To the moon!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 6:17PM I'm talking a lot about school lately because the city is in the middle of a giant, messy decision making process about what to do with its school buildings -- which ones will be renovated, and what schools will operate each building. If ever there were a time for yiddish from a shiksa, it is now: What mishegas. I don't envy Paul Vallas, the widely reviled superintendent of the Recovery School District, and his politically impossible job. But I don't feel sorry for him either, because really? This is not going very well so far.
My neighborhood is getting organized to take charge of what happens to the Colton School, a place I hope will be the future site of all of Margot's elementary school foibles, but which is right now set to go to KIPP. It would be the fourth KIPP school in our district. Fourth! So we are pitching a fit, rallying on about process (it should be transparent and community driven) and school choice (maybe there should be some?), but in general we try to stay nice about KIPP.
It's uncomfortable, and weird to be the David to a Goliath who's mission is giving underserved kids a real shot at college success. But those KIPPsters (their name, not mine) are nothing if not organized -- bussing people into public meetings, offering one another snaps of support, covered head to toe in KIPP gear. Which makes them, well, a little intense and honestly, not that hard to dislike. There's a ton of debate over whether their programs are a good idea for any kid from any background. I'll let google be your master on that one -- while I have my suspicions I don't really feel educated enough to take a strong position about their work.
But I know for sure that a school that promises Margot college as if it were the moon is not a place I am ever going to send her. That bar is too low, and also terribly rigid -- and it just isn't the question mark in our lives that it is for others.
Of course, we could do all of this work and still end up with a charter at Colton that we still won't send Margot to. But it seems worth a fight -- it seems worth it for people in our neighborhood to have more than one option for public school -- and to try to get this city to do this big job a least a little bit right.
New School 
Reader Comments (3)
The problem is that programs like KIPP gather steam and can overtake a district. Given that they're nonprofits that can fundraise, they can also bring capital to the table to defray capital improvement costs etc. That's happening to a lesser extent with charters like UNO and CICS in Chicago. They can bring money to the table, and if they demonstrate initiative and success and are organized, they can swallow neighborhoods.
School choice is really, really tricky, especially in communities like NOLA or Chicago that have a caste-like system in which most white students attend private schools, and impoverished minority students attend the public schools. In NOLA I think the disparity is really profound. You know your city better than me, but research I've read shows that 95% of students in the public schools are students of color, which is a way higher percentage than their total representation in the city population.
Point being, the schools gets focused on the "typical' student coming through the doors, and the college-bound focus has traditionally been pushed to serve the needs of the greatest number of incoming students, who come from homes where the reality of sitting in a college classroom doesn't exist in familial memory on any level. If only 1/3 of children in LA come from families w/one parent with a college degree, which is about 10% below the national average, that focus makes sense. The problem is that outcomes of that approach are mixed, I think.
Again, though, the problem is that you're almost pushed to perpetuate the inequity, b/c the push for urban ed reform often fails to carve out space for kids like Margot and Estelle, for whom college really is a conscious choice and who might thrive under a more creative curriculum etc. The district falls into groupthink and begins identifying student success rigidly and forgets about the need for diversity.
Though, all that said, my understanding is that each KIPP school can choose its own curriculum...not sure how that impacts all the cultural stuff that freaks people out, though.
KIPP schools can create their own curriculum, but their corporate (for lack of a better word) culture is very strong and seems to me to run deeply in the fabric of all of their schools. (But that's just my feeling about it.) Also, though, all KIPP schools require parents to sign an agreement that they'll support their kid spending upwards of 60 hours a week in school, including many Saturdays and required Summer School as well. Also, there are many families within KIPP's target demo who do not want a KIPP model for their kids. (I'd say that no one educational model works for every kid.)
A woman I do some work with who is a big civil rights leader here described what's happening here as the re-segregation of the public schools, and I'm really starting to see her point. In an article in our local City Business paper (it's subscription only, unfortunately) Vallas is quoted telling parents who don't like KIPP ... "there are a number of other charter schools throughout the city along with select enrollment schools where parents can send their children." So what you end up with is schools that screen for higher performing kids (kids who've had access to more early on) and schools like KIPP that are completely geared towards under-served kids. And so the divide continues for another generation.
There are models in the city -- Morris Jeff School in particular -- of community driven, open admission schools that have a more creative curriculum. And that's what we're hoping for at Colton. This part of town is super mixed, but, yeah, its currently almost impossible to find a school that actually represents the demography of the neighborhood it is located in.
Also, Carn, thanks for being my commenter. Hearts.