Letter to Diane Ravitch from Ali Nagle, KIPP TEAM teacher

Speaking of rebutting myths about charters, my friend Ali Nagle, an AMAZING teacher (and, of course, a TFA alum) at KIPP TEAM in Newark, sent a letter (full text below) to Diane Ravitch after reading her book, in which she powerfully and passionately demolishes Ravitch's critique of KIPP and other high-performing charters.  Not surprisingly, Ravitch never replied…  Here's an excerpt:

And to your point that we attract the best students in the poorest neighborhood, TEAM Academy enrolls fifth through eighth grade students who enter significantly behind in skills and knowledge. As the fifth grade reading teacher, my classroom is made up of 99 students from fourth grade classrooms all over Newark—some traditional public schools, some parochial schools, and even other charters. When students enter my class in August, we test their reading levels using the Fountas & Pinnell system (through DRAs and Teacher's College reading assessments).  This year in August, 18 of my students were reading below a second grade level and overall 45% of my current students entered fifth grade reading at a third grade level or below. This is the reality at TEAM and the other KIPP middle school in Newark, Rise Academy. This is the reality for most high-performing KIPP schools across the country. My question for you is if we are getting the best students from the neighborhood, "leaving the public schools in the same neighborhood worse off because they have lost some of the top-performing students," then why do nearly half of our students come in reading two years below grade level? If students reading two years below grade level are "the best performing students in poor neighborhoods", then they desperately need a better education than what they have gotten in public schools, and the public schools that will now be "worse off" without them don't deserve to keep them in the first place.

Rather than accuse KIPP schools of creaming from the top and attracting only the most motivated parents, I wish you would highlight how hard many great charter schools work to make sure all families know that there are better options out there.

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February 18, 2011

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

My name is Ali Nagle and I am 28 years old. I studied urban education at the University of Southern California and after completing my degree, I joined Teach for America and moved to New York City where I taught in a public school on the lower east side of Manhattan. After teaching at PS 34, I moved across the Hudson to teach at TEAM Academy, a KIPP School, in Newark, New Jersey. I have been here for the past five years, teaching 8^th grade algebra and then 5^th grade reading and writing. I also founded our network’s international social justice project, TEAM in Africa.

While student teaching in South Central and East Los Angeles and then while beginning my career in Alphabet City in Lower Manhattan, I enjoyed every minute in the classroom, but felt there was something missing. In the early years, there was a foggy picture floating in my head as to what a great education and a great school should look like, but the picture never focused and I could never articulate my blurry vision. I couldn’t pin point what a great school looked like, sounded like or felt like, until I visited my current school, TEAM Academy. It was simply love at first sight. The more I started to learn, the deeper in love I fell.

It is because of this love of teaching generally and my school specifically that I’m writing to you. You have spent your life’s work researching and discussing education, and so I think it is only fair to start this dialogue because I am afraid you have missed something wonderful happening in education. 

A few months ago I read The Death and Life of the Great American School System and some of your other writings, including “The Myth of Charter Schools.” In all honesty, I was angry about what I read. Angry with some of the thoughts and the ideas, but more upset with the fact that theoretically, every person in the country could read your thoughts about charter schools and about KIPP specifically, and take it as fact. But every person in the country cannot be inside our school or any of the other high-performing charter schools across the country to see the amazing education unfolding and the remarkable students in each of the buildings.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that there are some really great charter schools and there are some pathetic charter schools. I am, however, concerned about your portrayal of KIPP schools. With now 99 schools across the country, I am sure it can be said that some KIPP schools are better than others. Some schools have statistically proven more successful than others; however, some of the broad, sweeping generalizations you make about KIPP schools as a whole are dangerously inaccurate. Therefore, I am hoping that you would welcome evidence that does not support your arguments so that you can responsibly and knowledgeably evaluate them. 

After debating your work with colleagues and friends, we all came to one similar conclusion: The Death and Life of the Great American School System was a great book—in the sense that a great book lingers within and challenges one to think and ultimately grow as an individual. As a reading teacher, I could not shake that what I read and how I was feeling was a teachable moment. I talked to the kids about the book. I shared what I felt while I was reading; what I was feeling at the moment; and how I wasn’t sure if I agreed with everything in it. Together we problem solved about what you can do when you disagree with someone, what you should do when you want to know more and even what it means to form your own opinion and then how that opinion may be altered or amended. The students’ thoughts and questions challenged me and encouraged me to spark a similar conversation with their parents and families. I asked parents questions about why they wanted their kids to come to TEAM, how this school was different from other schools, etc.

