Faces of School Choice: Rocio Mendoza

On the subject of Texas charter schools, this is a WONDERFUL interview with an inspirational young woman who was one of the first students at the original KIPP in Houston.  Here's the summary of who she is:

Rocio Mendoza can be considered an original KIPPster: a daughter of Mexican immigrants, she started at KIPP Academy Middle School in Houston in 1995, making her one of the first students to attend the school all four years.  She then received a scholarship to attend the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.  Now 21, she will graduate next spring from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree in political science and urban studies.  Next up: she plans to work for a year, then attend law school.  

And here is what she said, including comments on some of the most pervasive myths about KIPP: that it overworks students and creams the best kids.

Faces of School Choice: Rocio Mendoza

Edspresso: What was school first like?  Did you feel that the school you were attending before didn’t work for you? 

Rocio: I moved to a lot of different schools starting out.  I started in pre-K at Gordon Elementary in 1990.  But I didn’t speak English, and my mom saw that being in an English immersion program wasn’t working for me.  In my kindergarten year my mom transferred me to Cunningham Elementary for their bilingual education program.  Halfway through my kindergarten year the district finally finished building Benavides Elementary, and I moved there with my teacher. 

When I was moved into a bilingual class, I started picking up on things really quickly.  The teacher asked my mom if it would be possible for me to start working with the first graders as well.  I spent the rest of the year splitting my time between the kindergarten and first grade classes.  At the end of that year, I skipped ahead to the second grade.  The principal had a lot of meetings with my mother.  The biggest concern was my age; they were concerned with my maturity and whether I would get along with the older kids.  I was at Benavides, a nine-year-old fourth grader, when I heard about KIPP. 

It sounds like Benavides treated you pretty well—they let you skip a grade, they worked hard to communicate with your mom. 

My experience was, I had really great teachers.  The teachers I had there were excellent, excellent teachers that cared about every one of the kids.  I still keep in touch with of them.  So definitely, I was very close to the teachers and principal while I attended school (Roy P. Benavides Elementary).  They were actually very supportive and kept track of me as I went through KIPP.   

So why did you decide to go to KIPP?  What was it about KIPP that appealed to you? 

Mr. Feinberg himself did a lot of recruiting of students—the elementary schools allowed him to come to classes and invite students to enroll.  It’s hard to not think KIPP’s approach makes a lot of sense.  I think hearing Mr. Feinberg describe the program was really appealing, especially because it included a bigger vision of college.  Although Benavides was offering the best education they could, longer school hours would result in me knowing more and in being more prepared.  It made a lot of sense from the get-go.  At the time KIPP had school every Saturday, and we were told we would get McDonald’s on Saturdays for lunch.  (Mr. Feinberg likes to tell people it was hamburgers, and not the promise of end-of-year trips or college, that got me to enroll...)

Also, as a charter school, KIPP had so many extra things they could do for us that weren’t a possibility at a regular public school.  We got to choose two electives, which is part of what we did on Saturdays.  Having close contact with teachers, and being able to reach them by cell phone, was also a big deal.  It magnified so much of what I had seen at Benavides.  The teachers were great, but you couldn’t call them at home. 

And in spite of what Mr. Feinberg says, I know the idea of end-of-the-year trips meant a lot to me.  I wouldn’t have gotten to see half of what I saw any other way.  Very few school kids get to go Washington D.C., national parks in Utah, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and NYC, and California. 

End-of-year trips?

They’re end-of-the-year trips you earn during the school year.  It was a factor of “above and beyond” for me.  The trips are usually a mixture of sightseeing and college visits. 

When students show interest, the people from KIPP then go and visit with the family.  To my mom, everything made sense. 

What made sense about it? 

The longer days—it makes sense that if you’re in class longer, you’ll learn more.  Also, I think a big concern around the middle school age as kids go into their teens is outside influences rather than the school.  I think the fact that students are in school until 5:00 leaves a smaller window of time for kids to get into trouble.  Not that she foresaw me getting into any trouble!

What’s scary about these charter programs when they’re new is whether they’ll work.  Sure, it sounds good in theory, but will it work?  It’s not such a big problem now that KIPP has built a track record. 

So you started at KIPP in 1995.  Was it hard to adjust to KIPP’s style? 

Yeah, definitely.  It’s really tiring at first to stay in school longer, to have more travel time to get to school.  And the workload was hard.  Not only are you getting home later, but you’re getting home with more homework as well.  And it’s hard to get home to the same apartment complex you were at before, with the kids you used to go to school with, but you can’t play with them anymore.  And they make fun of you.  I think every KIPP student has to deal with that at some point. 

