Why aren’t KIPP schools popularity on this board

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

Those parents at whom you scoff have the academic research on their side. In any event, what bothers you so much about a fidget toy? What's wrong with not wanting an overload of homework?

I was once one of those parents, and my son actually needs structure. There's no "academic research" showing that lack of structure is good for kids. Lack of structure was awful for him, actually.

One again, kids, and families, are different, which it is why it is silly that some posters keep making the point that "UMCs think they are so smart but really they are clueless about their lame-ass kids, who all could use KIPP"

Anyway, see 13:15. That article makes much better points than I can articulate.

You're twisting the topic. The topic is UMC parents (like you) who think that a KIPP could NEVER be a good learning environment for their child. OP (and I) are suggesting that in fact it could be a good environment for many kids, regardless of income levels. The refusal to even consider or learn about it for your kid because you think it is just for "those" kids is what we're calling out.

You have many assumptions going. Talk about twisting. KIPP would never be a good environment for my child; I believe it can be a great environment for a different child. Meanwhile, I have known a lot about KIPP for a long time, and I know people who have worked there since early on. What I'm calling out is that what you think you are commiting uninformed stereotyping in thinking that you are calling out uninformed stereotyping. But whatever. Keep the chip on your shoulder.

Um ... ok. So what's your position on OP's question? Why does this board and UMC parents in general never consider KIPP as viable options?

(a) Some on this board and some UMC parents do consider KIPP. I don't understand why you keep saying "never'.
(b) The multiple reasons that many UMC parents do not consider KIPP have been provided in several places in this thread (too long of a school day, too structured, targeted at underserved students, etc. etc.)

Ok well, I see very few examples of (a) but I know you're right.
(b) you're just rehashing something I disagree with and consider more driven by stigma than actually considering your child and the school.

I mean I HOPE you're right that "some" UMC parents consider KIPP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

Those parents at whom you scoff have the academic research on their side. In any event, what bothers you so much about a fidget toy? What's wrong with not wanting an overload of homework?

I was once one of those parents, and my son actually needs structure. There's no "academic research" showing that lack of structure is good for kids. Lack of structure was awful for him, actually.

But I suspect he didn't need his school to teach him how to listen to someone or how to fill out a job application. He's getting that at home. That's the stuff KIPP is providing alongside academics.

Uh, absolutely the school had to teach him how to listen to his teacher. And he is only 5, so it's going to be a while for job applications. Sure, things could look different for middle and high school, maybe even upper elementary, but my experience so far has taught me not to make assumptions about any school based on stigma or unexamined notions about what a "good" school is like.

Your kid is 5 and you think you have the experience to opine on educational strategies? You've had exactly 5 months of school. Maybe wait a few years.

Like I said, my mind is open. OP's question is why KIPP schools aren't popular on this board, which generally means people looking for PK-K spots. My personal experience has demonstrated that the reason I didn't consider KIPP is that I didn't understand my child's learning style, how schools work, and how "structure" would play out for him. Going forward, I'm not going to make assumptions based on stigma. Are you arguing there is no stigma related to KIPP?

My coworker (Harvard Law grad) has his sons at a KIPP school and is happy there. But I see no need to drive across town for a drill-and-kill school. Regular old DCPS has plenty of structure for them. It's not KIPP vs. montessori out there. So yes, I would never look at KIPP but for the same reason I am not interested in Basis either. My kids don't need that kind of school and definitely don't need the supplemental learning that KIPP offers in terms of soft skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

OFFS. All this stuff is well documented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html

In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are
consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop.
Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so
they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the
classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences
translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on
standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling.
Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel
something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their
work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t
primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having
more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes
it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages
that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that
their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure
child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and
the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages.

...

When students enroll in one of these schools (usually in fifth or sixth grade), they are
often two or more grade levels behind. Usually they have missed out on many of the
millions of everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli that their better-off peers
have been exposed to since birth. They are, educationally speaking, in deep trouble.
The schools reject the notion that all that these struggling students need are high
expectations; they do need those, of course, but they also need specific types and
amounts of instruction, both in academics and attitude, to compensate for
everything they did not receive in their first decade of life.

...

Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for
classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs
them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes. When
I visited KIPP Academy last month, I was standing with Levin at the front of a music
class of about 60 students, listening to him talk, when he suddenly interrupted
himself and pointed at me. “Do you notice what he’s doing right now?” he asked the
class.
They all called out at once, “Nodding!”
Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these
methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP
students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. Middle-class
Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established
rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a
joke.

So interesting. So in a way they are teaching upper middle class white CULTURE, in fact, for the purpose of getting ahead in the system. Which truly could have that effect, I suppose.

This is kind of stomach turning except for the fact that they might actually be somewhat self-aware about it. If the kids kind of "get" the joke, or get that it's a game, all the better to play it with. I wonder if any so inclined Howard students or classes have analyzed this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

OFFS. All this stuff is well documented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html

In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are
consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop.
Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so
they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the
classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences
translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on
standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling.
Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel
something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their
work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t
primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having
more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes
it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages
that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that
their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure
child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and
the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages.

...

When students enroll in one of these schools (usually in fifth or sixth grade), they are
often two or more grade levels behind. Usually they have missed out on many of the
millions of everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli that their better-off peers
have been exposed to since birth. They are, educationally speaking, in deep trouble.
The schools reject the notion that all that these struggling students need are high
expectations; they do need those, of course, but they also need specific types and
amounts of instruction, both in academics and attitude, to compensate for
everything they did not receive in their first decade of life.

...

Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for
classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs
them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes. When
I visited KIPP Academy last month, I was standing with Levin at the front of a music
class of about 60 students, listening to him talk, when he suddenly interrupted
himself and pointed at me. “Do you notice what he’s doing right now?” he asked the
class.
They all called out at once, “Nodding!”
Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these
methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP
students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. Middle-class
Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established
rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a
joke.

So interesting. So in a way they are teaching upper middle class white CULTURE, in fact, for the purpose of getting ahead in the system. Which truly could have that effect, I suppose.

This is kind of stomach turning except for the fact that they might actually be somewhat self-aware about it. If the kids kind of "get" the joke, or get that it's a game, all the better to play it with. I wonder if any so inclined Howard students or classes have analyzed this.

That's exactly what they are teaching. There are a ton of interesting books and studies about all this. Geoffery Canada, who started the Harlem Children's Zone, has written a few. And they are right. If kids aren't learning to make eye contact, track with their eyes, how to pay attention etc. then they will fail out in the world as adults. And it's not just this stuff- it's access to the latest info on parenting, it's understanding why a structured day is important, or helping parents help their kids with homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

OFFS. All this stuff is well documented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html

In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are
consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop.
Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so
they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the
classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences
translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on
standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling.
Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel
something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their
work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t
primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having
more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes
it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages
that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that
their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure
child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and
the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages.

...

When students enroll in one of these schools (usually in fifth or sixth grade), they are
often two or more grade levels behind. Usually they have missed out on many of the
millions of everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli that their better-off peers
have been exposed to since birth. They are, educationally speaking, in deep trouble.
The schools reject the notion that all that these struggling students need are high
expectations; they do need those, of course, but they also need specific types and
amounts of instruction, both in academics and attitude, to compensate for
everything they did not receive in their first decade of life.

...

Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for
classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs
them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes. When
I visited KIPP Academy last month, I was standing with Levin at the front of a music
class of about 60 students, listening to him talk, when he suddenly interrupted
himself and pointed at me. “Do you notice what he’s doing right now?” he asked the
class.
They all called out at once, “Nodding!”
Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these
methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP
students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. Middle-class
Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established
rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a
joke.

So interesting. So in a way they are teaching upper middle class white CULTURE, in fact, for the purpose of getting ahead in the system. Which truly could have that effect, I suppose.

