Some key findings from the Mathematica study:

 

"We find that students entering these 22 KIPP schools typically had prior achievement levels

that were lower than average achievement in their local school districts. For the vast majority of

KIPP schools studied, impacts on students’ state assessment scores in mathematics and

reading are positive, statistically significant, and educationally substantial. Estimated impacts

are frequently large enough to substantially reduce race- and income-based achievement gaps within

three years of entering KIPP."

"On average, KIPP middle schools have student bodies characterized by higher concentrations

of poverty and racial minorities, but lower concentrations of special education and limited

English proficiency (LEP) students, than the public schools from which they draw."

"The prior achievement of students entering KIPP schools varies, but KIPP schools most

often enroll students whose average fourth-grade achievement is lower than the districtwide

average."

"Cumulative rates of attrition vary widely in different KIPP schools, but we did not find

systematically higher (or lower) levels of attrition among these KIPP middle schools as

compared with other schools within their districts."

"Grade repetition rates, by contrast, are consistently elevated at KIPP middle schools as

compared to district public schools, particularly in fifth and sixth grades."

Our impact estimates suggest two key results across 22 KIPP schools:

• Key Finding One: Impacts for large majorities of the 22 KIPP middle schools included in

the study are positive in both reading and math in all four years after students enter KIPP

schools.

• Key Finding Two: The magnitude of KIPP impacts is often substantial.

Other significant findings:

• · In most KIPP schools, cumulative positive effects increase for at least the first three years

after KIPP entry. In math, 18 of 22 KIPP schools show larger cumulative effects in year 3

than year 1, and in reading, 19 of 22 show larger cumulative effects in year 3 than year 1. But

the largest single-year impacts are often in the first year, especially in math.

• · Of only three schools that never demonstrate a statistically significant positive impact in

either mathematics or reading in any year, two are schools from which the KIPP Foundation

withdrew the KIPP affiliation. Both schools subsequently closed.

• · We find no evidence that KIPP impacts are higher or lower for specific subgroups of

students. We examined impacts for the following subgroups: higher versus lower-performing

students on test scores at baseline; LEP students; male students; black students and black

male students; and Hispanic students and Hispanic male students. We did not find clear

patterns suggesting that KIPP impacts for any of these subgroups differed systematically

from average impacts for all KIPP students.

 

Those interested in reading the entire report will find it on the KIPP website at www.kipp.org.

 

 

 

Michael Feinberg and David Levin received honorary degrees of Doctor of Humane Letters from Yale University at its commencement this week. Below is the citation read as each received his degree, and a biography of each.

 

You are an educational entrepreneur and visionary. After college, you set out on a road trip to Houston to Teach for America and ended up cofounding a series of charter schools. You have helped poor children achieve impressive levels of academic success and understand that knowledge is, indeed, power. You have created a movement with now more than eighty schools serving over 16,000 students. You are showing how classrooms can be transformed, and promise of public education fulfilled for our country. Most importantly, you are improving the lives of thousands of children, transmitting your own love of learning and affirming the ability of your students. We know that you practice what you teach: Work hard. Be nice. And we are pleased to confer on you the degree of DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS.

Doctor of Humane Letters

Michael Feinberg and David Levin are the co-founders of an educational program of charter schools known as KIPP, which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program. They met as young teachers in the Teach for America program in Houston in 1992, and quickly established a remarkable track record of success. This led them to create their own school program when they were both in their early twenties. KIPP now has over eighty schools in nineteen states and Washington, D.C., serving over 21,000 students. KIPP’s short-term goal is to have 200 schools and 60,000 students by 2015.

Following their success in Houston, where they served as team teachers for an initial fifth-grade class of fifty students, Mr. Levin and Mr. Feinberg expanded their program to New York. Mr. Levin is the superintendent of KIPP New York, which includes KIPP schools in the Bronx, Brook­lyn, and Harlem, and Mr. Feinberg currently serves as superintendent of KIPP Houston, which includes eight middle schools, six early childhood and elementary schools, and a high school. Through the KIPP Founda­tion, they have replicated their success by establishing other KIPP schools throughout the country.

Mr. Levin grew up in New York and struggled as a young student because of a learning disability. A close bond with a special education teacher and an extraordinary ability to memorize helped him through his early schooling. As an undergraduate at Yale, he designed and directed a tutoring program for local schoolchildren. He also became interested in teacher education. After Mr. Levin graduated from Yale with honors in 1992, he joined Teach for America and was assigned to Houston along with Mr. Feinberg.

Mr. Feinberg, like Mr. Levin, was drawn to work with children early in his life. He grew up in Chicago, where he helped run sports camps and worked with his congregation’s kindergarten class. After graduating from college, he spent a summer in Israel working with children who were recent immigrants. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in international relations in 1991 and interned for Senator Paul Simon before joining Teach for America.

