Holy cow!!!! KIPP in Houston just raised $65 MILLION, part of a $100M program, to grow KIPP from 8 schools with 1,700 students today to 42 schools with 21,000 students! I didn't know anything about this, so I'm blown away. This is REALLY exciting stuff! (It even made the front page of today's Washington Post. How much you want to bet that not a single word of this appears in the NY Times?)
---------------------
Charter School Effort Gets $65 Million Lift
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; A01
The charter school movement, begun 16 years ago as an alternative to struggling public schools, will today make its strongest claim on mainstream American education when a national group announces the most successful fundraising campaign in the movement's history -- $65 million to create 42 schools in Houston.
The money, which comes from some of the nation's foremost donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would make the Knowledge Is Power Program the largest charter school organization in the country. KIPP, which runs three schools in Washington, has produced some of the highest test scores among publicly funded schools in the District and has made significant gains in the math and reading achievement of low-income students in most of its 52 schools across the country.
The announcement, several school improvement experts said, raises the charter school movement to a new level of influence, financial strength and public notice.
--------------------
March 20, 2007, 3:08PM
KIPP academy takes a big step
By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE and ERICKA MELLON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4644966.html
The Knowledge is Power Program — the much-touted national charter school network born in Houston more than a decade ago — will unveil a $100 million plan today to expand its number of schools here fivefold, creating a system that could rival the Houston Independent School District.
Within a decade or so, the Houston chain would grow to include 42 charter schools with 21,000 students, a huge jump from the 1,700 students who currently attend KIPP's eight area schools.
The large number of campuses — more than many suburban districts, including Spring and Galena Park — would give KIPP ample enrollment to prove whether its success at preparing some of the nation's poorest students for college is just a fluke, advocates said.
"Someone's got to step up and do it. Frankly, why not KIPP? Why not Houston? Why not now?" said Mike Feinberg, co-founder of the KIPP charter school system, which serves 12,000 students at 52 schools nationally. "Houston is very fertile ground in the country to do this work."
<< Home