This is kind of stomach turning except for the fact that they might actually be somewhat self-aware about it. If the kids kind of "get" the joke, or get that it's a game, all the better to play it with. I wonder if any so inclined Howard students or classes have analyzed this.

It's not white culture, its middle class culture. UMC black children learn this stuff at home too. Don't make everything about race.

[Anonymous]

Canada's book

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547247966?ie=UTF8&tag=pautou-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547247966

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

OFFS. All this stuff is well documented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html

In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are
consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop.
Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so
they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the
classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences
translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on
standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling.
Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel
something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their
work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t
primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having
more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes
it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages
that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that
their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure
child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and
the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages.

...

When students enroll in one of these schools (usually in fifth or sixth grade), they are
often two or more grade levels behind. Usually they have missed out on many of the
millions of everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli that their better-off peers
have been exposed to since birth. They are, educationally speaking, in deep trouble.
The schools reject the notion that all that these struggling students need are high
expectations; they do need those, of course, but they also need specific types and
amounts of instruction, both in academics and attitude, to compensate for
everything they did not receive in their first decade of life.

...

Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for
classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs
them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes. When
I visited KIPP Academy last month, I was standing with Levin at the front of a music
class of about 60 students, listening to him talk, when he suddenly interrupted
himself and pointed at me. “Do you notice what he’s doing right now?” he asked the
class.
They all called out at once, “Nodding!”
Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these
methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP
students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. Middle-class
Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established
rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a
joke.

So interesting. So in a way they are teaching upper middle class white CULTURE, in fact, for the purpose of getting ahead in the system. Which truly could have that effect, I suppose.

This is kind of stomach turning except for the fact that they might actually be somewhat self-aware about it. If the kids kind of "get" the joke, or get that it's a game, all the better to play it with. I wonder if any so inclined Howard students or classes have analyzed this.

It's not white culture, its middle class culture. UMC black children learn this stuff at home too. Don't make everything about race.

Agreed. And also, the "soft skills" thing is not ALL of KIPP; it's only part of KIPP. Our school (that I otherwise like) has silly acculturation things that I don't think really matter for our kid. I don't have to love every aspect of the school for it to work out. And who knows, maybe my kid would also enjoy or benefit from express instruction in social codes. It's not always equally obvious to all kids ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

OFFS. All this stuff is well documented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html

In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are
consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop.
Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so
they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the
classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences
translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on
standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling.
Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel
something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their
work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t
primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having
more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes
it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages
that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that
their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure
child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and
the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages.

...

When students enroll in one of these schools (usually in fifth or sixth grade), they are
often two or more grade levels behind. Usually they have missed out on many of the
millions of everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli that their better-off peers
have been exposed to since birth. They are, educationally speaking, in deep trouble.
The schools reject the notion that all that these struggling students need are high
expectations; they do need those, of course, but they also need specific types and
amounts of instruction, both in academics and attitude, to compensate for
everything they did not receive in their first decade of life.

...

Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for
classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs
them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes. When
I visited KIPP Academy last month, I was standing with Levin at the front of a music
class of about 60 students, listening to him talk, when he suddenly interrupted
himself and pointed at me. “Do you notice what he’s doing right now?” he asked the
class.
They all called out at once, “Nodding!”
Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these
methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP
students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. Middle-class
Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established
rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a
joke.

So interesting. So in a way they are teaching upper middle class white CULTURE, in fact, for the purpose of getting ahead in the system. Which truly could have that effect, I suppose.

This is kind of stomach turning except for the fact that they might actually be somewhat self-aware about it. If the kids kind of "get" the joke, or get that it's a game, all the better to play it with. I wonder if any so inclined Howard students or classes have analyzed this.

It's not white culture, its middle class culture. UMC black children learn this stuff at home too. Don't make everything about race.

I never know for sure. Because if it's made about class, someone on here will then complain it's really about race. You can't win.

Anyways, I think this answered OP's question.