KIPP’s operating principles are known as the Five Pillars: high expecta­tions, choice and commitment, more time, power to lead, and focus on results. KIPP’s slogan, universally embraced by all members of the learn­ing community, is “Work Hard, Be Nice.” Students and teachers alike are expected to do what it takes to succeed, and also to treat one another with respect and to be responsible and productive members of the community. KIPP schools operate with extended hours, open from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday, and 8:00 am to noon on Saturdays. In addi­tion to the standard school year, KIPP schools have a mandatory summer school. Teachers are on call for students 24 hours a day. Students, parents, and teachers are expected to work as partners to ensure student success.

KIPP has demonstrated an impressive track record. Its schools are all located in economically depressed, usually urban, areas where school suc­cess has been a struggle. Over half of middle school KIPPsters, as students in the program are called, outperform their peers in traditional schools; 85 percent of KIPPsters, tracking from eighth grade, matriculate to college.

Mr. Levin and Mr. Feinberg have been widely recognized for their ground-breaking work. In 2004 they were named Ashoka Fellows as leading social entrepreneurs who have innovative solutions to social prob­lems and the potential to change patterns across society. In 2006 they were awarded the Thomas B. Fordham Prize for Excellence in Education and the National Je≠erson Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen. They have received major funding for KIPP from Doris and Donald Fisher, founders of the Gap, and from the Gates Foundation.

 

 

Education reform, one classroom at a time

By Melinda French Gates
Friday, February 19, 2010; A17

Sitting on the desk of the secretary of education are dozens of ideas bold enough to finally start solving our country's education crisis. They are contained in applications by 40 states and the District of Columbia for grants from the Race to the Top fund, a $4.35 billion piece of the stimulus package designed to dramatically improve student achievement.

 Congress established strong guidelines to guarantee that states spend Race to the Top money on audacious reforms. Many states responded with equal fortitude, submitting proposals to radically improve how they use data or to adopt college- and career-ready standards -- concepts that used to be considered third rails in the world of education. Never before has this country had such an opportunity to remake the way we teach young people.

 

 One reason I am so optimistic about these developments is because, after decades of diffuse reform efforts, they all zero in on the most important ingredient of a great education: effective teachers. The key to helping students learn is making sure that every child has an effective teacher every single year.

 

 Teachers are at the center of our strategy at the Gates Foundation. Since my husband and I started investing in education 10 years ago, our foundation has partnered with more than 1,000 high schools. Our grantmaking wasn't always oriented around effective teaching, but gradually we noticed that the schools with the biggest gains were those doing revolutionary work inside the classroom.

 

 Bill and I see evidence of this every time we visit a school. The 82 schools across the country that have implemented the Knowledge Is Power Program invariably get excellent results from the very same low-income students who tend to struggle at traditional high schools. Last year, we traveled to KIPP Houston High, where 90 percent of the students graduate, compared with 65 percent for the city as a whole, even though KIPP's students are poorer than their peers in Houston's public school system.

 

 The key to this school's success is its principal, Ken Estrella, and the 44 dedicated and talented teachers on his staff. In one class, we observed three teachers leading small groups of students in integrated bio-engineering and world health exercises. By urging students to ask penetrating questions about the diseases of the developing world, the teachers were simultaneously helping them master the basics of biology. The lesson plan bore no relation to the passive lecture format that prevails in many schools.

 

 Empirical research confirms what Bill and I have seen in classrooms nationwide. Data show that an effective teacher has more impact on student performance than any other school-based factor. If African American students could be guaranteed teachers in the top 25 percent of their profession throughout high school, the gap between their test scores and those of white students would disappear.

 

 So why hasn't education policy focused more on raising teacher effectiveness? The country has tried a lot of (outrageously expensive) reforms that don't improve student outcomes -- such as reducing class size by one or two students and paying teachers to get master's degrees. Part of the problem is that it's so hard to measure teaching. Anyone who has ever been inspired by a teacher knows that pedagogy is both a science and an art. Finding a sensitive instrument to evaluate it has been a huge obstacle. Tests yield clear numerical grades, but they can't measure all the intangibles that make a teacher effective.

 

 To help surmount this logjam, a team of researchers (with support from the Gates Foundation) is working with more than 3,000 teachers in seven school districts to develop measures of teacher effectiveness. The project uses seven methods, including videotaping classes, analyzing test scores, and surveying teachers, students and parents.

 

 The Measures of Effective Teaching project will yield a wealth of information that educators desperately need. It will help school districts nationwide make informed decisions about rewarding effective teachers. And it will help all teachers get better at their craft. If we can understand what makes a great teacher great -- precisely what they do that helps their students learn -- then we can encourage average teachers to adopt those proven methods.

 

 The major teachers unions have been partnering with school officials on this work. In many states, Race to the Top applications have also been a collaborative effort to boost teachers' performance.

 

 In short, there is strong evidence that the key players are ready to cooperate and innovate. If all the stakeholders -- the federal government, state governments, school districts and teachers -- continue to coalesce around the goal of having an effective teacher in every classroom, then public schools will start to deliver on their core promise. They will prepare every single American to succeed in college, their careers and their lives.

 

 The writer, a director of The Washington Post Co., is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.