Why is KIPP doing so badly now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason, Matt has decided to use AI to analyze data and write these articles on education. I'm very skeptical that whatever AI tool he used even pulled the data correctly, much less accurately captured trends.

The Washington Post ran a (much nicer) story a couple of months ago but their charts showed the same thing -- a huge drop in proficiency for KIPP that remained low even though both DCPS and the charter sector rebounded. Matt just provided more detail for each KIPP school. The data seems to match up with the Washington Post and with the more detailed data available in the OSSE data files.

Sad to see given how big they are and given the needs of the kids they serve.

Fair. But I saw multiple, obvious errors in the other post he wrote about DCPS.

Most likely a residual brain injury from the time Yggie got knockout gamed and lied about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

There really is a vacuum. The Post covers so little for local education, and hates saying anything negative about charters unless the problem is egregious and everyone already knows. I'm sure the Post will have less in the future. Martin Austermuhle was good at it but covers a lot of other issues too. So it's really just DCUM and blogs and primary sources.

I'm really not sure what the deal is with KIPP though. Super interesting question. These bigger-picture issues are taking a back seat to the crises of Eagle and other closures for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

Are you really a journalist? He's one of the most successful journalists in the country with stints at The Atlantic, Slate, and a founder of Vox. He sucks and is wrong all the time, but to act like you working for some backwater newspaper compares is hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

Are you really a journalist? He's one of the most successful journalists in the country with stints at The Atlantic, Slate, and a founder of Vox. He sucks and is wrong all the time, but to act like you working for some backwater newspaper compares is hilarious.

It's more like, he didn't bring his journalist self to this particular article. It's clearly just slapped together from behind-the-laptop analysis with no real research and not much background understanding of the subject matter. Mistakes like not knowing that Chisholm is newly Dual Language are what happens when someone doesn't make an effort to learn background.

[Anonymous]

Where exactly is this real education journalism in DC? The coverage I've read from the Post has ranged from bad to fine, but I've never read anything that made me think, wow, these journalists are really digging deep here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where exactly is this real education journalism in DC? The coverage I've read from the Post has ranged from bad to fine, but I've never read anything that made me think, wow, these journalists are really digging deep here.

That's the sad part. There's Valerie Jablow who is super duper knowledgeable but can't edit, so her writing and testimony is hard to follow. But she was spot on about what a racket Eagle was, and I respect that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason, Matt has decided to use AI to analyze data and write these articles on education. I'm very skeptical that whatever AI tool he used even pulled the data correctly, much less accurately captured trends.

He doesn't have a detailed enough understanding of the DC landscape to be writing about it. For example, one huge factor with Chisholm is becoming a dual language school, but that's not mentioned.

As for KIPP, I think their low performance is being lost in the shuffle because the PCSB has bigger fires to put out, serious egg on its face after Eagle, and had a lot of turnover on the PCSB.

Is Chisholm actually seeing a demographic shift after the change to immersion? I’ve been curious about that but have no information.

Where does he mention Chisholm? And actually Chisholm became only dual language much more recently than 2019 -- I think most of the gentrification the later commentator correctly notes is the general gentrification of the neighborhood and DCPS Hill ESes and less dual-language specific, though I do think that will accelerate the trend by attracting UMC families and driving many Potomac Gardens families to Payne.

But also... I think everything he's saying about KIPP is correct. Even if he's using AI tools, I don't see any obvious issues/can't imagine the overall trend isn't correct.

Full immersion started being phased in SY23-24.

In the two years from SY22-23 to SY24-25, the white population went from 19% to 23%, the black population went from 62% to 55%, latino population from 14% to 16%, and the at risk population dropped from 42% to 28%. Boundary participation rate went from 49% to 50%.

Changes above are more stark for PK. White population went from 34% to 35%, black population went from 47% to 33%, and latino population from 14% to 22%.

Definitely some gentrification happening over time but I think also Potomac Gardens families opting out of immersion model given the slower, steadier rate of white population increase over time and the much more rapid black and at risk population decrease following the move to full immersion.

