Attrition — a KIPP school vs. its district
An admirer of KIPP schools is resolutely defending them against observations I've made and is insisting that KIPP schools have lower attrition than their school districts.
As noted, my past research has found that six of California's nine KIPP schools have very high attrition — and attrition for the demographic subgroup that is (on average) statistically most likely to be academically challenged is strikingly higher than overall attrition in all of those six schools. (That subgroup is either African-American boys or Latino boys, depending on the school's overall demographic.)
The claim that district attrition overall is higher doesn't make sense on its face. That's because KIPP schools largely don't replace students who leave (they officially don't accept any new students for 8th grade, and apparently accept few for 7th grade), while in district schools, students transfer in and out as part of the natural course of family life.
It would theoretically be possible to look at numbers for every KIPP school and the district in which it's located, but it would be pretty pointless for the reason mentioned above. Just for the heck of it, though, I looked at the numbers for KIPP Bridge Charter in Oakland Unified, and for the district. This is just a random sampling and a snapshot; I just looked at the class that started 5th grade in the '04-'05 school year and finished 8th grade in spring/summer 2008.
KIPP's Oakland school is notably one of its less successful, but it's also in a very troubled school district, so it seems like a fair choice for a random snapshot. Oakland Unified is also losing overall enrollment, as is SFUSD.
So anyway, the numbers please, assuming my percentage calculations are accurate (please correct me, anyone who sees an error)...
KIPP Bridge
Total enrollment for that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 76; 05-06 (6th grade) 75, 06-07 (7th grade) 54, 07-08 (8th grade) 44. That's a loss of 42% of the class.
African-American boys in that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 33; 05-06 (6th grade) 27, 06-07 (7th grade) 15, 07-08 (8th grade) 13. That's a loss of 60.6% of the African-American boys in the class.
Oakland Unified
Total enrollment for that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 4,032; 05-06 (6th grade) 3,876, 06-07 (7th grade) 3,598, 07-08 (8th grade) 3,476. That's a loss of 13.7% of the class.
African-American boys in that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 785; 05-06 (6th grade) 791, 06-07 (7th grade) 728, 07-08 (8th grade) 680. That's a loss of 13.3% of the African-American boys in the class.
OK, that's only one KIPP school in only one district. But. And it's particularly noticeable that OUSD's overall attrition of African-American boys is not higher than the district's overall attrition.
By the way, the poster is also voicing outrage that I indicated that KIPP schools use volume meters in classrooms, accusing me of making it up. Honestly, I'm not creative enough to make that up. The information came from the parent handbook of KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy. I acknowledge that I didn't ascertain how common a practice this is in KIPP schools before I started posting about it, but the KIPP S.F. Bay handbook treated it as a practice to be cited proudly, while the commenter is treating it as an embarrassment to be downplayed.
Because of the proud tone of the KIPP handbook, it didn't occur to me that KIPP partisans would treat it as some kind of slander if I mentioned it, and thus that I should carefully ascertain exactly how many KIPP schools engage in this practice. So I acknowledge that I don't know -- and I passed on the handbook to another interested KIPP observer, so I no longer have it to recheck. I acknowledge that perhaps KIPP S.F. Bay is the only one of all the KIPP schools that uses a decibel meter — only KIPP knows for sure.
As noted, my past research has found that six of California's nine KIPP schools have very high attrition — and attrition for the demographic subgroup that is (on average) statistically most likely to be academically challenged is strikingly higher than overall attrition in all of those six schools. (That subgroup is either African-American boys or Latino boys, depending on the school's overall demographic.)
The claim that district attrition overall is higher doesn't make sense on its face. That's because KIPP schools largely don't replace students who leave (they officially don't accept any new students for 8th grade, and apparently accept few for 7th grade), while in district schools, students transfer in and out as part of the natural course of family life.
It would theoretically be possible to look at numbers for every KIPP school and the district in which it's located, but it would be pretty pointless for the reason mentioned above. Just for the heck of it, though, I looked at the numbers for KIPP Bridge Charter in Oakland Unified, and for the district. This is just a random sampling and a snapshot; I just looked at the class that started 5th grade in the '04-'05 school year and finished 8th grade in spring/summer 2008.
KIPP's Oakland school is notably one of its less successful, but it's also in a very troubled school district, so it seems like a fair choice for a random snapshot. Oakland Unified is also losing overall enrollment, as is SFUSD.
So anyway, the numbers please, assuming my percentage calculations are accurate (please correct me, anyone who sees an error)...
KIPP Bridge
Total enrollment for that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 76; 05-06 (6th grade) 75, 06-07 (7th grade) 54, 07-08 (8th grade) 44. That's a loss of 42% of the class.
