KIPP Schools reviews

The feedback I gave to KIPP national on my end-of-year survey: Among the many issues I have with KIPP, I have a difficult time taking your "professional development" seriously after witnessing the obscene amount of money that was spent on "PD" in Vegas. As an educator, I was ashamed to work for KIPP after witnessing your extreme misallocation of funds. While hundreds of KIPP educators were staying in an extravagant hotel and receiving mediocre (at best) PD, students were preparing to come into a school that promised them a great education. Instead, they arrived at a school that lacked basic supplies--lexile-level-appropriate books, technology, educators with appropriate training, money for educator support (subs, paras, grading supports) etc. Our school has fewer resources than many, but no matter how well-resourced a KIPP school is, money should be preserved wherever possible and spent where it matters--directly on student needs and resources. Furthermore, the KIPP Summit felt exploitive. Every few hours, a Black or Brown student would take the stage, smile and in various ways shout "college" to a sea of predominantly white educators who cried self-congratulatory, white-guilt tears. The entire scene was disturbing. If KIPP had merely taken away a cocktail hour or two and allowed that money to trickle down to my students' desks, we would be closer to closing the opportunity gaps that are so dear to your mission. As you can see, I am angry. The summit set the tone for me, I was immediately suspicious of KIPPs motives. I have spent the year regretting working here for many reasons. I am angry because my morality and sense of justice are the foundations of my purpose for becoming an educator. I feel like KIPP misrepresented itself, and as a result, I took a position doing work in an organization that has a thin, glossy veneer of anti-opression politics, but ultimately perpetuates the same insidious oppression and racism that places a premium on "favorable" behavior and acculturation. It was my hope that I would be able to engage in the real work--shepherding young people toward independent thought and critical mindedness. Instead, I am an accomplice to further disadvantaging young people. There is more I could say, and there is more that is being said by brilliant educators behind closed doors. But KIPP will not hear most of it because teachers without collective bargaining power fear that they will lose their jobs if they speak up on behalf of kids--on behalf of reality. It is a shame. I'm sorry I gave a year to such a flawed system.