I think it is a reach to say that the changes in the upper grades have much of anything to do with dual language given that nothing in the upper grades changed. At most, we'd be talking about some limited knock on effect for siblings. I think drop in the Black population and rise in the Latino population in ECE is likely directly attributable to model change, but actually it had virtually no effect on the white population in ECE (a smaller change there than in the school overall, in fact, further suggesting that the change in white population is more gentrification of the neighborhood related).

A 14 percentage point drop in the at risk population over two years is not just garden variety gentrification. Especially not in a neighborhood with basically no new development and a giant housing project.

How big is Chisholm’s ECE relative to the rest of the school? Replacing all of the Potomac Gardens kids with not at risk kids in ECE over 2 years might drive a big chunk of that if ECE is 25% of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools are really not allowed to suspend and expel students anymore baring extreme circumstances. If a student was throwing things in the classroom, aggressively menacing teachers and other students, yelling vulgarities and threats, a school could physically remove the student from class and put them in a room away from other students. You can't do that anymore and students realize it.


When schools can no longer effectively discipline students then chaos reigns.

Why can’t KIPP expel? Because they are a charter?

Another perfect example of why quality education is reserved for the wealthy who can afford private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools are really not allowed to suspend and expel students anymore baring extreme circumstances. If a student was throwing things in the classroom, aggressively menacing teachers and other students, yelling vulgarities and threats, a school could physically remove the student from class and put them in a room away from other students. You can't do that anymore and students realize it.


When schools can no longer effectively discipline students then chaos reigns.

Why can’t KIPP expel? Because they are a charter?

Another perfect example of why quality education is reserved for the wealthy who can afford private.

No, it's not because they're a charter. OSSE, which has jurisdiction over both DCPS and charters, has been making it a lot more difficult to suspend and expel in recent years. From their whole-city perspective, moving kids from school to school doesn't actually help anything. There's also a city law (Student Fair Access to School Act) that had some changes in 2018. https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/22-157

Having said that, it totally still is possible to suspend and expel middle and high school students-- I'm not sure about elementary expulsions. It's just a lot of paperwork and a timeline with appeals etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools are really not allowed to suspend and expel students anymore baring extreme circumstances. If a student was throwing things in the classroom, aggressively menacing teachers and other students, yelling vulgarities and threats, a school could physically remove the student from class and put them in a room away from other students. You can't do that anymore and students realize it.


When schools can no longer effectively discipline students then chaos reigns.

Why can’t KIPP expel? Because they are a charter?

Another perfect example of why quality education is reserved for the wealthy who can afford private.

No, it's not because they're a charter. OSSE, which has jurisdiction over both DCPS and charters, has been making it a lot more difficult to suspend and expel in recent years. From their whole-city perspective, moving kids from school to school doesn't actually help anything. There's also a city law (Student Fair Access to School Act) that had some changes in 2018. https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/22-157

Having said that, it totally still is possible to suspend and expel middle and high school students-- I'm not sure about elementary expulsions. It's just a lot of paperwork and a timeline with appeals etc.

This is something I'd like to see coverage of. Is anything out there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools are really not allowed to suspend and expel students anymore baring extreme circumstances. If a student was throwing things in the classroom, aggressively menacing teachers and other students, yelling vulgarities and threats, a school could physically remove the student from class and put them in a room away from other students. You can't do that anymore and students realize it.


When schools can no longer effectively discipline students then chaos reigns.

Why can’t KIPP expel? Because they are a charter?

Another perfect example of why quality education is reserved for the wealthy who can afford private.

No, it's not because they're a charter. OSSE, which has jurisdiction over both DCPS and charters, has been making it a lot more difficult to suspend and expel in recent years. From their whole-city perspective, moving kids from school to school doesn't actually help anything. There's also a city law (Student Fair Access to School Act) that had some changes in 2018. https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/22-157

Having said that, it totally still is possible to suspend and expel middle and high school students-- I'm not sure about elementary expulsions. It's just a lot of paperwork and a timeline with appeals etc.

