WSJ: Kudos for KIPP — a School Choice Success Story (UPDATE: WSJ on Ohio Obstruction)

A Monday subscriber-only Wall Street Journal editorial runs down an example of the kind of success Ohio will be missing out on if school choice programs are gutted, as is being proposed:

Kudos for KIPP
March 26, 2007

Rare is the occasion when these columns have reason to applaud more spending on public schools. But news that the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) will receive $65 million to create new schools in Houston is worth a standing ovation.

KIPP academies are charter schools, which are public schools freed from the grip of the public education bureaucracy. Charter schools can employ lengthier school days and longer school years than union work rules typically allow. They can pay teachers based on skills and performance rather than seniority. And charter school principals can fire and replace staff who are underperforming.

In return for such liberties, charter schools are held accountable for producing results in the classroom. And no charters in the country have made better use of their independence than KIPP. The brainchild of two Teach for America alums, Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg, the first KIPP school was started in Houston in 1994. There are now 52 schools nationwide serving 12,000 kids. More than 80% of KIPP students are low income and 95% are black or Latino, yet they regularly outperform their traditional public school counterparts in math and reading tests. Waiting lists are commonplace.

Why would anyone want to cut Ohio kids in failing school systems out of such an opportunity?

_______________________________

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal weighs in hard on the school-choice assault by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland in a Thursday subscription-only editorial:

Job One in Ohio

….. For the most part, however, charters are thriving in Ohio and many of them have waiting lists for admission. Large-scale research on charter performance is spotty. But a recent study by the Buckeye Institute found that students in Ohio charters performed better on six of nine academic measurements in math and reading than kids in traditional public schools. This was despite spending less money per pupil and having less-experienced teachers.

Mr. Strickland’s other excuse for this assault on school choice for the poor is that the state needs to save money. Yet the voucher program costs a mere $13 million out of a $53 billion state budget that includes big new spending increases on education and bonuses for the public-school bureaucracy. The Columbus Dispatch reports that from 2001 to 2006, spending per pupil in Columbus schools rose to $11,918 from $9,078. As everywhere, the problem in Ohio schools isn’t money; it’s the status quo of union-enforced mediocrity.

We’d have thought that with Ohio’s many other problems, a new Governor would have better things to do than deny opportunity for poor kids to escape the worst schools in the state.

The best question for those who don’t see (or don’t want to see) the need for school choice is, “If these alternatives are such a bad idea, why are so many people trying to get into them?”

Example: In a subscriber-only editorial Wednesday, the Journal noted the observations of a person who saw first-hand the Harlem Success Academy lottery (bolds are mine) –

The public charter school, which opened last year, is holding an admissions lottery at 6 p.m. to fill 105 kindergarten slots for next year from the 500 or so families who’ve applied for them. Harlem Success was founded by Eva Moskowitz, a reform-minded Democrat who formerly served as a New York City Councilwoman specializing in education issues.

In an interview this week, Ms. Moskowitz described the naked emotions on display at such lotteries, which are a common method for deciding who gets to attend these independently run public schools. “I thought I knew a lot about school choice and ed reform,” she said. “But until I’d done the lottery last year I didn’t understand the desperation.”

“Unlike their middle-class counterparts who can use real estate to determine where their kid is going to school, my exclusively black and Latino parents’ only option is to go through this process. And literally, people are praying and shaking and hoping to get into a school.“