In The Death and Life of the Great American School System you write, “One persistent question is whether KIPP enrolls all kinds of students, as regular public schools must. Like other successful charter schools, KIPP admits by lottery; by definition, only the most motivated families apply for a slot. Charters with lotteries tend to attract the best students in poor neighborhoods, leaving the public schools in the same neighborhood worse off because they have lost some of the top-performing students. They also tend to enroll fewer of the students with high needs—English-language learners and those needing special education.” (135-136)

Our kids are the same kids demographically as those in the district.  As the chart below shows, our special education population is comparable to surrounding public schools, if not higher, our schools are more predominantly African American, and our free and reduced lunch numbers are higher. 

School Name	%Black	%Hispanic	%Free and Reduced	%Special Education
TEAM Academy	98%	2%	84%	12%
Avon Avenue	95%	5%	75%	10%
Hawthorne Avenue	94%	6%	72%	8%
Belmont-Runyon	92%	8%	66%	7%
GW Carver	96%	3%	64%	9%
Madison	96%	3%	51%	10%

And to your point that we attract the best students in the poorest neighborhood, TEAM Academy enrolls fifth through eighth grade students who enter significantly behind in skills and knowledge. As the fifth grade reading teacher, my classroom is made up of 99 students from fourth grade classrooms all over Newark—some traditional public schools, some parochial schools, and even other charters. When students enter my class in August, we test their reading levels using the Fountas & Pinnell system (through DRAs and Teacher’s College reading assessments).  This year in August, 18 of my students were reading below a second grade level and overall 45% of my current students entered fifth grade reading at a third grade level or below. This is the reality at TEAM and the other KIPP middle school in Newark, Rise Academy. This is the reality for most high-performing KIPP schools across the country. My question for you is if we are getting the best students from the neighborhood, “leaving the public schools in the same neighborhood worse off because they have lost some of the top-performing students,” then why do nearly half of our students come in reading two years below grade level? If students reading two years below grade level are “the best performing students in poor neighborhoods”, then they desperately need a better education than what they have gotten in public schools, and the public schools that will now be “worse off” without them don’t deserve to keep them in the first place.

Rather than accuse KIPP schools of creaming from the top and attracting only the most motivated parents, I wish you would highlight how hard many great charter schools work to make sure all families know that there are better options out there. In order to enter the lottery to attend a TEAM School, a parent/guardian/family member simply completes an application with the child’s name, date of birth, grade and contact information. The application may be submitted directly online, downloaded, or it can be picked up at any campus or our main office. It can also be faxed, submitted in person, by mail, or over the phone—whichever is the easiest and most convenient for the parent. Our goal is to make our application process as easy as possible, in hopes of reaching all parents.

Last fall, Joanna Belcher, school leader at SPARK Academy, TEAM’s elementary school, related the following facts regarding student enrollment and inquiries:

“Even before major recruiting, we already have enough kids applying for kindergarten that could fill three elementary schools. At this point in the year (before mailers, door hangers, pre-school visits, etc.), we are getting 15+ applications a day (500 in the month of October alone). If this stays the same (and there’s reason to believe it will only continue to go up), we’d have just shy of 6,000 NEW applications in a calendar year to add to our 4,000+ now.

“Our staff and school leaders spend so much time recruiting to ensure that we’re not just receiving applications from the savviest parents – those who have the time, resources, and connections to research and apply to multiple charter schools in Newark. If we did – even though that would be easier – we might not end up serving the students who most need a high-quality school.  Yet it’s continually painful to deal with a waitlist that’s almost impossible to exit and phone calls every day from parents begging us to admit their students.”

The sheer volume of our waitlist speaks to our network’s dedication to lead by example and help change the face of public education across Newark, and hopefully the nation. In a recent visit to KIPP Houston, you acknowledged the work going on there and issued a warning to Mike Feinberg and the rest of the KIPP family, “You must disassociate yourself from the educational robber barons, dilettantes and incompetents who are following in your wake making false promises and delivering a low-quality education to poor and minority children.” I believe KIPP schools are different from other charters, often outperforming neighboring charters and public schools, but with that success comes a responsibility as a network to share best practices and continue to demonstrate what is possible in public education. As Mike and Dave often say, and as our students know to be true, it is our responsibility to prove the possible. We have created a model that works, sending 97% of our students to college, and should be celebrated for it.

