I am impressed with the way KIPP does measurement. I think most of their high school plans are in the Houston area. Without more great high schools their work will not have the leverage it deserves to have. In almost every area they stop at 8th so they have to work hard to try and get their kids into good high schools. They would prefer to get them earlier and they have five schools that do that but mostly they start in 5th. They have decided that kids are still open minded and can still catch up when they get them in 5th grade. Almost all of those are middle schools only. I also read the KIPP 2007 Report Card which goes through every KIPP school open for more than a year. In addition the teachers are asked to let the kids call them anytime. Between the long day (7:30 to 5) and every other Saturday and three summer weeks it is 60% more than normal schools. The amount of time they spend with the kids really is unbelievable. Mike and Dave are gifted teachers but they do manage to get less gifted people doing most of what they do. High school teaching is somewhat different but a lot of the key skills are the same.Ī teacher has to be a real performer and very dedicated to the kids to teach the way that KIPP expects. I wonder how much has been done to record best practices on video and make them easily available online. You also have to know the topic to make it clear and interesting. Great teaching in 5th-9th grade is very hard because it’s challenging to get all of the kids engaged and because dealing with kids who cause trouble or are bored requires special skills. The book gives a great sense of how hard it was to get KIPP going and how intense the focus on good teaching is. (I spoke about KIPP a bit in a 2008 TED talk I gave and there’s an interesting report on KIPP from NBC.) KIPP is remarkable in some ways, particularly in its ability to attract great teachers and engage and inspire students. describes the history of KIPP by telling the story of Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |