Gary Rubinstein noticed the lack of media about KIPP charters in New York City. While Eva Moskowitz unleashes media blitzes about the high test scores of Success Academy charters, KIPP is silent. He wondered why.
He checked the test scores of third graders in the city’s 110 charters with a third grade (that started in kindergarten) and discovered the reason:
“In the bar graph below, the 110 schools are sorted from highest percent getting a 3 or 4 on the ELA test to the lowest. The Success Academies are almost all at the far left. The 3 KIPP schools are marked with red bars. The top performing KIPP school was 37th out of 110 with 41.9% getting a 3 or 4. The second best KIPP was 66th with 27.3% getting a 3 or a 4, and the lowest was 90th with 17.2% getting a 3 or a 4. On average, KIPP is pretty much worse than 2/3 of the charter schools in New York City.”
This is nothing to boast about.
On the other hand, I am so sick and tired of charter boasting that I am glad to see it tamped down or disappear.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Eva Moskowitz obviously loves her role as a quasi-government, unelected leader but I actually give her credit for being the public face of that charter chain.
I think it’s weird that we have these faceless national charter chains now, like KIPP. If they want to be a public system they should have a person who is visible and accountable.
I see the person who runs Toledo Public Schools just about every day in the newspaper. I know his name. Who “runs” the national KIPP chain? Who runs “Charter Schools USA”? We know they lobby state and federal lawmakers and have huge influence in the Obama Administration over policy. Who lobbies? The “founders”?
In Ohio we get these bizarre, opaque statements from “authorizers” – they speak as an entity. No one knows who works there, what they get paid, what their qualifications are, nothing. It goes “statement from Toledo Superintendent John Doe and then statement from hired hack national charter lobbying group or policy shop”. Those two things are not the same.
Chiara, you have identified the essential undemocratic, unaccountable nature of charter chains. What once was a local community institution is replaced by a chain operation. You as a parent don’t know whom to call when there is a problem. Furthermore the school is eager to bury problems, and being a school of choice, it can tell you to withdraw your child and choose a different school.
“You as a parent don’t know whom to call when there is a problem.”
For any KIPP NYC parents who aren’t aware of the process, here is what you should do in the event of a problem at your child’s school:
1. Contact your child’s teacher;
2. Contact the school’s principal;
3. Contact the school’s independent board, either in writing or by attending one of the mandatory monthly board meetings, which are subject to state open meetings laws;
4. If all else fails, contact the school’s authorizer: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/complaint.html
As a NYC DOE traditional public school parent, I can tell you that this process is certainly no worse than the one available to us in “transparent” and “democratic” schools under mayoral control, and in some ways it is arguably better and more responsive.
Rubenstein’s focus on test scores paints a very incomplete picture, of course. How did the KIPP schools fare vs the NYC DOE schools their students were zoned for, for example?
Tim, it’s obvious that KIPP is doing something wrong. Do you have a theory as to why their results are so utterly appalling? Should SUNY Charter Institute shut them down? They teach the same children that Success Academy has but get terrible results. Why is KIPP ignoring the fact that all they have to do is be a Success Academy to improve?
Why do you care whether there are public schools doing it worse? We know why — those public schools are stuck with those lousy union teachers of course, at least according to the pro-charter folks like you. But KIPP should have fired all those teachers at their low-performing schools, as well as the administrators. There is no union stopping them — so I can only assume it is that KIPP itself it demonstrating low-expectations. Why don’t they offer their school up to Eva Moskowitz to take over and step down from the charter school business? Eva Moskowitz should be showing KIPP how it is done and the fact that after years of seeing Success Academy prove how inept KIPP’s schools in NYC are, why doesn’t KIPP just give up? Eva Moskowitz wants more schools and she can just take over all of KIPPs.
Let Success Academy take over ALL the other charters before expanding into new spaces. Don’t you agree, Tim?
NYC public school parent: thank you for pointing out, succinctly, how thoroughly purveyors of corporate education reform skewer themselves when held up (even for a moment) to their own selling points aka standards.
Speaking strictly for myself, I much appreciate the laugh this evoked: “Rubenstein’s focus on test scores paints a very incomplete picture, of course.”
