While exploring the blogosphere this past week, I came across two posts concerning the revolution of public education through KIPP Charter, (Knowledge Is Power Program), displayed at the right. The authors have made the case for another look at why the nation should consider giving students more diversified alternatives to becoming successful learners through KIPP Charter because its mission reflects in the student results. At KIPP, more than 80 percent of the students are low income and more than 90 percent are African American or Latino. Nationally, more than 80 percent of students have matriculated to college. KIPPs motto in ensuring students quality and college-bound education is through absolutely “no shortcuts.” Rather, they believe “more time in school learning, a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum, and a strong culture of achievement” instructed by “outstanding educators” will help students make significant academic gains and excel through high school and college. In journalist, Amber Arelleno’s, “No excuses: One leader's successful urban school revolution” she discusses the outstanding success of KIPP educational services and illustrates that the nation should look beyond the citadels of public schools to find an answer to the much publicized No Child Left Behind. The second blog, “What lessons does KIPP offer for urban education reform” offers a similar standpoint. My comments for these blogs can be seen in the provided links or below for your convenience.Comment: "No excuses:: One leader's successful urban school revolution"
In this article, you have attempted to present a balanced report on your findings of about the case for Charter Schools. However, you have allowed for your admiration of the success made by Charter Schools to eclipse your objectivity; in regarding on the values of well administrative services that can help to ease the burden of teaching and classroom management for the teachers. You seem to have ignored the warning sign of human greed. You seem to be making the case that why teachers in a Charter School do better at teaching is because they are better paid and receive additional perks. But historical evidence has shown that best teachers, such as Plato, Socrates or Aristotle were not necessarily motivated by the desires to get rich, but rather by the internal satisfaction of knowing that they have opened the flood gate of reason in as many students desire. In as much as I agree that you have made a strong case for Charter School, KIPP, which advocates more power and more money to the teachers and less to the administrative bureaucracy, we should not lose sight of the indispensable roles that good administrators play in ensuing the smooth running of a school. You should have given equitable credits to such successful school administration to maintain a balanced view.
Comment: "What lessons does KIPP offer for urban education reform"
You have made a very strong case for the lesson offered to urban educational reform by KIPP’s experience. Your statistics offered by research studies help to illustrate that early interaction in education has been the reason for the two-thirds of the reading achievement gap between the “poor kids” and their advantaged peers. However, you have not conclusively demonstrated in this article that KIPP schools have come up with a progress report card for a considerable number of years to longitudinally prove their case. In other words although, researchers have illustrated that disadvantaged kids learn at a much lower rate during summer than their advantaged peers by usin
g the rate of learning curves, no such statistics is available in this article on KIPP schools. For purposes of clarity and balanced view when writing a post, a writer must demonstrate that he/she has exhausted all the available facts before drawing a conclusion or making an opinion. This is a necessary and essential quality of a professional journalist, writer, commentator, or a moderator. Otherwise, the report would look lopsided or biased. If such statistics are not available, the writer should acknowledge that. As in the case of KIPP schools, statistics are available and here is the link you could follow to get more tangible evidence. http://www.kipp.org/01/resultsofkippsch.cfm
