Response to KIPP creaming

In response to my last email, in which I wrote (emphasis on "some"): "some KIPPs have developed a reputation whereby motivated (read: desperate) parents with bright kids with unrealized potential who are stuck in failing schools (where the kids would likely be sucked down over time by the pervasive failure) have indeed sought out KIPP, which results in the entering KIPP class being slightly ahead of the local neighborhood public school", one KIPP principal replied:

Not every KIPP school experiences this phenomenon.  Our students come in below the district average, and incoming test scores have been lower or equal to the previous year with each new class.

He added, in response to the TFA article:

Though perhaps it’s not the sole intent of the program, TFA does indirectly keep people in the teaching profession who otherwise would never have been there and certainly never would have stayed.  By being the catalyst for the birth of KIPP, and by staffing the vast majority of high-performing charter schools, TFA has provided an option for highly driven people who don’t want to go into banking, but definitely would not have stayed teaching in the public schools.