Published in 2012, "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story" has been viewed over 111,000 times. Here are the two most recent comments, especially worth noting now 7 years after the piece was posted…
As
the wife of a current KIPP teacher I am pleased, yet saddened to read
this as I've watched my husband, a 10 year social studies teacher who
previously taught at a school ranked as one of the top in the country by
US News & World Report, struggle mightily in his first year. He
came to KIPP with such optimism and a strong desire to make a difference
in urban ed. All he's been met with is constant criticism, but zero
resources and actual lies from his admin. He teaches two grade levels,
7th and 8th, and even though the school has been open 8 years, there was
no curriculum. Literally no materials to work with. He has created
everything from lesson plans to assessments to state test questions on
his own. His 8th graders only have text books, because he secured a
donation from his prior school district. Even after all this, he has
been told he doesn't seem vested and that his teaching style isn't a fit
for succeeding on the rubric. We now completely understand why they've
never had a social studies teacher last longer than a year and the last 2
were gone in the middle of the year. I definitely believe there are
students benefiting greatly from KIPP's work, but there must be some way
to actually support teachers and build a work place suitable for a
career. Currently it seems they only want to deal with fresh grads who
are easily manipulated. They can suck the life out of them for a couple
of years and start over again.
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Anonymous1:11 PM
I
was a long-term sub at a KIPP school in California. Although they had
positions open and I was encouraged to apply, I never did. The school
could be best described as a shabbily run prison. The principal was far
too young and inexperienced to be running anything of such vital
importance, and this was reflected in how he dealt with the students. He
was condescending, hyper-critical, insulting, and just plain mean. It
was apparent that his interest in the position ended with his own
administrative ambitions and that the students were merely obstacles on
that path. To address your comment that some students seem to be
benefiting from the KIPP model, I can tell you that the few students I
observed who seemed to be doing well with the endless crush of
meaningless busy-work that defines the KIPP curriculum and the constant
beratement and humiliation dished-out by administrators and some
teachers would likely do well under any conditions. These kids obviously
came to KIPP with strong executive function skills and cognitive
ability... they certainly didn't learn them after arriving. It was
heartbreaking to watch... simply because these hard-working, intelligent
kids were blinded to the bigger picture by their own poverty, I doubt
they realized that they would do well in a school that uncovered, then
nurtured and developed their aptitudes and abilities to their fullest
potential. Instead, with each day at KIPP, they became more and more
institutionalized; incapable of novel or creative thought, out-of-touch
with their own emotional lives, and utterly convinced that this was the
best opportunity available to someone of their socioeconomic class. KIPP
is the complete antithesis of everything education should be, and it in
no way works in concert with how human beings learn (through
relationships).
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Nice post.
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