ERIC Number: EJ833445
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1539-9664
EISSN: N/A
Work Hard. Be Nice
Mathews, Jay
Education Next, v9 n2 p29-35 Spr 2009
In 1994, fresh from a two-year stint with Teach for America, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin inaugurated the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) in Houston with an enrollment of 49 5th graders. By this Fall, 75 KIPP schools will be up and running, setting children from poor and minority families on a path to college through a combination of hard work, long hours, innovative teaching, and a "no excuses" school culture. Jay Mathews, education columnist at the "Washington Post," has written for more than two decades about schools where children from low-income families succeed academically. His articles about mathematics teacher Jaime Escalante, whose disadvantaged East L.A. students regularly aced the AP calculus exam, inspired the film "Stand and Deliver." Mathews also developed the Challenge Index for rating high schools according to their success in encouraging students to take college-level Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses. Mathews' latest book, "Work Hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America" was published by Algonquin Books in January 2009 and chronicles how two young teachers created the most talked-about school reform in the U.S. today. This article presents excerpts that tell the story of how the KIPP network began and reveal why the KIPP model works so well. (Contains 3 figures.)
Descriptors: Urban Education, School Restructuring, Low Income Groups, School Culture, School Effectiveness, Minority Group Children, Teacher Expectations of Students, Academic Achievement, Charter Schools, College Preparation
Hoover Institution. Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Tel: 800-935-2882; Fax: 650-723-8626; e-mail: educationnext@hoover.stanford.edu; Web site: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A