African-American boys in that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 33; 05-06 (6th grade) 27, 06-07 (7th grade) 15, 07-08 (8th grade) 13. That's a loss of 60.6% of the African-American boys in the class.
Oakland Unified
Total enrollment for that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 4,032; 05-06 (6th grade) 3,876, 06-07 (7th grade) 3,598, 07-08 (8th grade) 3,476. That's a loss of 13.7% of the class.
African-American boys in that one class:
04-05 (5th grade) 785; 05-06 (6th grade) 791, 06-07 (7th grade) 728, 07-08 (8th grade) 680. That's a loss of 13.3% of the African-American boys in the class.
OK, that's only one KIPP school in only one district. But. And it's particularly noticeable that OUSD's overall attrition of African-American boys is not higher than the district's overall attrition.
By the way, the poster is also voicing outrage that I indicated that KIPP schools use volume meters in classrooms, accusing me of making it up. Honestly, I'm not creative enough to make that up. The information came from the parent handbook of KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy. I acknowledge that I didn't ascertain how common a practice this is in KIPP schools before I started posting about it, but the KIPP S.F. Bay handbook treated it as a practice to be cited proudly, while the commenter is treating it as an embarrassment to be downplayed.
Because of the proud tone of the KIPP handbook, it didn't occur to me that KIPP partisans would treat it as some kind of slander if I mentioned it, and thus that I should carefully ascertain exactly how many KIPP schools engage in this practice. So I acknowledge that I don't know -- and I passed on the handbook to another interested KIPP observer, so I no longer have it to recheck. I acknowledge that perhaps KIPP S.F. Bay is the only one of all the KIPP schools that uses a decibel meter — only KIPP knows for sure.
Labels: Charters
7 Comments:
Shocker that you chose one of the schools with the highest attrition in all of KIPP - if not the very highest. You have no interest in data, because anecdotes will always serve your purpose. Data won't.
I didn't say you made up the volume meter comment. (now you're misquoting me - who do you think I am, Jonathan Alter? I thought you only misquoted legitimate journalists like him. I'm honored.) I said you exaggerated the pervasiveness of their use. I estimate it at less than 10% in KIPP schools. You wrote as if it were common practice throughout the network. It's not, you either know it or you easily could find out; thus, you were misleading your readers.
You're a little unclear on the concept, Anonymous 5:22. How can one "Anonymous" say I'm misquoting him/her when I'm quoting an "Anonymous" who may or may not be the same person? SOMEONE undeniably posted here accusing me of making up the volume meter information. I would speculate that the string of anonymous comments is coming from one person, but I have no way of knowing.
I have clarified -- corrected -- my implication that the use of volume meters in KIPP classrooms is a widespread practice. Which is what Jonathan Alter should be doing with his inaccurate figure on KIPP alumni's college matriculation, based on standard journalistic practice, by the way. (Slippery wording that allows the writer to say he TECHNICALLY didn't specifically, explicitly state the number 12,800 does not let him off the hook -- that's the impression he gave the reader, and that's what matters.) It remains to be seen whether he'll do so.
It was me who accused you of exaggerating the volume meter, and I stand by that accusation, because it's true. You took one handbook from a single school in a network that advertises its schools' autonomy, and pretended that we could thus assume that all KIPP schools do that. You know better, but stating the position with nuance would ruin your argument, so you glossed over the possibility that this isn't even close to a common KIPP practice. I get it; nuance is hard. But give your faithful readers a chance to prove ourselves - we are capable of understanding the difference between "one" and "all"!
So you corrected one mis-statement. What about all the others? Are you leaving those out there to twist in the wind?
Actually, SOME anonymous accused me of making it up, in so many words. That was incorrect; I didn't make it up.
I have corrected my comments implying that many KIPP schools use them. I have no idea how many do.
I haven't made any other misstatements that I'm aware of (unlike Jonathan Alter).
"KIPP schools have very high attrition"
Why not be fair (silly asking Caroline to be FAIR, I know) and compare KIPP's attrition rate to the attrition rate of the same population in SFUSD? I think you'll find it is just about the same.
SFUSD is imploding and you're focusing on KIPP? You would better serve your audience by addressing the fiasco that is the enrollment process.
(Also, KIPP isn't for everyone, but I know one parent who loves the school for his son...)
There are certainly parents who love KIPP; that's not my point.
It's a major national story and a big issue in education, so I am focusing on that as well as local issues.
Hmm, just to see, I'll crunch the KIPP/SFUSD attrition numbers later today. The San Francisco KIPP schools aren't as extreme as the Oakland one, which loses most of its African-American boys between grades 5 and 8.
Post a Comment
<< Home