This is something I'd like to see coverage of. Is anything out there?

Nothing very recent that I'm aware of. The city does publish a report with many interesting pieces of information. For example it says "In the 2023–24 school year, 19 LEAs reported at least one expulsion to OSSE. Half of expulsions occurred at KIPP DC PCS and SEED PCS." Of course, KIPP is a huge LEA so it's unsurprising that the total is high. Expulsions are not common, even in 2018-- rare enough that it's hard to draw conclusions due to a small data set.

https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/SY23-24%20Discipline%20Report%20as%20of%20March%202025.pdf

https://thehoya.com/news/news-top/black-students-disproportionately-disciplined-in-dcps/
https://wamu.org/story/18/10/18/data-racial-divide-schools-says-washington-region/
https://ggwash.org/view/32695/one-dc-charter-school-makes-no-apologies-for-suspensions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

Are you really a journalist? He's one of the most successful journalists in the country with stints at The Atlantic, Slate, and a founder of Vox. He sucks and is wrong all the time, but to act like you working for some backwater newspaper compares is hilarious.

It's more like, he didn't bring his journalist self to this particular article. It's clearly just slapped together from behind-the-laptop analysis with no real research and not much background understanding of the subject matter. Mistakes like not knowing that Chisholm is newly Dual Language are what happens when someone doesn't make an effort to learn background.

What really is wrong though? The data is easily confirmed on the OSSE website, the dc school report card site and EmpowerK12 public dashboards. Is the problem that the analysis is critical of KIPP or of charters? The performance is what it is and it’s bad.

The Washington Post used pretty words to pat KIPP on the back but they also showed the severe decline in a data graph. Seems like the problem isn’t the terrible data, it’s criticizing a charter. A charter that is continuing to suspend and expel at higher rates than the rest of the city and higher rates than it did before the pandemic. But maybe no one cares because the kids being under-served are the historically underserved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

Are you really a journalist? He's one of the most successful journalists in the country with stints at The Atlantic, Slate, and a founder of Vox. He sucks and is wrong all the time, but to act like you working for some backwater newspaper compares is hilarious.

It's more like, he didn't bring his journalist self to this particular article. It's clearly just slapped together from behind-the-laptop analysis with no real research and not much background understanding of the subject matter. Mistakes like not knowing that Chisholm is newly Dual Language are what happens when someone doesn't make an effort to learn background.

What really is wrong though? The data is easily confirmed on the OSSE website, the dc school report card site and EmpowerK12 public dashboards. Is the problem that the analysis is critical of KIPP or of charters? The performance is what it is and it’s bad.

The Washington Post used pretty words to pat KIPP on the back but they also showed the severe decline in a data graph. Seems like the problem isn’t the terrible data, it’s criticizing a charter. A charter that is continuing to suspend and expel at higher rates than the rest of the city and higher rates than it did before the pandemic. But maybe no one cares because the kids being under-served are the historically underserved?

Nobody is saying KIPP's data is actually good. It's just that this isn't a very satisfying article because it doesn't do any deep or interesting analysis of what's wrong. It's just some charts that say KIPP's scores are bad. It offers one possible explanation, leadership instability, which is a fine reason. But it doesn't take into account anything else that might be interesting, and there are so many possibilities. We've talked about discipline data. Other suggestions are: How have KIPP's demographics changed over time, and how have the neighborhoods around KIPP schools changed over time? Are there other policy changes within KIPP such as the decision to offer self-contained classrooms, affecting their scores? What's the middle school math programming-- can't really do a meaningful comparison without considering that. Are any other charter LEAs outliers and are they similar to KIPP, or are they of a different style? What percentage of KIPP's students are actually being reported in these CAPE numbers? Is enrollment going up or down? How are the financials? I'm not saying any one or another of these things is a reason for the performance, they're just suggestions for things I think would make for a good analysis, and they aren't very hard to look up online. Only exploring one potential reason isn't much of an article. The section on accountability doesn't even talk about how KIPP is up for its 25-year review very soon, on March 23. That would be a relevant piece of information, no? I realize that this is just a casual blog, but a major review event coming up in 6 weeks is the kind of thing that deserves mentioning!