No, test scores are the alpha and omega of self-styled “education reform.” Live by the massaging and torturing of numbers & stats produced by those inherently imprecise, limited and typically misused & abused standardized tests—then there is “no excuse” for any complaints re the same by anyone peddling charters & privatization and the like.
So to riff off the some rheephorm mantras: it’s all about rising tides lifting all charter boats and being creatively disruptive and doing more with less and “it’s all for the kids” and world-class blabhblah. I await the official announcement by the KIPPsters in charge of their NYC operations to turn over their keys and everything else to Ms. Moskowitz.
Tout suite.
That is, if we’re not dealing with double standards and double talk and double think that would condemn KIPP students to the same (and worse) education than their peers in “big gubmint monopoly schools” aka public schools.
😎
P.S. While referencing the figures produced by standardized tests, I take nothing away from all manner of ludicrous exaggerations and clumsy lies produced by rheephorm math, e.g., 100% charter graduation rates and increasing a 2% graduation rate to 12% by former LAUSD Supt. John Deasy by leaving out all those pesky “non-strivers” [term courtesy of Mr. Michael J Petrilli].
“Rubenstein’s focus on test scores paints a very incomplete picture, of course.”
Wow, I’m impressed.
Even coming from an compulsive charter school shill like Tim, this is the height of chutzpah, and yet it’s to be expected: for years, charter touts have been making claims of “miraculous” things taking place in these schools, with virtually all of those claims ultimately hinging on test scores.
Yet, when one of the most overly-hyped Skinner Box, no excuses charter chain sweatshops is conclusively shown to be a failure at even that debased metric, we get harrumphing that education is about more than test scores.
What else can you say, but that lying liars lie, and so-called reformers prove themselves utterly incapable of honesty or good faith, every single time.
From my other comment on this thread:
“The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate at KIPP Infinity is 37%. The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate for NYC DOE traditional public schools in District 5 (Central Harlem) is 18%.
“The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate at KIPP Washington Heights Elementary (mislabeled in Rubinstein’s graph) is 54%. The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate for NYC DOE traditional public schools in District 6 (Washington Heights, Inwood) is 23%.
“The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate at KIPP Academy Elementary is 41%. The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate for NYC DOE traditional public schools in District 7 (South Bronx) is 17%”
These KIPP schools are all high-poverty and almost entirely comprised of at-risk kids. They are comfortably meeting the benchmarks required by their charters. They are attracting tons of families who aren’t buying the more money/more time message. Failure? I think not.
Still waiting for your meaningful, actionable plan to get kids who attend KIPP schools into schools that you’d send your own kids to!
Tim, my plan is for KIPP to turn over its reigns to Eva Moskowitz so that ALL children can be at grade level. Are you kidding me that you think it is okay to have 41% proficient when KIPP has absolutely no excuse for not having 100% proficient.
If Success Academy has more than double the proficiency rates with the same kids that KIPP has, what is KIPP doing wrong? Tim, you have already made it clear what the public schools are doing wrong — union teachers, wasting money, not getting rid of all their “violent” kids. But it’s the union’s fault that public schools aren’t doing better.
However, you can’t blame the union for KIPP’s poor performance when compared to Success Academy. So why shouldn’t SA take them over? If you really cared about those kids, isn’t that would you would be fighting for?
I also think it’s interesting that they are quietly dropping extended days. I’d like a public discussion of that decision from these people who are all paid by the public.
They promoted extended days and their politicians pushed it as the cure-all for all public schools. Rahm Emanual got a lot of political bang out of bashing public schools for short days.
If they’re backing off long days then part of operating on the public dime is explaining to the public why they’re doing that. They were happy to promote it as “secret sauce”. We’re owed an explanation of why this is no longer true.
If they’re going to foist charter school theory on every public school in the country thru the politicians they captured that comes with a responsibility to admit error.
Charter schools abandonment of extended days is part of their abandonment of the at-risk children they were legally mandated to serve.
If you look at the articles that came out when Success Academy announced it was shortening its day, the comments from parents were telling. The growing number of upper middle class parents — often white — who wanted their kids to be able to do all the same after school activities that their affluent public school and private school friends did were not supporters of long days. The working parents and low-income parents who didn’t have the money to pay for expensive after school classes and lessons liked the longer days.
