KIPP is the largest charter chain in the nation. It grew thanks to the generosity of the Walton Foundation, the Fisher Family Foundation (the Gap, Old Navy, etc.), other billionaire funders, and huge grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Program (thanks, Betsy DeVos).
KIPP’s slogan was “Work Hard, Be Nice.” Jay Mathews wrote a laudatory book about KIPP with that title. It implied submissiveness as the path to success. KIPP was one of the original “no excuses” chains.
The KIPP team brought students to perform at the Republican National Convention in 2000 that nominated George W. Bush. It became clear that KIPP was a darling of the right. What did Republicans like so much about KIPP? Was it implicit in their slogan?
Michael Klonsky reports that KIPP has decided to drop its famous slogan.
In a world turned upside-down and right-side-up by the Black Lives Matter Movement, a new slogan was needed.
KIPP has not yet found a new slogan.
Any suggestions?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
KIPP’s real slogan all along: Sit down and be quiet or get out.
“Waste your child’s life. Join KIPP”
It has a certain swing and is easy to remember.
They should change their name to KUPP. Kiss Up People or Perish.
I like carolinesf’s suggestion, but I’d shorten it to: “Sit down! Shut up!”
What KIPP students call their schools: Kids in Prison Program.
Great one, Leonie.
KPP is a PRISON Program for kids. KIPP promotes non thinkers and thus … SLAVERY.
From the mouths of babes…they win the prize!
(But they’ve really won the Booby Prize, if their folks are still making them go to KIPP.)
You have to know when to hold ’em, and “know when to fold ’em.” Time to go. (I love the Kids in Prison Program.) CBK
How about “KIPP: Turning Out the Most Submissive Meat Widgets since 1994.”
Both links are going to the 2009 article.
How about Killing Individual Passion and Pride.
Work hard. Fetch me a beer.
Work hard. Be tased.
Left Coast Good one. But I am a white woman. Just “work hard” is enough . . . because no one will notice or give you credit (For us tasing IS a sort of “notice.”)
As an aside, I am reminded of the sign above the Concentration camps in WWII Germany: Something like: Work will set you free. CBK
Work hard. Wear heels.
Work hard. Then, get in the shower under the smoke stack.
LCT. . . funny, but chilling. Once you accept the premise, it’s only a matter of degree. CBK
Work hard, Gap sweatshop hard.
The original slogan was taken from celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith, but was flipped by KIPP’s founders Dave Levin & Mike Feinberg.
Rafe’s original slogan was: “Be nice. Work hard.”
Rafe emphasized that a classroom’s foundation must be civil and kind behavior — teacher-to-student, student-to-teacher, student-to-student — as that mandatory pre-requisite of human decency and respect must be in place a priori before any of the “work hard” education can take place.
KIPP”s founders Dave & Mike once sat in and watched Rafe’s class and spotted Rafe’s slogan on the wall. However, as we all now, Dave & Mike concluded that Rafe’s hierarchy of values was too wimpy and wussy in handling children, particularly in dealing with children of the inner city. Children need first to be “KIPP-notized” or broken down, before they were then re-molded into model KIPP students (loosing 70% of the students in the process in many schools).
Rafe was / is not happy with that inversion, and warned against it.
What this inversion eventually led to — or helped lead to — was the early 2000s debacles such as the KIPP Fresno disaster. The Fresno Unified School Board brought in a third party investigation that was conducted by. Dan Brake’s company,.
You can read their report:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/12/the-fresno-kipp-report-that-has-been.html
Rafe should still be teaching. That was an horrible injustice. KIPPnotized: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but perfect for sweeping the floor at Walmart.
Rebranding. For schools. Jeesh. I suggest the punchline from this Bob & Ray routine (at 4:14):
Whoops, 4:14 of this one:
GAP’s added a Kanye West brand, Yeezy, so I suggest a brand tie-in. Yeezy schools, political candidates and cheaply made apparel. It’s a knock off from Trump’s school, his Chinese made clothing and Russian made presidency.
Reports of abuse at KIPP schools is rampant.
Do you think that this recent suicide of a 3rd grader at a Washington, D.C. KIPP school might have been a contributing factor to the slogan change? (March 9, 2020 means this happened just prior to the pandemic lockdown … I’m guessing that KIPP students were cheering at the lockdown news).
This is an 8-9 year-old we’re talking about here.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/3rd-grader-at-kipp-quest-academy-dies-by-suicide/2235745/
Also, at about 1:00 of this TV news clip, (ABOVE) the reporter states incredibly that recently there was ANOTHER student suicide (???!!!!) at the nearby KIPP Middle School, the school into which this KIPP elementary school feeds. That the suicide of an 11-13 year-old, as this happened just last September.
Like … what the hell .. ?
The shaved-head-ed principal being interviewed ABOVE seems totally clueless and in over his head. “We’re providing counselors … ” Yeah right!
