Education Week - March 6, 2013 - 9

EDUCATION WEEK

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MARCH 6, 2013

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www.edweek.org

9

KIPP Outpacing Regular Public Schools, Study Finds
Research compares
middle school data
By Katie Ash
Students in kipp charter schools
experience significantly greater
learning gains in math, reading,
science, and social studies than do
their peers in regular public schools,
a new report finds.
The study, which analyzed data
from 43 middle schools run by kipp,
officially known as the Knowledge
Is Power Program, was conducted
by Mathematica Policy Research,
an independent research organization based in Princeton, N.J. The
study was commisioned by kipp.
It concludes that students in the
charter program, over a three-year
period, gained an additional 11
months of learning in mathematics, eight more months in reading,
14 more months in science, and 11
more months in social studies when
compared with students in comparable regular public schools.
The study is based on an examination of state standardized-test
scores, as well as students’ scores
on the TerraNova assessment—a
nationally norm-referenced, lowstakes test. Kipp Chief Executive
Officer Richard Barth said he was
pleased but not surprised by the
results.
“I know how hard our kids are
working and how hard the teachers
are working,” Mr. Barth said in an
interview. “People are on the same
page working together, and this reflects that.”
The Mathematica researchers
used two different methodologies.
One compared kipp students with
students in regular public schools
with similar demographics and academic achievement. The other compared students who were admitted to kipp through the network’s
random lottery against those who
were not admitted. That method is
designed to account for differences
in the motivation levels of parents
and families at kipp and regular
public schools.
Overall, 125 kipp schools are operating in 20 states and the District
of Columbia.

Competing Claims
The findings were consistent
using both methodologies, which
bolsters the study’s conclusions,
said Ron Zimmer, an associate professor of public policy and education
in the Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, who has studied the
performance of charters and regular
public schools. Mr. Zimmer was not
involved in the Mathematica study.
The new study found that kipp
schools have a higher proportion of
low-income and black students, but
typically fewer special education
students and English-language
learners, than regular district
schools.
The study also shows that the
kipp students typically entered the
program with lower baseline math
and reading achievement than
students overall at the regular el-

ementary schools that feed into kipp
middle schools.
To address the claim that kipp
expels low-achieving students or
encourages them to drop out of the
program in a way that inflates the
network’s performance, the report
counts the academic achievement
of students who started in the
program as part of the kipp cohort
regardless of whether they later decide to leave for another school.
A study published in 2011 by
Gary Miron, a Western Michigan
University researcher, concluded
that while kipp’s attrition rates were
comparable to those of regular pub-

lic schools, the network did not replace low-performing students who
left kipp, which could have had a
positive impact on its schools’ overall academic performance.
But the Mathematica researchers say that while kipp schools do
backfill at lower rates than district
schools in 7th and 8th grades, that
difference would not inflate the
network’s achievement in the new
study because of the continued inclusion of students who leave kipp in
the cohort of kipp students.
Kipp officials say they have circulated data on the attrition of
students within their network in

recent years, a step they believe has
called attention to the issue and led
kipp schools to take steps to keep
more students in school. (See Education Week, Feb. 20, 2013.)

Replicable Results?
Although the study shows greater
academic achievement for kipp students, it is less clear on why the
model works, said Jeffrey Henig,
a professor of political science and
education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
One potential factor cited by the
report’s authors for kipp’s success:

Its students spend an average of
nine hours per day, for 192 days
each year, in school, compared with
6.6 hours per day, for 180 days, for
regular K-12 public school students.
In addition, kipp students spend
an extra 35 to 53 minutes on homework each night than the lotterybased students who were not enrolled in kipp.
But applying those results to
regular public schools could be complicated, said Mr. Henig. “Fiscally,
and politically, and given union contracts,” dramatically extending the
school day in district schools would
not be easy, he said.

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Education Week - March 6, 2013

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