One of the funniest comments by Success Academy was their assertion that they were doing it for the teachers! Suddenly they care about teachers? And are sacrificing the needs of all those at-risk kids to make those lazy bums happy? Right. The change came when the middle class families that they are desperate to attract weren’t coming because they didn’t want the long days.
My school in Newark with the blessed longer days scored second lowest in the district on the PARCC.
The extended day concept is almost abusive to students…past midafternoon there is not much brain space in these kids to force more in…and exhausting for teachers…some of the procedures in no excuses charters are really cultlike…
Chiara—Surely you know one of the big draws of charter schools is lack of transparency and lack of public accountability. Where is the public taxpayer outrage???
Exactly – Where is the taxpayer outrage? One argument we hear against school bond issues is “administrative waste.” The rare disclosures about exorbitant executive salaries at charters bring no outcry. A board member of K-12 is paid $190,000 while a public school board member, elected by citizens, is not paid or receives a modest salary or per diem. Charters can advertise for students, public schools cannot. Neither of these are classroom expenditures that public officials accuse public school districts of shortchanging but ask about charter administrative costs? Crickets.
I’m sick of how closed this is. Moskowitz lobbies lawmakers constantly and she isn’t just lobbing for more money and support for her schools- she wants her schools to be a “national model”.
I object to this. I want lawmakers to hear from more than 150 well-connected ed reform “rock stars”. They have a duty to listen to listen to people outside their preferred privatized systems. I don’t care if the Obama Administration and Congress prefer charter schools. They have a job they’re paid to do, and it includes public schools.
Ordinary public school leaders don’t get this kind of access. They should. They have a right to be heard by the people who supposedly represent them.
“She was also selected as a keynote speaker on education reform, along with Washington, D.C. chancellor Kaya Henderson, at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, earlier this month for some powerful business leaders and politicians. She spoke before an audience that included New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who told the crowd charter school supporters would have to outspend teachers’ unions in order to defeat them.”
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/07/8549878/moskowitz-success-academy-could-be-national-model
I think it’s almost laughable how captured DC is by charters.
Moskowitz lectures Congress and the Obama Administration on public schools. They sit their nodding their heads at her brilliance.
In contrast to that, Congress and the Obama Administration lecture public school leaders on public schools.
Those two things are not the same. That’s not “agnostic”.
Perhaps it is time to use the “Million Man March” as a model and have an outward display of public education support. This would be especially powerful in an election year and hopefully send a message about how America supports their public school systems.
Chiara- Policymakers an leaders have an obligation to hear public education. They have been getting away with ignoring the needs of public schools and showing a bias and partiality towards charters. They should have to extol the virtues of successful public schools as well. How is it we allow them to ignore the needs of over 90% of the students?
The reformsters love data until the point where it does not support their argument. Then they run for the hills. They particularly dislike data regarding attrition rates, special education and ESL.
Abigail, you have certainly nailed the reformers on their utter disregard for attrition rates (one of the few things that really tell you whether a charter school is actively trying to keep at-risk students or actively trying to get rid of them.) If the authorizers refused to authorize new school for high performing charters that lost higher numbers of non-moving at-risk students than lower-performing charters, then the public would believe that the authorizers cared about attrition rate. In fact, it’s just the opposite — a school can rid themselves of as many students as they want and as long as the remaining (albeit few) students who are left get good scores, the authorizers do whatever those charters want.
There are actually some “good” charter schools that keep all their students and also have results that mean that those charter schools just should close down. I bet you that the KIPP schools in NYC that have terrible results have lower attrition rates than the NJ KIPP schools with higher results. It is utterly counterintuitive that a parent would pull their child from a charter school with fantastic results more frequently than they would pull their child from a charter school with mediocre results, UNLESS the charter school with good results was purposely making their child as miserable as possible to encourage that child’s parents to “voluntarily” pull them. The fact that the authorizers look the other way and in fact, reward the charters that do this is why there is absolutely no longer any reason for charters to exist. They have become corrupted thanks to their overseers.