In The Death and Life of the Great American School System you also say “KIPP has demonstrated that youngsters from some of the toughest neighborhoods in the nation can succeed in a safe and structured environment, if they have supportive parents and are willing to work hard, spend long days in school, and comply with the school’s expectations…Regular public schools must accept everyone who applies, including the students who leave KIPP schools. They can’t throw out the kids whose do not work hard or the kids who have many absences or the kids who are disrespectful or the kids who parents are absent or inattentive.” (136) At TEAM, in nine years, we have never once kicked a child out—sending him or her back to a regular public school. To be sure, we have a great number of students who do not initially meet our expectations, but we don’t throw them out, nor do we ask students to leave who are absent or disrespectful. Instead, we dedicate more time and resources; the staff and students come together and work to find the root of the problem, and then we all search for solutions and offer help. In my five years at TEAM, I can count on my fingers the number of students who have even been suspended from school. I would challenge you to find a similar statistic in any of the traditional public schools in Newark.  As for attrition, according to the numbers available, Newark Public Schools (a district with roughly 40,000 students) hovers near 22% for mobility, this is calculated as the number of kids leaving and the number of kids coming in midyear. TEAM Schools attrition, which unlike mobility includes kids leaving over the summer, was 7.7% last year. Newark Public Schools doesn't publish a similar number for comparison.

I would even go as far to argue TEAM Academy does exactly what you articulate a charter school—in its original form—was intended to accomplish. “…Charter schools were intended not to compete with public schools, but to support them. Charters were supposed to be research and development laboratories for discovering hard-to-educate children. They were not intended to siphon away the most motivated students and families in the poorest communities, but to address some of the public schools’ most urgent problems.” (146)

Allow me to share with you the story of one of our students who entered fifth grade this year unable to read any words. For the most part he was able to name all of the letters but more often than not could not identify the sound each letter represented. He had little to no phonemic awareness. Unable to stay awake throughout the day, crawling on the floor and unable to add single digit numbers, I would consider his educational deficits “one of the public schools’ most urgent problems” and probably what his old school would have considered a “hard-to-educate” child. Let us fast forward three months to a chilly day in October when this same young man sat proudly in front of his peers and read aloud an entire book—chunking letters, phrasing words and even pausing to show his TEAMmates the illustrations after each page. It was a small accomplishment along a hugely difficult path, but an achievement nonetheless that was greeted with wild applause from the students in his class. Since that day in October, providing meaningful educational experiences for this young man had become increasingly difficult. But he is still with us. At no point did we tell him he was not allowed to be part of our TEAM and family.

While this young man is an extreme example, the growth and success of the majority of our students is equally remarkable.

And parents agree. When asked, So far is TEAM what you expected?, here were some of the responses:

TEAM Academy has gone beyond my expectations. My child was previously enrolled in private school because I was very concerned about the education of children in public schools and didn’t know much about charter schools. However in the two and a half months school has been in session, they have blown me away – from attention to detail, the homework, to the involvement in my child, like the communication.

When asked, How is TEAM different from your child’s previous school?, parents responded

Public school seemed to push my children through and they seem to get caught in the system instead of getting to the bottom of the problem… They [TEAM] care about my son and are not here for a paycheck.

He attended a charter school before he came to TEAM Academy. They were good with the discipline policy too, but the work was not as challenging as the work he has been receiving from TEAM. And he is more excited to come here than he was going there. The learning atmosphere is so different.

For arguments sake, let's accept that these parents describe TEAM accurately, that TEAM is part of a network of charter schools that combines academic rigor with character education, and gets results.  If so, what are the ramifications of your book on a school like TEAM?  Have you, in arguing against KIPP schools and charters in general, made it harder for TEAM or similar schools to continue their work?  Have you increased or decreased the probability that a parent, politician, or policy-maker will make the best choice for our children?  As someone who hopes to spend the rest of her life in education, I ask you: how does your work contribute to or narrow the possibilities for our students?

We would love for you to come and visit TEAM Schools, just across the river in Newark. We would like for you to see the hard work of our students, to hear their stories. We hope it would continue to inform your opinions about KIPP Schools and about the place that effective charters have in the nation’s education system. We would also appreciate your perspective, as it has been shaped by a different set of experiences than ours. We aren’t the school we want to be YET, but we are working hard to become that school every single day. As this project of educating children evolves, we can only enrich it by continuing a frank and open dialogue.  Come visit with us and continue the dialogue.

Thank you for your time and your life-long dedication to education, 

Ali Nagle

TEAM Academy, 5^th grade teacher

anagle@teamschools.org