If there was child suicide in your neighborhood public middle school, then another child suicide in one of its feeder public grade schools just a few months later … has this ever happened to anyone reading this, I mean, in your own neighborhood?
Again … what the hell … ?
To anyone out there who thinks I’m jumping to conclusions about cause-and-effect regarding these two children’s suicides, here’s a quote from a book that was critical of KIPP pedagogy and classroom management, one which gives the KIPP organization’s definition of “hard” or “hardness.”
“Having gone through it with their (KIPP policy) hardness, still empaty or sympathy for those (students or teachers) who are struggling cannot be allowed to become another excuse what they, themselves, have found to be possible. The dominant demeanor of hardness, however, masks an underlying brittleness that becomes visible in (students;’ & teachers’) emotional meltdown, nervous exhaustion, explosive anger, physical deterioration, and high attrition.
“This detached hardness often yields a moral callousness by school leaders that is regularly too harsh for teachers to endure, but when it is applied to children, as it is in KIPP Model school, it takes on and even darker specter. Such is the case in the KIPP story that follows.” *
This leads into a description on the KIPP Fresno Horror Show referenced in the above tweet.
*pp. 203-204 … WORK HARD, BE HARD. available at:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSe7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=%22Dan+Brake%22+KIPP&source=bl&ots=YKjXX7cHGI&sig=ACfU3U2Eus02_TFNJb7YRrOWvzmt5natBw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFro2PkrnqAhXgIDQIHdtvC4IQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Dan%20Brake%22%20KIPP&f=false
For the record, KIPP shut the Fresno KIPP school down as that brouhaha with the principal was coming to a head — and claimed it was something to do with the real estate.
My speculation was / is that the real reason for KIPP Leaders’ decision to close up shop and leave town was that — per the Notice to Cure imposed on them as a condition of continuing operations — they would, from that point forward, have then been under a microscope of regulation, and regular visits from Fresno USD officials. KIPP could never operate the way they do under such regulations.
All their dirty secrets would get spilled, and — from KIPP Leaders’ point of view — who needs that?
Oh, that’s definitely why they closed up and left town. They were embroiled in an intense child-abuse scandal, and even with the charter worship that’s standard operating procedure for politicians and often the media — and the cushy protection of all those billionaire bucks — things were closing in on them. So they had to make up a story about their real estate problems. (I’ve seen that other times when charters get in trouble — including blaming the local school district for supposedly not giving them the desirable site they wanted — the unsavory Envision chain did that when they closed up Marin School of Arts and Technology in Novato, Calif. in the late ‘00s after it stopped getting a nice fat extra funding stream from the district at the expense of the kids in the other schools.)
carolinesf,
I’ve been reading the Google Books pages from WORK HARD, BE HARD, and lemme tell ya, they’re quite an eye-opener. At KIPP Fresno, there was yet another KIPP student threatening suicide, (anyone see a pattern here/)
In response, Chi Tschang didn’t inform anyone — not the parents, not FUSD, not child services … yet thankfully somehow the threatened suicide and the eventual revelation of Tschang’s covering up led to the external investigation that produced the NOTICE TO CURE that is linked in an earlier post.
It’s interesting the number of times KIPP lawyers have pressured people to scrub that NOTICE TO CURE document from the internet. First, the Sac Bee put it up, then were pressured to remove it. Then, the New York Post put it up, then they were successfully pressured to remove it. Finally, Jim Horn just posted it as a blog post, where it has since survived.
A chilling discovery in WORK HARD, BE HARD of which I was as yet unfamiliar was the disturbing Elliott Rodger**-like personal blog that KIPP Fresno’s principal equivalent (Executive Director-CEO) Chi Tschang posted on-line for all the world to read.
It’s truly disturbing, and any admin or teacher in LAUSD would be instantly bounced like a tennis ball if such deranged personal musings we’re uncovered by folks down at Beaudry (LAUSD’s central office). When an LAUSD employee does something so egregious in public, all job protections go out the window. Stick a fork in that person, ’cause he’s/she’s done!
In his blog Chi Unplugged, Tschang shared his “personal issues,” droning on and on with “complaints about his deep frustrations with women who did not want to date (him), but more often wanted to tell (him) about being abused by other men (that these same women dated).”
Uhhhh …. okayyyyy. And how did that make you feel, Chi?
“Describing himself as less exciting than other more aggressive men that women seeming to prefer over (Tschang’s) hard-working, loyal nice guy type. Chang (2000) described himself as ‘a bitter, unsportsmanlike sore loser since no on under 35 wants to date my kind.’ “
Sweet Jesus and all the saints!!!
“In 2004, Tchang was selected as KIPP Fresno’s first CEO.”