Also, the name of the blog "Ten Miles Square" is probably a reference to the dimensions of DC proper. But it's also similar to a consulting firm Ten Square that's very pro-charter. So it can give a misleading impression that there's some sort of connection between them. It would be nice to include a mention that they aren't connected. But Yglesias probably doesn't realize that due to lack of familiarity, or maybe doesn't care. Either way, not a best journalism practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think without the ability to expel, KIPP struggles, and the city has been a lot stricter on that in recent years. Again, something a real journalist would be aware of.

As an education reporter for an actual newspaper, I am loving comments like this.

No shade on Iglesias. I don’t know him personally but my sense is he’s probably trying to fill a coverage gap and from what I can tell he’s clear in explaining that he’s not a traditional journalist.

But commentary and analysis like his - while worthwhile its own reasons - isn’t the same as an article from a standards based news organization that incorporates the broader context, as PP rightly notes.

I’m glad at least some people can discern a difference, especially given what’s happening in my profession these days. Appreciate you, PP!

Sorry to hijack the thread with something off topic. Go back to KIPP!

Are you really a journalist? He's one of the most successful journalists in the country with stints at The Atlantic, Slate, and a founder of Vox. He sucks and is wrong all the time, but to act like you working for some backwater newspaper compares is hilarious.

It's more like, he didn't bring his journalist self to this particular article. It's clearly just slapped together from behind-the-laptop analysis with no real research and not much background understanding of the subject matter. Mistakes like not knowing that Chisholm is newly Dual Language are what happens when someone doesn't make an effort to learn background.

What really is wrong though? The data is easily confirmed on the OSSE website, the dc school report card site and EmpowerK12 public dashboards. Is the problem that the analysis is critical of KIPP or of charters? The performance is what it is and it’s bad.

The Washington Post used pretty words to pat KIPP on the back but they also showed the severe decline in a data graph. Seems like the problem isn’t the terrible data, it’s criticizing a charter. A charter that is continuing to suspend and expel at higher rates than the rest of the city and higher rates than it did before the pandemic. But maybe no one cares because the kids being under-served are the historically underserved?

Nobody is saying KIPP's data is actually good. It's just that this isn't a very satisfying article because it doesn't do any deep or interesting analysis of what's wrong. It's just some charts that say KIPP's scores are bad. It offers one possible explanation, leadership instability, which is a fine reason. But it doesn't take into account anything else that might be interesting, and there are so many possibilities. We've talked about discipline data. Other suggestions are: How have KIPP's demographics changed over time, and how have the neighborhoods around KIPP schools changed over time? Are there other policy changes within KIPP such as the decision to offer self-contained classrooms, affecting their scores? What's the middle school math programming-- can't really do a meaningful comparison without considering that. Are any other charter LEAs outliers and are they similar to KIPP, or are they of a different style? What percentage of KIPP's students are actually being reported in these CAPE numbers? Is enrollment going up or down? How are the financials? I'm not saying any one or another of these things is a reason for the performance, they're just suggestions for things I think would make for a good analysis, and they aren't very hard to look up online. Only exploring one potential reason isn't much of an article. The section on accountability doesn't even talk about how KIPP is up for its 25-year review very soon, on March 23. That would be a relevant piece of information, no? I realize that this is just a casual blog, but a major review event coming up in 6 weeks is the kind of thing that deserves mentioning!

Also, the name of the blog "Ten Miles Square" is probably a reference to the dimensions of DC proper. But it's also similar to a consulting firm Ten Square that's very pro-charter. So it can give a misleading impression that there's some sort of connection between them. It would be nice to include a mention that they aren't connected. But Yglesias probably doesn't realize that due to lack of familiarity, or maybe doesn't care. Either way, not a best journalism practice.

Can you post some examples of articles that do that level of analysis for DC schools?