News

UNC-Chapel Hill will become the first public university in the state to form a KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) partnership. With this partnership, UNC-CH plans to enroll five qualified KIPP alumni in Gaston County beginning with the 2013-14 school year and address the full financial need of KIPP students and alumni who enroll.

A new report finds that students in KIPP charter schools experience significantly greater learning gains in math, reading, science, and social studies than do their peers in traditional public schools. 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, a research center based in Princeton, N.J.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recognized 335 schools today as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2015, and included on the list is one from LA Unified, the independent charter Kipp Raíces Academy School.

Dale Russakoff's "The Prize" is an unsparing chronicle of five controversial years in Newark that began in front of a cheering audience on Oprah and ended this summer with the resignation of Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson.

The KIPP LA charter network, which has 13 schools in Los Angeles, spent about $18,000 last year on marketing in the city, network spokesman Steve Mancini said. "The recruiting approach from the beginning has involved a lot of shoe leather - going door to door and going to church meetings and youth centers and having that interaction with families," Mancini said.

Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson donated $25,000 to KIPP Bay Area Schools on Friday, and he addressed the students at the KIPP Bridge Charter School in Oakland with a message about the importance of education.

Schaeffler oversees the network of KIPP charter schools in the city, a system that has grown from 80 fifth-graders in 2001 to 3,600 students in neighborhoods that include Anacostia, Shaw and Trinidad. That number sounds small, but if you could calculate which of the three school leaders is most responsible for boosting the number of college-ready D.C. students from tough neighborhoods, my money would be on Schaeffler.

KIPP results nationwide began to draw attention, critics predicted the network's principals and teachers would burn out from pressure and fatigue. KIPP leaders had the same concern. Four years ago, a working group led by KIPP network co-founder Dave Levin, in partnership with organizational psychologist David Maxfield, began to overhaul how KIPP principals operated.

KIPP has been a beacon of success and hope during its 14 years in operation. McDaniel and its supporters note that it's an A-plus school according to the state's A-F report card, with 99 percent of KIPP students scoring "proficient" or "advanced." Most of the nearby elementary and middle schools received D's and F's.