Chicago Tribune reporters Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and David Heinzmann recently explored—and brilliantly exposed—what happens, or could happen, when a charter school moves into an existing neighborhood school in Chicago.
Four years ago, one of Chicago Public Schools’ magnets, William Penn Elementary School, started sharing a building, right in the middle of the “Holy City” turf of the Vice Lords street gang, with a KIPP charter school. In the first few paragraphs of the story, the reporters point out the disparity between Penn and KIPP: the public school’s classrooms still have chalkboards, while the national charter network furnishes more recent technology in every classroom, for example.
Some disputes have had to be mediated between teachers, but of course, public school teachers can use chalkboards as effectively as the newest projectors. A bigger problem is the kids and control of the neighborhood turf. KIPP is an outsider, and kids at KIPP are therefore seen as intruders in a neighborhood that sees more than its fair share of gang violence.
“The kids themselves, they feel different,” the Tribune quoted one parent of an eighth-grader at Penn as saying. “They feel the KIPP kids think they’re better than them. It teaches separatism, and that’s not OK.”
The way of the future
A recent report from the independent policy research group Mathematica Inc says middle school students at KIPP schools tend to outperform kids in traditional public schools from the same city, but the report’s conclusions have been questioned due to the inability of independent reporters to determine who sponsored the research. The data itself looks sound to me, though, and it says KIPP students show a statistically significant improvement on standardized tests in math, reading, science, and social studies, compared to kids who don’t attend KIPP schools.
Now, consider the possible explanations as to why KIPP students outperform their public school peers on standardized tests. The practices at KIPP schools differ from those at public schools in two important ways. First, kids are just in class for more time during a typical day and during a typical year. International studies suggest that time in class doesn’t matter all that much, but with KIPP students, it’s hard to argue with the facts. Second, KIPP enforces a somewhat stricter discipline code for students, which probably sharpens their focus so they pay attention more when they’re in the classrooms.
A preliminary list of 129 schools scheduled for closure this year included four schools that are now in a “co-share” arrangement with privately-run or charter schools, Penn being one of them. Some people view this type of sharing as a good thing in terms of spurring competition, but others see it as two separate and unequal players in a game that’s not on a level playing field. If Penn does close—CPS should release the final list by the end of March—it will likely be as much “as a result of” the co-sharing arrangement with KIPP as it is “despite” that arrangement. But watch the rhetoric that comes from the charter and those who favor charter schools replacing our public schools.
Moreover, if Penn closes and KIPP, the inevitable outsider, assumes control of the entire building at 1616 South Avers Avenue, gang leaders who attended Penn and considered it an anchor in the neighborhood may find additional motivation to react with violence. The situation in this Lawndale neighborhood is already bad enough, and now, looking mainly at budgets and standardized test scores, CPS officials are going to push another measure of instability onto our children who ask nothing more of them than a high-quality education.
