Posted by
Buster Foghorn on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 8:47:16 PM
Jay Mathews offers a very entertaining book; perhaps, more importantly, he offers an informative and timely and important book about educating minority students in the inner-city.
“Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America” is the story of Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg—founders of the highly successful charter schools known as KIPP [Knowledge is Power Program]—two young teachers starting out in Houston with a two year commitment for Teach for America. The KIPP story is an impressive one: inner city 5th graders, after one year in KIPP, essentially double their scores over their 4th grade performance in reading (from 32% to 58%) and in math (from 42% to 84%).
The Levin/Feinberg story is one of inspirational dedication to their students. There are daily evening phone calls from students with homework questions. There is an uncommon effort to teach subject mastery by requiring longer class days—school days begin at 7:30AM and last to 5PM, with periodic half days on Saturday and three weeks of school each summer. There are also struggles and campaigns with supervisors and administrators to get adequate class space.
Mathews tracks their progress from beginning classroom teacher to the present day as leaders of an expanding chartered school program with a national footprint and 66 schools. During the journey they gain teaching skills in the classroom. They discover how to work with and win over parents. They master the art of cooperating with or going around school administrators. They deliver students a disciplined and challenging course of study to ensure success. They push into unchartered territory expanding the number of classes, the number of teachers, and the number of schools under the KIPP umbrella.
They are now receiving national recognition for their success. Their journey, however, would have been much more improbable, if not uneventful, if they hadn’t met Harriett Ball, Rafe Esquith, and Scott Hamilton along the way. Each of these individuals appeared at just the right time, bringing their own expertise to bear and helping our two neophytes move to the next level—in the classroom, in the education bureaucracy, in the business world.
As the KIPP schools expand, Mathews’ notes there are certain pillars that stuck: “(1) high expectations, (2) choice and commitment, (3) more time, (4) power to lead, and (5) focus on results.” He argues KIPP’s success really comes down to a desire to find what works, that is, find what helps the students perform better. It is this continuous quality improvement, this flexibility to see something is not working and make changes, he argues, that explains KIPP’s success.
Matthews does an excellent job of answering the doubters, refuting the critics, and setting out the evidence. In the process he confirms the KIPP motto: “All children will learn.”