These schools are well-versed in good research and try to help teach these various intangibles which MC/UMC and so forth kids are already absorbing at home. Therefore, not of much interest to those on this list (who are mostly from those classes). I would even venture to say, leave these intensive programs for those who most need them/will benefit. It's not a bad thing. Or don't, go there, but don't complain that few others of your demographic are considering it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

OFFS. All this stuff is well documented.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html

In public life, the qualities that middle-class children develop are
consistently valued over the ones that poor and working-class children develop.
Middle-class children become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so
they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a confidence, in the
classroom and elsewhere, that less-wealthy children lack. The cultural differences
translate into a distinct advantage for middle-class children in school, on
standardized achievement tests and, later in life, in the workplace.
Taken together, the conclusions of these researchers can be a little unsettling.
Their work seems to reduce a child’s upbringing, which to a parent can feel
something like magic, to a simple algorithm: give a child X, and you get Y. Their
work also suggests that the disadvantages that poverty imposes on children aren’t
primarily about material goods. True, every poor child would benefit from having
more books in his home and more nutritious food to eat (and money certainly makes
it easier to carry out a program of concerted cultivation). But the real advantages
that middle-class children gain come from more elusive processes: the language that
their parents use, the attitudes toward life that they convey. However you measure
child-rearing, middle-class parents tend to do it differently than poor parents — and
the path they follow in turn tends to give their children an array of advantages.

...

When students enroll in one of these schools (usually in fifth or sixth grade), they are
often two or more grade levels behind. Usually they have missed out on many of the
millions of everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli that their better-off peers
have been exposed to since birth. They are, educationally speaking, in deep trouble.
The schools reject the notion that all that these struggling students need are high
expectations; they do need those, of course, but they also need specific types and
amounts of instruction, both in academics and attitude, to compensate for
everything they did not receive in their first decade of life.

...

Students at both KIPP and Achievement First schools follow a system for
classroom behavior invented by Levin and Feinberg called Slant, which instructs
them to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the speaker with their eyes. When
I visited KIPP Academy last month, I was standing with Levin at the front of a music
class of about 60 students, listening to him talk, when he suddenly interrupted
himself and pointed at me. “Do you notice what he’s doing right now?” he asked the
class.
They all called out at once, “Nodding!”
Levin’s contention is that Americans of a certain background learn these
methods for taking in information early on and employ them instinctively. KIPP
students, he says, need to be taught the methods explicitly. Middle-class
Americans know intuitively that “good behavior” is mostly a game with established
rules; the KIPP students seemed to be experiencing the pleasure of being let in on a
joke.

So interesting. So in a way they are teaching upper middle class white CULTURE, in fact, for the purpose of getting ahead in the system. Which truly could have that effect, I suppose.

This is kind of stomach turning except for the fact that they might actually be somewhat self-aware about it. If the kids kind of "get" the joke, or get that it's a game, all the better to play it with. I wonder if any so inclined Howard students or classes have analyzed this.

It's not white culture, its middle class culture. UMC black children learn this stuff at home too. Don't make everything about race.

Yes wtf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are set up to compensate for not having the structure and resources that UMC parents have. UMC parents don't need school till 5 p.m., rigidity on how you move, walk and required family participation.

Basically, this. I'd add that most MC/UMC parents don't -want- their kids in such highly regimented environments, and they often aren't necessary because the kids already have sufficient structure, stability, and parental involvement in education. What KIPP does well is provide structure and high expectations for kids who might not otherwise have that, either at school or at home.

This is the answer. I don't need or want my kid at a "kill and drill"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, there are poor families who have the internal structure of UMC families, but they are in the minority in DC. KIPP is targeting those kids whose parents don't ask about homework, aren't conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher, who don't know the "soft skills" that UMC kids learn. They are in the business of filling gaps.

This is unbelievably racist. You think that the white UMC kids of DC have the soft skills that make them "conditioned to sit and pay attention to a teacher"? No, they have parents who will argue that it's not developmentally appropriate for them to sit still and that they need a yoga ball or fidget or ability to move during lessons or... any number of things. It is the white parents I know who don't ask about homework and argue for less of it. Sheesh.