Diane, do we need a VAM 101 lesson again? The scores by themselves tell us nothing. We need to see the growth relative to similar kids or at least the test scores relative to the students’ SES and starting scores. Most critics at least address the argument of their advocate, not simply ignore it.
Virginia, spare us
“Duane, do we need a VAM 101 lesson again?”
NO! vsgp ‘we’ don’t! But since you’ve conceded that the educational standards and standardized testing upon which VAM is based are completely invalid, where does that leave VAM in relation to validity. Hint: It leaves it completely invalid.
“We need to see the growth relative to . . . ”
Says who?!?
Vsgp After your prior trolling comment attacking special needs kids and their parents, you represent the worst America has to offer and are no longer credible or vaguely amusing. If your VAM-based, eugenics approach is somehow accepted as rational, America is in trouble. Go elsewhere.
Duane— Agree. Most educators help students become life-long learners with understanding, compassion, flexibility, passion for subject area, setting high expectations and enthusiasm. I don’t know any educator that would say data was the answer to this. It’s the reformers who focus on data–changing FERPA to get the data, creating common core standards so they can tag the data, creating a longitudinal data collection system, and giving away data for companies to profit from it. Reform=Data=$$$$. Building life-long learners = understanding and compassion. Things that can’t be measured.
BRAVO Diane. Thank you for your 3 word comment/reply to V. You are more kind than I will ever be, and certainly better informed than many. Have I told you lately how important you are to so many?
Mathvale, VGSP is continually harassing posters all over the net, and complaining when people reply to it. It. Not sure what it is. It comes here to rile people up too with its nonsense. It thrives off it; perhaps it is a paid shill, or goes by other well know reformster names, but for sure, it is a one trick pony. I like your reply to it.
Diane, have I ever complained when folks responded to my posts? Even when they make inaccurate (some might even say libelous) remarks?
Donne: please reconsider your comment—
You are giving one-trick ponies a bad name.
😏
Just remember that flamers are famous—or infamous—for taking the level of word salad and cognitive dissonance from the 13th to the 90th percentile.
They just want the attention.
😎
P.S. The “13th to 90th percentile” is a reference to Michelle Rhee, who ludicrously claimed for years and years to have taken “her” students [forget that pesky co-teacher!] from the lower to the upper percentile during her brief and unhappy stint as a teacher. This is the educational equivalent of walking on water and turning water into wine. She finally gave up the claim when she couldn’t produce any evidence whatsoever in the form of hard copy or computer files or statements by her principal [from whom she claimed to hear the miracle numbers] or co-workers.
The above claim was eviscerated by the above troll—who simultaneously considers Michelle Rhee a greater hero than even the renowned civil rights leader Arne Duncan!
🙄
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” [George Orwell]
Nah. Emperor has no clothes. Even worse is a bird losing its feather as he gets frustrated with continuous malfunction with VAMpire machine at his SUPERNOVA lab work in Virginia.
Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa….you have complained on other blogs and articles that your comments are being deleted. DELETED. It irks you to no end. Also you complain that people are disrespecting your comments – now, I’m paraphrasing, but to be sure, you complain, lots, about your comments and people’s replies to them. Now, just shoo fly, shoo.
You haven’t heard? I hate to break the news, but there was a Santa. St. Nicholas died in 343 AD in Myra. :o)
If St. Nicholas is still active as Santa, his nom de plume, then we have to believe in ghosts.
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/
Krazy TA—attention seeking pretty much sums it up!
Donna: if I were a rheephormster I would just blame a subordinate like “autocorrect” for bad implementation of my aspirational thoughts, but I know I should check and double-check before posting a comment.
“Donne” should read “Donna.”
😎
Geeze, it must be sad for KIPP not to even be able to cherry pick and manipulate the numbers like Success Academy does. That’s so bad, its like being the dry rot below the scratched surface of an old oak wine barrel.
So now will we see if the reformers are right with their market based ideology – parents should be voting with their feet and changing schools. Isn’t the basis of the charter movement?
There seems to be some confusion on the part of Gary Rubenstein and many of the commenters here.
A required goal of every New York City charter school is to outpeform the test averages of the NYC CSD where the charter school is located. I suppose it is possible that there’s a charter somewhere that has a goal to outscore *other* charter schools, but I’m not aware of it. So the relevant question to ask is: how do these KIPP elementary schools look compared to their districts?