(p. 204, WORK HARD, BE HARD) — readable at
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSe7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=%22Work+Hard,+Be+Hard%22+%22Chi+Tschang%22&source=bl&ots=YKjXY5bIJK&sig=ACfU3U0-nLaOVQtQ1h3v-xsDomhNlP0dKQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-j5z0uLvqAhUXqZ4KHSExBYgQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Work%20Hard%2C%20Be%20Hard%22%20%22Chi%20Tschang%22&f=false
With that in mind, re-read or skim through the NOTICE TO CURE report:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/12/the-fresno-kipp-report-that-has-been.html
It doesn’t take a trained Viennese psychiatrist to read both the report and the excerpts from Tchang’s personal blog, and consequently suspect that this guy might be harboring deep, intense anger at his utter lack of power, choice, and control with one important area of his life — personal, dating, trying to find a spouse, etc. — and that he was then displacing that same anger into a another area of his life — his professional life where he supervised children — and taking it out on the defenseless, unprotected children at KIPP Fresno.
Nonetheless, Tschang continued his career with the (allegedly) equally abusive Achievement First charter chain, where he was eventually promoted from principal to supervising several Achievement First schools.
A New York Post expose alleged that all the same abuses that Tschang committed in Fresno he was again perpetrating in Achievement First’s NYC charter schools.
When complaining Achievement First parents read the NOTICE TO CURE from Fresno — provided to them by the New York Post writer — they blew a gasket, demanding why such a man was hired to be in a position where he was free to abuse children once again.
In respond, Achievement First founder and head honcho Doug McCurry doubled down, telling the parents no to worry or pay attention to that, and claiming that the NOTICE TO CURE that troubled the parents so …
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/12/the-fresno-kipp-report-that-has-been.html
… was all lies created out of whole cloth by an anti-charter-school zealots on the Fresno Unified School Board in concert with the bought-and-paid-for outside investigator Dan Brake.
Really now? Is it truly possible that dozens and dozens of teachers, parents, students, etc. interviewed by investigator Dan Brake and his team during his six-month investigation.. that all of them were lying under the direction of Brake and/or those anti-charter zealots within FUSD?
Does that pass the smell test?
If you were in McCurry’s shoes, wouldn’t you contact Dan Brake, and feel him out as to the truth or falsity of the NOTICE TO CURE?
Naaaahhhh, better to just make yourself willfully blind to all that.
Either that, or McCurry read the NOTICE TO CURE, and salivated, saying, “THAT’S the kinda guy I want running one of our schools!!! THAT GUY is Achievement First material. Lemme tell ya!!!”
======================
**for those who didn’t get the Elliott Rodger reference;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings
😯
Dear Jack —
My name is Chi Tschang and I’m the person you’ve been writing about here.
I debated even writing this, but I see that you’re a fan of Rafe’s. Rafe was one of the most important influences in my life, so I thought I’d take a risk.
Over two decades in education, there’s a lot that I regret. My intentions were always positive, but I made many mistakes. Looking back on my tenure at KIPP Fresno, I regret ruining my relationship with our district — I was young and contemptful. With students and families, I was rigid and inflexible. I enforced some expectations that in hindsight were motivated by control and fear. And there were times when I didn’t exemplify the ‘be nice’ part of ‘Be nice. Work Hard.’ I’m older now and see the error of my earlier ways.
I would say an additional two things. One — regardless of what you think about KIPP or AF or charter schools — what you’ve written is still very hurtful. Comparing me to someone who killed six people hurts. It’s hard to feel empathy over the internet, but I will say that it was painful to read these posts.
Two, I remember a conversation I had with Rafe back in 2009 about redemption, forgiveness and “second acts.” I believe that we’re better than who we were in our worst moments. Many of these allegations from 2009 were just that — allegations. But they’ve followed me on the internet like a Scarlet Letter for 12 years now. I hope you could find it in your heart to see that I’m a human, trying to learn and grow and not be defined by my worst moments.
Thanks for reading.
Oh, here’s *another *student suicide (attempt) at KIPP school, this time a school in Baltimore
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/student-attempts-suicide-amid-growing-safety-concerns-at-city-charter
“KIPP declined an interview but gave Fox45 this statement:
“Since this situation was brought to our attention, KIPP Baltimore teachers and staff have addressed the concerns of the students involved and taken every step to ensure the safety of all students. In order protect the privacy of our students, we are not at liberty to discuss the details of this case.” – Maria Alcon Heraux, Director of Media Relations KIPP
Chi Tschang, you are wrong about those “allegations” from 2009. They were sworn signed statements that were taken to stand up in court. I know, I was there. As far as your “worst moments” we are talking about 3 years of very harsh treatment of vulnerable kids in your school. One of those kids was mine and one of the teachers was my wife. I wouldn’t have treated a dog the way you treated them, as I told you to your face. I do hope you have learned better, but from the sound of your excuses, it doesn’t sound like it.
Make KIPP Great Again by crushing children.
In that case, Lloyd, let’s call it by its real name: KrIPPle.
Good one!
We “KriPPle” Children to Make America Great Again.