Since their start in Houston in 1994, KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter schools have been the most celebrated of the No Excuses schools. Employing strict discipline, an extended school day and year, and carefully selected teachers, No Excuses schools move disadvantaged students who start behind their peers academically up to and above grade level in reading and math, and on the path to success in college. Unfortunately, within many education schools and teachers unions, KIPP detractors are more prevalent than KIPP backers. All too many professors and education administrators think that KIPP, and schools like it, succeed by working their students like dogs. Like all charter schools, KIPP schools are "chosen" by parents, but critics fear that disadvantaged parents do not know enough to choose wisely, or else do not have their children's best interest at heart. Leaving aside whether the critics patronize the people of color KIPP schools serve, the authors propose that KIPP and similar schools are not nearly as militaristic as critics, who may have never been inside them, fear.