Why would the kids make fun of you? 

Being nerdy in any neighborhood isn’t cool.  No matter how they saw you before, when you go to KIPP they definitely think of you that way. 

Was that hard to adjust to? 

Yeah.  What helped me was we moved when I was in sixth grade, so I was able to change neighborhoods.  I know in the Bronx, KIPP used to be called the “Kids in Prison Program.” 

Was there a certain point at which you just hit burnout, wanted to go back to your old school? 

Yes, but not because of KIPP—I think it was just growing pains. 

Do you think KIPP helped you through any of that? 

Definitely.  Part of your commitment to the school is your commitment to your teammates.  You’re held responsible if you make somebody else feel uncomfortable or disrespected.  KIPP tries to create a sense of family among students, and I think that helped a lot. 

“Teammates” instead of “students?” 

It’s part of the KIPP lingo.  (laughs)  I wrote a paper in college about my experiences in KIPP and what makes a good teacher.  I think one of the things that makes a good teacher is they’re involved in your life personally, not just academically.  Having a trusting relationship with teachers creates a better learning environment, especially when you’re at an age when you don’t trust adults in general.  

What was one of your first assignments at KIPP that really stretched you academically? 

One of the things that stretched all of us was English.  I don’t think we realized how bad we were and that we had no real handle on the language.  I came in as an ESL student, which is actually the norm.  To paint a picture of the KIPP Academy population in Houston , many of the students have gone through a bilingual ed program, many of them speak English as a second language and function better in Spanish.  I don’t have precise figures, but at least 50 percent of my starting class was made up of ESL students, and today it is even higher – 70 percent. 

Is there a particular experience from KIPP that really sticks out for you or that you really treasure? 

Our trip to New York my seventh grade year.  We had spent the day sightseeing in our tennis shoes and jeans, but we went to see Phantom of the Opera that night.  Mr. Feinberg had us bring our dress clothes in our backpacks (along with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we brought for lunch), and all of us 11- and 12-year-old kids changed into our dresses and slacks in the bathrooms in the Grand Central Subway before going to see the musical. 

You changed into your dress clothes...in a subway bathroom? 

That evening was even better.  One of the rules on a trip with KIPP is that you have to debrief that evening—talk about what you learned.  The musical ended around 11:00, and then we took the train out to Jersey where we were staying.  By the time we got to the hotel, it was around 1:00 a.m.—but there was Mr. Feinberg, trying to get a bunch of exhausted junior high kids to talk about what they learned that day.  He threatened to take away our McDonald’s breakfast for the next day unless we talked!  If anything, it really made me resilient and prepared me for all those future late-nighters...

There are some who might say that KIPP overworks its students—in fact, they might be pretty critical of this particular experience. 

I think, after going to a competitive boarding school, the kids at Hotchkiss had been the private school kids.  That’s the work ethic of the kids who go to Stanford and Harvard.  That’s the mentality of people who make it in general.  To say that it’s too demanding is lowering expectations.  If people took a close look at our wealthier, upper-class counterparts in these private schools, they would find they’re very hardworking and come from areas with high pressure to perform.  At Hotchkiss, we saw kids running around with thermoses of coffee all day long—they were very driven and compulsive about their performance.  I think it’s really unfortunate for people to think that way.  The really influential political figures in the country come from these boarding schools in New England.  KIPP gives these kids the same standards and level of excellence as future Kennedys.  I don’t think those critics realize the level of work and preparation it takes for success, even beyond college and in the real world. 

That was a meaningful experience for me.  Even though it seems like a little thing, it means a lot to value what you have, to work hard no matter how tired you may be.  It’s those implicit, little values that mean a lot.  If you talk to the teachers at the private schools that a lot of KIPP kids go to, they say that the KIPP alumni so much more respectful and really appreciate what they have, and are so much more resilient in their environment.  They’re not the kids complaining about finals—they’re the ones sucking it up and dealing with it.  It’s sort of like tough love. 

Is there a particularly inspiring experience that you have? 

The really inspiring experiences come now that I come back to the school to volunteer.  At KIPP Houston, eighth graders go to California.  As part of the tour, the kids visit Stanford, which is where I’m at now.  And I now give the tours for the KIPP kids there.  When the kids come on the tours, they look up to me so much and have so many questions.  It never fails to shock and amaze me.  Also, eighth graders are hearing back from the private academies and high schools they applied to, and I just get so excited for them.  I just feel like, “If you only knew the roller coaster you’re going to be on!” 

