time to explain the reasons why we behave properly and the effects on other people when we don’t. They have learned to see themselves as good people who do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because of fear of getting punished.
Dienne, your observations are consistent with mine as well. I’ve worked with a lot of black parents and many have indicated to me that they think their kids need authoritarian parenting, more specifically, they have said that they believe their kids need tough parents and they also “need to be hit.” It was stated as if this was a need specific to black children.
Probably the last time I can recall agreeing with Oprah was years ago when she did a show on parenting and corporal punishment. The discussion centered on this topic –how black parents are tougher and are more likely to hit their kids than parents from other groups– and I remember Oprah telling black parents that their kids didn’t “need” to be hit any more than other children “need” to be hit, and that she believed this practice was something that had carried over from slavery,
At the time, I recall really hoping that “the Oprah effect” would take hold and apply to this, but I don’t think she’s had that kind of impact, possibly because this is so entrenched and parents weren’t really taught how to implement an authoritative parenting style instead.
MichaelPaulGoldberg: You pose the question that none of the leading lights of the charterite/privatizer movement care to answer directly and honestly in public. Thankfully, on this blog some folks will occasionally blurt out the obvious answer: the meritorious few deserve the best education our society has to offer, and the vast majority will get whatever crumbs their social superiors leave behind [otherwise known as ‘obedience schools’ or ‘compliance centers’].
Unfortunately for most of us, one of the most salient characteristics of the ‘no excuses’ crowd is that they have perfected the art of unashamedly and resolutely giving up whenever faced with real difficulties.
Thomas is surely correct in asking for a deeper cause-effect analysis of why KIPP schools get better test results. It may be the “no excuses” foundation, but it may also be the additional resources which KIPP schools pour into the instruction.
On the other hand, Thomas is surely wrong, though honest, to say he rejects the education model of the KIPP schools whether they raise scores or not because the ethos of the schools is “racist” and “classist.” Of course that’s the ethos; they are trying to make middle class kids out of low class kids.
He seems to forget that every middle class family is in effect a KIPP school. Good parents don’t accept any excuses and monitor their kids 24/7. Nothing wrong with that. That’s what one does to bring up effective students and responsible children. Thomas seems to be saying, “let the proles stay proles.”
What utopian delusion he is suffering from is unclear to me.
I have to concur with Paul Thomas, In the famous, “30 Million Word Gap” study, Hart & Risely looked at the interactions between parents and children, from ages 1 to 3, and compared different income groups. In addition to finding very distinct differences in the quality and amount of language used between high and low income families, with children from high income families hearing 30 million more words than children in low income families by age 3, they also found great disparities in how parents spoke to their children.
Children in:
High Income Families: Heard 6 encouragements to every 1 discouragement – 32 affirmatives and 5 prohibitions per hour
Middle Income Families: Heard 2 encouragements to every 1 discouragement – 12 affirmatives and 2 prohibitions per hour
Low Income Families: Heard 2 discouragements to every 1 encouragement – 5 affirmatives and 11 prohibitions per hour
This means that children from high income families heard 560,000 more instances of encouraging talk from their parents than discouraging talk, while children from low income families heard 125,000 more instances of discouraging talk than encouraging talk from their parents.
It really concerns me that children who may have already come from families where they have heard a lot of discouragements and prohibitions are then subjected to that same kind of language by teachers in school. (I went to a military style public middle school myself and I would have to characterize that experience as very heavy on discouragements and prohibitions.)
Harlan:
You are making a classic mistake by MISCHARACTERIZING my claims and then attacking YOUR mischaracterization.
I am NOT saying this: “Thomas seems to be saying, ‘let the proles stay proles.'”
But ironically, the KIPP “no excuses” middle-class boot camps are in fact deciding FOR children not only what socio-economic class matters in this world, but deciding FOR them that there lot is to conform.
KIPP is indoctrination, not education.
Nevermind Harlan – he has whole battalions of strawmen.
I have to agree with Harlan here. Paul Thomas, what do you say to the thousands of teachers who get run over by out-of-control kids day after day? Like Marc Epstein in NYC, or some of the women I teach with in my public middle school. Slack discipline does not help kids and it permits odious treatment of the adults who are merely trying to help them. I hate the charter concept, but I applaud KIPP for raising the bar for kids’ behavior. We have an epidemic of ugly, unnecessary, rude behavior in this country. I fear that neither Paul Thomas or Diane Ravitch –both safely removed from the rigors of public school classrooms –fully appreciate this. Positive reward systems alone do not work for many kids. Using sticks as well as carrots does not slave-masters make us. We should discourage odious, anti-social behavior, and if it continues, it should be punished. That’s part of the job of being an adult. KIPP has decided to be a responsible adult. Many schools –under the baleful influence of romantic ed school utopianists — abdicate that responsibility.
Ponderosa:
I am a life-long educator, two decades IN the public school classroom and another as a teacher educator spending a great deal of time in public schools.
Highly authoritarian environments are NOT “raising the bar” because they are dong TO students, not providing them the opportunity to attain there own agency.
Schools should NOT be places where anyone is unsafe, where anyone is out of control, but the adults in a school have the responsibility to find out WHY these children are “out of control.”
You also set up a false dichotomy. Our choice is NOT between authoritarian and anarchy, as you suggest. Further, the evidence on punishments/rewards solidly discredits your claims about both.
*Standing and applauding* (until my corporate masters beat me back into submission, sigh).
Paul Thomas,
I’m afraid you are living in la-la land. The state punishes adults’ crimes; thus anarchy is avoided. Are kids somehow LESS in need of the threat of punishment? If anything, they are MORE in need. Please stop equating punishment with “highly authoritarian” regimes. Laws backed up with punishment is the way societies, including ours, have worked for time immemorial. Is America “highly authoritarian” because it doles out punishment for rule breakers?
Show me one tough public school that has been transformed into an orderly place by abandoning punishments and replacing them with counseling and positive consequences.
If you can’t, then admit that your doctrines are false and stop preaching them to credulous prospective teachers.
What we have is an epidemic of children who are being raised by parents (who are often children themselves) who know no other way to parent than how they were parented themselves. All too often, that has been an authoritarian approach which involves discouraging and prohibiting their children, from the time they their babies, twice as often as encouragement and affirmations are provided, and slapping their older kids upside the head when they misbehave. Violence begets violence and children bring to school what they’ve learned at home.
I don’t think that anyone here is saying that parents or teachers should be permissive or laissez-faire. But children raised in discouraging and prohibitive environments don’t “need” teachers who use the same kind of punitive approach in the classroom. What they need is an authoritative role model they can emulate who is firm yet provides guidance and support, sets limits yet demonstrates compassion, and who teaches appropriate behaviors and why those behaviors are important, so children can develop social skills and internalize self-controls.
One of the reasons why Early Childhood Education is so important is because high quality programs teach these non-cognitive skills to children at a young age, in supportive environments, The most effective programs have a parent component, so that parents can be taught parenting skills when their children are little.
These kids get nothing but punishment and still they misbehave. Yet people like you seem to think that the cure is *more* punishment. Ever heard of the definition of insanity?
Building on Diane’s point about Whitman, I have expanded a discussion here:
http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/the-poor-are-too-free-unlocking-the-middle-class-code/
New WWC Quick Review on “KIPP Middle Schools: Impacts on Achievement and Other Outcomes, Final Report”
What is the study about? This study examined whether attending a Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) middle school improved
students’ reading, math, social studies, and science achievement for up to 4 years following enrollment. The study analyzed scores on state assessments for approximately 16,000 students attending 41 KIPP middle schools in 13 states and the District of Columbia. Students were followed for 1–4 years, depending on data availability. KIPP middle school students were matched to students who had attended the same feeder school districts but subsequently attended non-KIPP middle schools.
What did the study report? The study reported that students attending KIPP middle schools scored statistically significantly higher than matched students on all of the state assessments and follow-up periods examined, including reading and math 1–4 years following enrollment (effect sizes ranging from 0.05 to 0.36), and social studies and science 3–4 years following enrollment (effect sizes of 0.25 and 0.33, respectively).
How does the WWC rate this study? The portion of the study that used a quasi-experimental design meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. The study established that KIPP and non-KIPP students were similar on measured characteristics such as baseline test scores and demographics, and controlled for baseline characteristics of students in the analysis. The study also presented results on student achievement and behavioral outcomes for a subsample of 13 schools that used a lottery to randomly assign students to attend KIPP schools. However, the WWC does not yet have enough information to determine a study rating for that portion of the study. A more thorough review (forthcoming) will determine the rating of the lottery portion of the study and report on its results.
Citation: Tuttle, C. C., Gill, B., Gleason, P., Knechtel, V., Nichols-Barrer, I., & Resch, A. (2013). KIPP middle schools: Impacts on achievement and other outcomes, final report. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research.
Absence of conflict of interest: This study was conducted by staff from Mathematica Policy Research. Because Mathematica operates the WWC, this study was reviewed by staff from subcontractor organizations.
This study was identified for review by the WWC as a result of receiving significant media attention. You can find this new quick review on the WWC website.
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(I wonder if anyone saw this info)