New Brief on KIPP
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Columbia University’s Jeffrey Henig recently released a brief reviewing seven studies on the effectiveness of KIPP charter schools. Some of his conclusions? Students who enroll and stay in KIPP schools tend to perform better on standardized assessments than similar students in more traditional schools. However, Henig adds caveats to this finding, discussing unobservable biases in student motivation and support, as well as high (and seemingly selective) student attrition. He also points out that few studies actually examine the KIPP “process,” which includes high teacher turnover, and the implications of that process on the expansion and sustainability of the KIPP model. Ultimately, Henig provide recommendations to policymakers on how to best utilize the existing evidence on KIPP in informing education policy and reform strategies.
Learn more by checking out the executive summary or the full policy brief (both accessed from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice). You can also read the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews’ response to Henig's analysis.
If you are interested in more data on KIPP schools, check out SRI International’s three-year study of Bay Area KIPP schools, which found some promising short-term academic results but could not draw any long-term conclusions given the high and seemingly selective student attrition at these schools.