When you graduated from KIPP, you went to Hotchkiss.  What was it like? 

It’s a boarding school in Connecticut.  The student body is around 550 students, 9-12 grade.  I applied through a program called A Better Chance—it works sort of like a common application to a variety of schools locally and out of state.  That’s how we applied to our local private schools and to boarding schools. 

How did you do academically? 

I ended up somewhere in the middle of the class.  It was very competitive.  Very few kids didn’t at least have a B average.   I always joked that it was very hard to be on the A honor roll, but it was really hard to also flat-out fail.  Hotchkiss was also very supportive in that sense—you had to almost avoid help.  That’s something else KIPP and Hotchkiss had in common—you had to refuse help, because it was definitely there. 

You were an inner-city minority girl.  Was it scary going off to an elite boarding school, living away from home? 

At first, I was really excited.  But it was scary.  My college essay covered a bit about when I got there, that I realized I was in a sea of white people: the Black and Hispanic Student Alliance was one club—there weren’t enough of us for separate clubs.  There might have been two other Latinos in my graduating class.  You could fit all the blacks and Latinos at two tables. 

It just wasn’t what I was used to.  I lived in a pretty rough neighborhood, but I had never felt so intimidated.  It’s a completely different world.  In a different interview, it might have been the same way when white people came into my neighborhood with guys dressed a certain way carrying guns. 

How did you fit in at Hotchkiss?  Was it hard at first to make friends? 

I was able to do it fairly easily—certainly others have a harder time.  It doesn’t make sense at first, but the experiences we had at first gave me common ground.  I remember the first meal I had, I was sitting with a bunch of girls who were talking about where they had gone over the summer.  I remember getting so nervous—what was I was going to say?   Those trips with KIPP actually gave me some common ground. 

Why did you choose Stanford? 

My whole time in KIPP up through eighth grade, I wanted to go to Harvard.  But four winters on the east coast changed my mind.  And at Harvard, they joke that classmates might not want to study with you because you might get a better grade.  There was a lot less teamwork and more a feeling of “every man for himself.”  So I wanted an Ivy League experience, without the snow and cutthroat mentality. 

What are your plans from here? 

I’m going to come back to Houston, work for a year and apply for law school.  I’ve been away from home for a while, so it will be good to be home.  The big thing for me is doing what’s socially right instead of what will bring in the most money.  I worked for KIPP this summer.  I’ve joked that I wouldn’t mind coming back to KIPP and doing Richard Barth’s job as CEO. 

Many members of your family have gotten involved in KIPP as well?  

I have four cousins at the KIPP middle school, a cousin and nephew at the elementary school.  Next year there will be a cousin and niece at the elementary school.  My mom works at KIPP’s day care for teachers and staff.  And my sister teaches seventh- and eighth-grade Spanish. 

There are a lot of people who say KIPP takes the best kids.  What would you say? 

I would say, from what I saw, that definitely wasn’t true.  In my particular case, I was a good student and had good teachers and supportive parents, but I came into KIPP way behind.  And lots of kids coming in didn’t have those circumstances—they didn’t have parents supporting them, they didn’t have good teachers before.  Beyond that, it’s a mentality of people that don’t know much about KIPP.  All KIPP schools are first come-first served.  Today the demand for some KIPP schools is so high that they hold a lottery.  And it’s not like a magnet program where you’re taking students who are already performing at a high level.  You don’t test into KIPP—it’s the luck of the draw.

I’ve taken quite a few education classes at Stanford and seen a lot of these criticisms.  Many say that these kids already have parents who are really involved, so they have an unfair advantage.  My response: obviously every parent wishes their kid could go to college and learn, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into an active parent.  What parent is going to say, “yes, I want my kid to fail in life”?  But just because a parent wants their kid to succeed doesn’t mean that parent will be actively involved. 

I think it’s a big, big assumption that KIPP automatically has the parent’s complete support.  To me, that argument is a chicken-and-egg question: does the student come in with really committed parents, or does KIPP force the parent to be committed, and then the student becomes successful?  People who ask this question assume the former, but I think it’s the latter. 

What one thing would you want readers to know about KIPP? 

First of all, for critics: visit a KIPP school before you draw conclusions.  If they do and still disagree with the school’s tactics, please remember KIPP has a vested interest in the child’s future and wants students to succeed.  When you see how school leaders and teachers interact with students, you can see there’s a very close connection with the families and students, with every player in that contract.  The school wouldn’t do anything if they knew it would be harmful for the students or families.  I wouldn’t say KIPP is for everybody, or that it’s the only answer, but you can’t deny the good it has done.