The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate at KIPP Infinity is 37%. The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate for NYC DOE traditional public schools in District 5 (Central Harlem) is 18%.
The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate at KIPP Washington Heights Elementary (mislabeled in Rubinstein’s graph) is 54%. The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate for NYC DOE traditional public schools in District 6 (Washington Heights, Inwood) is 23%.
The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate at KIPP Academy Elementary is 41%. The combined third-grade math/ELA exam proficiency rate for NYC DOE traditional public schools in District 7 (South Bronx) is 17%
Charter schools in New York are open to any child who resides in the state, with an admissions preference granted to children who live in the CSD where the charter is located. There are actually lower rates of student attrition at charter schools located in hypersegregated districts with high concentrations of at-risk children: http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/2015schoolattrition.pdf
KIPP’s third graders are significantly outperforming third-graders at traditional public schools in three of the poorest and most disadvantaged districts in New York City. Rubinstein should probably look for a different way to answer his question.
Tim, you are avoiding the question.
KIPP has the freedom to hire and fire at will. It educates the SAME kids as Success Academy does. But it is failing 75% of the kids in their schools. At Success Academy, 100% of the poor 3rd graders at Bed Stuy 1 passed the exams! Top that, KIPP. Why is KIPP allowed to exist when Eva Moskowitz can just take over their schools?
Why aren’t you advocating for Eva Moskowitz taking them over and showing them how it is done? We KNOW why those public schools are failing — they can’t fire their teachers. But KIPP can fire anyone they want. Again, KIPP is settling for mediocrity to failure when all they have to do is adopt the Success Academy system and 100% of the students would be passing.
What kind of charter school advocate would not be fighting for the top charter schools to show the poor ones like KIPP how to get results? Why would you settle for mediocrity when nothing — I mean nothing — is stopping KIPP from firing their terrible teachers and administrators?
Maybe Tim doesn’t trust Success Academy’s results. That is the only reason I can think of why he would allow a terrible school like KIPP to educate kids when Success Academy could take it over in a minute and turn 100% of those kids into scholars. Either he doesn’t care about those children, or he knows that Success Academy’s results are misleading because so many kids leave. Which is it Tim?
By the way, Tim’s link to charter school attrition rates is another desperate (and truly shameful) attempt to mislead.
“ON AVERAGE, students at charter schools stay at their schools at a higher rate than students at nearby traditional public schools….”
Tim, what does the average have to do with KIPP’s terrible performance compared to Success Academy?
Are you claiming that they both have exactly that average attrition rate and KIPP is just doing a terrible job with the kids who remain and SA is doing a far better job that makes the KIPP CEO look like an amateur?
If so, then you support me in having SA take over all NYC. If not, then you are demonstrating the low expectations you have of charter schools who have absolutely no excuses for not firing the teachers you obviously admit are just not up to par. If Success Academy has that “average” attrition rate just like KIPP does, then why can’t KIPP do a better job with the kids left? And why would you defend such mediocrity when they can fire teachers and have SA take them over?
Tim, you know darn well that charter schools ON AVERAGE have terrible results and are no better than public schools. Yes, even in NYC, even though they serve a lower number of high needs kids. You always cherry pick the ones with the high attrition rates and their high scores and pretend that the fact that the “average” charter school only loses 36% of their Kindergarten has any relation to the fact that the schools with good results may lose twice as many, while the crappy schools like KIPP lose fewer than 36% of their students.
It’s the reason I find the reformers so utterly without morals. Just a bit of honesty is completely beyond their abilities. How scary that these totally dishonest people are teaching our children.
NYC public school parent: when “thought leaders” of self-styled “education reform” can’t even follow the simplest principles of “data analytics” like the late Gerald Bracey’s admonition “When comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable”—
Isn’t a “thought leader” supposed to have, er, “thoughts”?
Or would truth in labeling peddlers of rheephorm demand terms more akin to the political spin doctors now dominating the MSM like “deflection specialist” afflicted with DAS [DiscussionAvoidanceSyndrome]?
😎