Mathematica Study on KIPP Middle Schools
To understand our impact and communicate it to the public, KIPP has commissioned Mathematica Policy Research to conduct a robust, national, third-party evaluation that will examine how KIPP students fare over the long term. The Atlantic Philanthropies, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provided the lead support for the Mathematica evaluation of KIPP middle schools.
On June 22, 2010, Mathematica
released its initial findings in the most rigorous report to date on KIPP
middle schools.Researchers collected multiple years of data for students from
22 KIPP middle schools, along with data from students in non-KIPP public
schools in nearby districts.
Using these data, Mathematica researchers were
able to compare:
- Characteristics for KIPP and non-KIPP students
- State assessment outcomes for KIPP students and a set of matched, non-KIPP
students from the nearby districts who were similar in terms of demographics,
achievement levels, and prior-achievement growth trajectories.
Based on their analysis, Mathematica
found that:
-
KIPP schools most often enroll
students whose average fourth-grade achievement is lower than the average
achievement of students in local district schools.
- KIPP schools typically have a
positive, statistically significant, and educationally substantial impact on
student achievement. Within two years after entering KIPP, students are
experiencing statistically significant, positive gains in 18 of the 22 KIPP
schools in math and in 15 of out of 22 KIPP schools in reading.
- Academic gains at many KIPP schools
are large enough to substantially reduce race-based and income-based
achievement gaps. In three years, one half of all KIPP schools in the study
closed one half or more of the black-white achievement gap in math, and one
third of the black-white achievement gap in reading.
- There is no evidence that KIPP
schools have systematically higher levels of attrition when compared to
district schools.
The next Mathematica report on KIPP
will be released in 2012.
Mathematica Report on KIPP Middle Schools:
Media Resources: