KIPP Marketing: Apartheid Schools Help Empowerment

A KIPP charter school in Nashville is on the forefront of a new corporate marketing strategy to promote segregation as a "positive" for civil rights, and the local NPR station is helping out.  And how is this KIPP school doing that?  Actually, it's nothing new, for it involves heavy doses of propaganda that lead children to believe at an early age that they, alone, are responsible for their own life conditions and outcomes:

Many schools aspire for racial diversity. But that’s not quite the aim of the newest charter school in North Nashville. KIPP Nashville College Prep Elementary says it is embracing what is a reality . . . that students are primarily African-American, and instead of swimming against the current, it’s trying to turn cultural isolation into a positive.

As this KIPP is using the same dehumanizing "no excuses" regimen that have earned KIPP the moniker, Kids in Prison Program, along with the festooning of Ivy League college banners, the NPR reporter seems to think there is something different going on, even though he's uncertain just what it is:

The differences are subtle. But they're everywhere.

It's the college banners that hang in every classroom — they're all promoting historically black institutions. The murals on the walls show smiling black children, reading books while sitting on thrones. Kindergartners learn the new school song, set to a hip-hop track.

"All of the power is in my hands. I now can conquer the world," they sing.

It is horrible to see this kind anticipatory set up for self blaming in KIPP middle schools, but to see this kind of positive psychology brainwashing used with disadvantaged kindergarten children is truly criminal.  One has to wonder if these children get to sit on their "thrones" when they are isolated and humiliated "on the porch" for breaking rules, with their "MISCREANT" signs around their necks.

Nashville KIPP Student to Parents: "DO NOT send your kids here"

This comment was posted to Why Kids Call KIPP the "Kids in Prison Program:"

I go to a KIPP school right but mine is KIPP NASHVILLE COLLEGE PREP we have to work long hours on days end and when we get home it could be between 6 or 7 then we have to do homework that takes up half the night all the students could be sitting down and the teacher just starts yelling out of no where becuse someone isn't on S.L.A.N.T or they teacher asks a question and a student answers the teacher tells the student to get out of the room because they don't want to hear them that's why i can't wait to leave this school! so parents DO NOT send your kids here it's on your on risk to send them!!!! on Why Students Call KIPP the Kids In Prison Program

Nashville Charters' Mind-Boggling Appeal for Expansion

In August the Nashville Metro School Board voted down further "no excuses" charter expansion.

School board members based their votes on 1) the dehumanizing and brutal regimen of the total compliance charters that is ostensibly aimed to improve student "character," 2) the siphoning of money by charters that will not be available to fund instructional programs and facility improvements for children in existing public schools, and 3) the fact that Nashville Metro does not have a plan that analyzes the need for charters or the long-term repercussions of sending hundreds of millions of school funds each year to corporate reform school operators.

Even without further expansion, this year, alone, Nashville Metro will spend $78 million on charter schools, even though the wait lists of parents trying to get their children into public schools are much longer than the wait lists for the charters like KIPP that are appealing the school board's decision to halt expansion. (Only one of KIPP's four Nashville schools even has a wait list).

At the appeals hearing with the State Board of Education two days ago, KIPP's lawyer, Drew Goddard, used his best pretzel logic to argue for KIPP expansion.  According to Goddard, KIPP expansion could actually save Metro money by drawing off students from Metro's oversubscribed and over-capacity public schools, thus saving money in new building costs.

Firstly, the parents who are lined up for Metro's high-quality diverse schools are not going to be tempted by KIPP's lockdown, segregated, and one-size-fits-nobody school model.  Nor are they going to be tempted by the Rocketship lockdown model, which plugs children into digitized worksheets for half the school day.

Secondly, the argument that charter schools will relieve school construction budgets is ludicrous.  Mr. Goddard has obviously forgotten how just a couple of years ago Mayor Dean committed $16 million, or 10 percent of Metro's four-year school improvement funds, to just one KIPP school.

But Mr. Goddard has another twisted argument, too, for more corporate welfare for KIPP.   Goddard seems to think that, even though Tennessee has one of the most regressive tax structures in the nation, there will nonetheless be plenty of education money for corporate charter expansion, even if there will "less more."

Drew Goddard, who also sits on the KIPP Nashville board, walked state officials through a spreadsheet that showed the district’s projected revenue dedicated to traditional schools will continue to grow, just not as fast. 

“Each year, there is going to be more money. Even with the charters, there’s just going to be some less more money," he said. "If some less more money is a fiscal reason to deny a charter school, then any board, any time could deny a charter and it’d have to hold up.”

Based on these this kind of reasoning, should we still doubt the outcome of this appeal that will be decided on October 23??

Nashville School Board Puts the Brakes on KIPP Expansion

Recently Mayor Karl Dean and the corporate fat cats who made him mayor shoved through a $16,000,000 giveaway to renovate the Nashville KIPP test prep factory.  We can only wonder now if that decision will be revisited after considering last year's results on state tests, even though this information was available to Dean's staff when the decision was made.  KIPP Nashville had the lowest value-added scores in social studies and science of any middle school in all of Metro Nashville.  The amazing power of non-stop test prep in math and reading!!

Thanks to the Gates Foundation and ALEC, the caps on charters in Tennessee are off, and expansion is now open to all socioeconomic groups.  This new law will doubtless have a further segregative effect on Tennessee schools, creating as it will high-end white progressive charters in the leafy suburbs to contrast the total compliance chain gangs of inner city Nashville and Memphis.  Jim Crow schooling all over again, corporate style.

Below is the piece from the Tennessean on the KIPP smackdown, with information on the lurking corporate schools now in line for some of the tax dollars intended for public education.  Nashville has gone from $4 million five years ago for charters to $25 million today to educate 3,000 charter kids.

Where's the outrage over this outrageous and transparent starving out of public education for corporate schools with no oversight!? Do we need Wall Street running our schools into the ground in the same fashion they have ruined the Economy?

Story by Nate Rau (thank god that the Tennessean has real reporter for education).

The local branch of a prominent national charter school chain was on the defensive Wednesday on the heels of the school board’s vote to reject its application to open a second middle school in Nashville.

KIPP Academy Executive Director Randy Dowell vowed to appeal the school board’s decision and defended the academic achievements at the charter organization’s current middle school, which opened in 2005.

School board member Mark North was critical of KIPP’s test results, pointing to the charter school’s regressed scores in science and social studies. The school board voted 5-1 on Tuesday to reject KIPP’s application, even though the school district’s charter review committee had recommended that it be approved.

“They were hurt by their own performance at their existing school,” North said, pointing out that KIPP’s value-added scores for eighth-grade science and social studies were the worst among middle schools in the entire school district.

KIPP Academy’s overall academic achievement received poor marks on the most recent state evaluation for the 2010-11 school year. KIPP, which educates students in grades 5-8, received a D grade in math, reading and social studies, and an F in science.

But Dowell said KIPP has seen improvements that outpace those at traditional public schools, according to year-over-year data compiled by the state Department of Education. KIPP received an A grade for improvement in math and B grades for improvement in reading and social studies. The school did receive a D grade for test improvements in science.

KIPP serves 325 students, 87 percent of whom receive free or reduced-price lunch.

“Our overall achievement scores were not where they needed to be last year, especially in science. We own this at KIPP, as our motto is ‘no excuses,’ ” Dowell said. “This year, we made adjustments to our academic program, such as administering weekly assessments and providing students with weekly remediation.”

Next move?

While KIPP officials vowed to appeal the school board’s decision, it was unclear on Wednesday what the future held for Arizona-based Great Hearts Academy, which sought to add five schools across Davidson County, including in affluent areas. Charter schools have historically catered to poor students at failing schools, but Great Hearts proposed to be the first school to take advantage of a 2011 change in state law that opened up enrollment in charter schools to all students, regardless of economic status.

Great Hearts officials did not respond to a request for comment on whether they would appeal the school board’s unanimous decision to reject their application. The charter review committee cited concerns over Great Hearts’ lack of a transportation plan. Great Hearts, which received the support of various local politicians, such as U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper and members of Metro Council, would only commit to providing transportation to special-needs students.

“The organizational plan partially meets criteria for approval because there is no specific plan for student recruitment and enrollment and the lack of a transportation plan,” the review committee’s report released on Tuesday stated. “Additionally, the location in West Nashville does not align with district priorities as outlined in the request for proposal.”

The eight rejected charter schools have until June 13 to submit appeals, which the school board will then vote on at its June 26 meeting. If an application is rejected a second time, then a potential operator may appeal to the state Board of Education.

The school board approved just two applications at its Tuesday meeting. The high rejection rate comes at a time when charter schools are expanding rapidly in Nashville. Metro will commit $25 million to educate 3,000 students in the upcoming school year at charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately operated. Just five years ago, Metro spent $4 million to finance charter schools.

Nashville Classical Charter School and Intrepid Preparatory Charter School were the two applicants approved by the board. Nashville Classical will initially offer enrollment to 108 kindergarten students when it opens in East Nashville in 2013. Intrepid College Prep will offer enrollment to 120 fifth-graders when it opens in Antioch in 2013.

“My sense was that MNPS has worked really hard to hold charters to an increasingly high standard,” Intrepid College Prep founder Mia Howard said of the district’s approval process for charter operators.

Contact Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 or nrau@tennessean.com.

Nashville's Mayor Dean Commits Almost 10% of 4-Year School Improvement Budget to One KIPP

In Nashville, as in many metropolitan areas, capital improvement funds are short and the need is large.  Nashville Metro has identified needed school improvements that amount to $185 million. Mayor Dean has committed $16 million, or almost 10 percent of Nashville Metro’s 4-year school capital improvement budget, for a new segregated KIPP, Inc. corporate charter school, even as the Fisher, Gates, Broad, and Walton Foundations, along with other wealthy patrons, pour in hundreds of millions of dollars into this charter chain that has just over a hundred schools nationwide.  


Meanwhile, Nashville's public school teachers that serve the poor use garbage cans to collect water from leaky roofs and do their best in overcrowded and damaged classrooms.  At Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet, a high-performing integrated public school, kids eat lunch in the hallways and do not have a functioning gym. 


KIPP's urban penal pedagogy model has the backing of Wall Street and plutocrats that Diane Ravitch calls the Billionaire Boys’ Club, which translates to support by both Republican or Democratic politicians on both sides of the aisle of the corporate jet.  These folks like to tout the testing accomplishments of KIPP, while ignoring the fact that KIPP children are subjected to punishing behavioral techniques that no middle class parent would allow. 


These same supporters of KIPP ignore the fact that KIPP educates fewer special education students, fewer English language learners, and fewer students whose behaviors threaten the KIPP total compliance model.  KIPP also enjoys extra resources from the bottomless well of tax-sheltered dollars from venture philanthropists.  With these advantages plus 40 percent extra time in the classroom spent in test prep, their test scores are, indeed, high.  How could they not be?  


The sad fact is that the high test scores are then used by politicians and their patrons of the Business Roundtable to 1) demonize the public schools for having lower test scores, thus opening up the path to more charters, and 2) to pretend that zero tolerance and no excuses provide the educational solutions for children suffering the ravages of poverty.  Sadly, the citizens of Metro Nashville must now bear the financial and moral burden of this corporate charade.

By Julie Hubbard| The Tennessean
The vintage 1930s Highland Heights school used by KIPP Academy charter students will keep its facade, but the rest of the building will be torn down and replaced with new construction.
The plan for the East Nashville landmark is a compromise between city officials, who last year suggested razing the building, and neighbors and members of the school board and historic commission, who noisily objected.
The new plan will cost $16 million, city officials said Thursday.
The 350 KIPP students soon will move to another vacant school, Ewing Park near Dickerson Pike, for two years during construction. The new school will open in 2014.
“This is the best compromise,” said District 5 Metro Councilman Scott Davis, who represents that East Nashville area. “You keep our historical style there, and it’s also less expensive than remodeling that whole building.
“At the same time, it gives the kids a great place to go to school.”
Since 2005, when KIPP started leasing the building on Douglas Avenue, students have made giant academic gains inside a subpar building, Davis said. He said their performance could improve even more in a modern building.
Two years ago, Mayor Karl Dean asked the Metro school board to deed the building to the city in exchange for a $10 million pledge to renovate it. Public charter schools weren’t supported enough by the city, Dean said at the time.
High school on wayOnly a quarter of the building is functional for students of KIPP Academy, which now plans to add on a high school.
“The biggest thing is … we will have the entire middle school and entire college prep high school in one building,” said Randy Dowell, executive director of KIPP Academy Nashville. “It’s something we can’t do now because of the condition of the parts we don’t occupy.”
There’s no wiring for new technology, such as Smartboards. The radiator heating is half functional, plumbing fair to poor, basement moldy and attic infested with bats, a condition report revealed.
That’s why most of the building needs to come down, and costs are projected to be higher than the $10 million originally set aside by the city, said Dominique Gobbell Arrieta, project manager for the Gobbell Hays Partners architectural firm, hired to design the new school.
“We met with the historical commission and are very comfortable about that,” she said. “We will demolish the 1970s (addition) and old gym and build new onto the backside of the property.”
Construction will be awarded this fall for an 18-month build.

The new facility aims to have wrap-around traffic and separate entrances for the middle and high schools. A curtain or wall in the new cafeteria would separate the middle and high schools but could be opened up for a large community space.
The 91,000-square-foot, three-level school will include a walking path, community meeting space and a parklike feel.
“We are going forward with a capital budget request of right over $6 million, since we already have the $10 million approved,” said Director of Metro General Services Nancy Whittemore.
Traditional Metro public schools, with an estimated $185 million in repair needs, may get help this budget season as well.
During a budget work session with Metro public school officials and Dean this month, he said Stratford High desperately needed help, as did Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet, which has no gym.
“He has indicated in budget hearings there hasn’t been a real capital outlay budget for a while,” said Senior Education Adviser Wendy Tucker. “He’s aware of the conditions and expressed his concerns.”

Nashville's Mayor Karl Dean, a KIPPster with a Public Purse

After the Brown v Board of Education decision in 1954, Southern governors and mayors spent large sums of cash to fix up ramshackle black schools in an attempt to placate African-American communities and, thus, seek to avoid the white nightmare of court-ordered desegregation.  Now a half century later, Mayor Karl Dean of Nashville is doing something similar, but this time the effort not only serves segregationists but also the corporations in need of a compliant and positivized work force that is to include a few black and brown faces that can be counted upon to keep their mouths shut.

Mayor Dean has committed almost 10 percent of Nashville Metro’s 4-year school building budget for a new segregated KIPP, Inc. corporate charter school, which lays claim to the exemplary urban penal pedagogy model that has the backing of all the oligarchs of the Billionaire Boys’ Club, regardless of whether they keep Republican or Democratic politicians in their stables. 

Meanwhile, Nashville's public schools that serve the poor and the brown use garbage cans to collect water from leaky roofs and cram their kids into overcrowded and damaged classrooms.  At Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet, a high-performing integrated public school, kids eat lunch in the hallways and do not have a functioning gym.

Never mind that KIPP has unlimited funds at its disposal and more on the way, thanks to bottom feeders like hedge funder, Whitney Tilson, who beats the Wall Street bushes daily for new philanthro-capitalists looking for big tax breaks and a sure-fire way to behaviorally neuter and culturally sterilize minority schoolchildren.  Meanwhile, KIPP, Inc. spares no expense to shuttle children around to Ivy League schools under the pretense that a significant percentage of these kids will someday actually attend college at Ivy League schools. 

Nor does KIPP, Inc. spare any expense when it comes to the Disney Orlando Seligman-inspired high-rolling retreats for KIPP staff, which a former KIPP teacher describes as reminiscent of the Nuremburg rallies during the heydays of the Third Reich.

The photo at left is from John Partipilo of the Tennessean, and it features three of Nashville's white KIPP missionaries: Jake Ramsey (former campus recruiter for TFA), Meredith McCoy (TFA alum), and Nikki Miller (TFA alum).  KIPP loves TFA alums, er, Corps members, for they have been successfully assimilated into the Family and have learned to teach on poor people's kids.  Now they are ready to use their methods to uphold the KIPP brand.

How long will Nashville parents and grandparents allow their schools to be taken over by missionaries from the Billionaire Boys' Club?  And allow the Mayor to ignore the needs of public schools, while favoring his high-rolling cronies from Wall Street's corporate foundations? 

Here is a list of whales (national partners) from the KIPP website, and this list is just for the ones who want to be named publicly:

$60,000,000 and Above:

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$25,000,000-39,999,999:

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$10,000,000-24,999,999:

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$5,000,000-9,999,999:

---

$1,000,000-4,999,999:

Anonymous

Laura and John Arnold Family Foundation

Reed Hastings and Patty Quillin

Marcus Foundation

Miles Family Foundation

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$500,000-999,999:

Thomas and Susan Dunn
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

$100,000-499,999:

Abrams Foundation
All Stars Helping Kids
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
CityBridge Foundation
Credit Suisse
John and Laura Fisher
Robert and Elizabeth Fisher
William and Sakurako Fisher
Goldman Sachs Foundation
Goldsbury Foundation
Kinder Foundation
Koret Foundation
Leon Lowenstein Foundation
The Louis Calder Foundation
Hee-Jung and John Moon
Stephen Jr. and Susan Mandel
National Geographic Education Foundation
Prudential Foundation
Arthur Rock
SAP America, Inc.
Paul Singer
State Farm Companies Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

$50,000 -$ 99,999:

David Goldberg and Sheryl Sandberg
The Jay Pritzker Foundation
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
NewSchools Venture Fund
NFL Charities
Peter B. and Adeline W. Ruffin Foundation
Select Equity Group Inc.