Those parents at whom you scoff have the academic research on their side. In any event, what bothers you so much about a fidget toy? What's wrong with not wanting an overload of homework?

I hate those fidget toys. I want to collect every one of them and fling them into a fire. I work hard to help DS learn not to fidget, then he goes to school and is surrounded by fidgeters. It isn’t rubbing off, but is it starting to bug him. He finds the constant motion and fidgeting of people around him incredibly distracting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are set up to compensate for not having the structure and resources that UMC parents have. UMC parents don't need school till 5 p.m., rigidity on how you move, walk and required family participation.

UMC don't THINK their kids need or would benefit from that kind of structure. Also there is absolutely a stigma surrounding schools like KIPP, deserved or not. In a different context, "required family participation" is seen as a wonderful thing -- for example, cooperative schools. But because it is an urban, minority school, that is seen as "too rigid."

Also I now laugh at people assuming that just because your kid is UMC they don't need structure that you'll find at places like KIPP (and in the classrooms of old-school DCPS teachers). My kid is absolutely thriving in such a structured environment. It REALLY made me rethink my prejudices about programs like KIPP. If I knew then what I know now, I absolutely would have considered KIPPs for PK, and I will keep an open mind for middle and high school.

I also get input from a broader range of people than UMC DCUMers ... my neighbors pulled their kids from our sought-after "flipped" DCPS and put them in KIPP. They report that the kids are loving it and can't wait to go back after vacations. These are bright, nice kids, hard-working parents, kids that I would have zero worries about having in class with mine.

Of course some of the stories about harshness and rigidity give me pause. But I feel like now I have a much better framework for how schools "work" and my particular child. If the classroom is overall warm and positives, the teachers good, the admins solid, and everyone is focused on learning ... then having to walk silently in the hallways is not the main thing.

Thanks for posting this pp. I'm a parent of a 3 year old and honestly didn't go to any of the KIPP open houses because we decided to go the parochial route based on what we were looking for. I will say, I wonder how many people who actually comment on KIPP schools have ever set foot in one/gone to an open house? I can't imagine many have - yet one consistently hears the same comments over and over about why UMC parents aren't interested in even exploring it. For the number of open houses many of us attended (myself included) it's a shame we don't at least visit a school in order to form our own opinions.

Exactly. Too many people giving their opinion with no experiences to back it up. I can't comment on KIPP because we don't go there but I can comment that people here largely don't know what they are talking about when they tell people so stay away from schools.

That's the absolute truth

[Anonymous]

I do know UMC parents who go to KIPP for preschool, but all have left for DCI feeders or other Montessori or language schools. So I would not read too much into that. I also know UMC people who go to DC Prep, which is not that different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do know UMC parents who go to KIPP for preschool, but all have left for DCI feeders or other Montessori or language schools. So I would not read too much into that. I also know UMC people who go to DC Prep, which is not that different.

My lawyer coworker has a 3rd and 5th grader there.

[Anonymous]

I have an upper elementary child at KIPP, and I find it insulting when people who have never set foot in one (let alone observed a class) call it a "kill and drill" school. I find it very focused on critical thinking, and while it is structured the teachers/admin have age appropriate expectations. The teachers are wonderful (my child has never even had a mediocre teacher - they've all been excellent), and while the school has its issues, it's working for my middle class white child. No school is perfect, and that includes KIPP, but their curriculum and teachers have my child testing at the 95th and 99th percentile in math and reading on the MAP, and he is challenged in class every day. I do NOT supplement outside of school, so it's not me that's helping his scores improve every year.

The "kill and drill" rumor is UMC white people making the assumption that poor students of color can only learn when forced to memorize everything, and that the school ONLY teaches to the test. It's not true, it's just a way of diminishing those kids accomplishments.

You don't have to consider the school. I don't care if you don't. But please don't say it's "kill and drill", when all you know is the rumors and what racist rich people on DCUM say about it.