KIPP's "sheer arrogance" Leads to Rejected High School Bid

Beyond its uncontested reputation as creator of the punitive and paternalistic No Excuses corporate reform school model, KIPP continues to distinguish itself, too, for imbuing a uniquely confrontational kind of arrogance that would have comic effect if not for the human toll that accrues when an overabundance of hubris, self-interest, and ignorance are applied in equal and overwhelming doses to the schooling of children at public expense.   Unfortunately, the result has been the normalization of child abuse posing as education, along with the common practice of dehumanizing and discarding of teachers.

KIPP's trademark arrogance was clearly on display in California last week, where the KIPP Foundation's latest efforts to open another high school in San Jose were rejected by the Santa Clara County Board of Education.  

Why? Because the KIPP Foundation refuses to abide by state law, which includes required adherence to California Code 1090, which would ban KIPP managers from gaining financially from contracts made by those same KIPP managers:

 

(a) Members of the Legislature, state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or employees shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity, or by any body or board of which they are members. Nor shall state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or employees be purchasers at any sale or vendors at any purchase made by them in their official capacity.

(b) An individual shall not aid or abet a Member of the Legislature or a state, county, district, judicial district, or city officer or employee in violating subdivision (a).

(c) As used in this article, “district” means any agency of the state formed pursuant to general law or special act, for the local performance of governmental or proprietary functions within limited boundaries.

(Amended by Stats. 2014, Ch. 483, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2015.)

Again, such arrogance might be amusing if it did not have the potential to normalize the rejection of constraints on the corporate use of public dollars.  KIPP is appealing to the California State Board of Education.