The New Idea

Through the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), Mike Feinberg establishes schools to prepare students in poor communities to succeed in college. Convinced that the best way to revitalize the public education system in the United States is to create a vibrant alternative, he and his co-founder David Levin position their network of schools as a model for schools across the country. Their programs extend the school day, the school week, and the school year, doing whatever it takes to secure success for low-income students. Teachers, parents, and students themselves maintain the same level of commitment, signing contracts to pledge their full effort to the work of the school. United in their promise to give their all for success, KIPP communities bring college success within the reach of even the neediest students.

The Problem

Despite decades of efforts in education reform in the United States, huge achievement gaps persist between students from schools in poor areas and students from wealthier districts. In a math assessment given in 2000, more than half of students at suburban schools placed in the highest performing group, while barely a quarter of students in urban schools performed as well. The national graduation rate for the class of 1998 was 74 percent, but among African-American and Latino students the proportion wavered between 54 and 56 percent.

In affluent areas, academic success is the norm: failure happens, but it is the exception. Conversely, in America’s underserved communities, academic failure is the norm; success happens, but it is the exception. The country has reached a situation in which a child’s socioeconomic status imposes severe limits on their opportunity to excel in school and in life.

Public schools have drawn the blame and the burden for a wide range of social problems, and they often lack the resources to meet the stringent demands imposed on them by parents and policymakers. District bureaucracy prevents school principals from making decisions that help teachers teach and students learn. The teaching profession is not held in high regard, so it rarely attracts the best and brightest college graduates. With diminishing support and limited time, teachers struggle to help students catch up to grade level and compete for spots in college-preparatory high schools and four-year colleges.

Charter schools have become a well-publicized alternative to public schools, but they have yet to significantly impact the public education system as a whole. Individual successes remain isolated, and hundreds of thousands of children in poor communities remain without the quality education they need to secure personal fulfillment and economic success.

The Strategy

Mike positions the Knowledge Is Power Program as a model for urban education throughout the United States. His goal is to help students at KIPP schools move up to and past the expected achievements of their grade level and prepare them to succeed at the college of their choice. At the beginning of fifth grade, KIPP students learn what year they will enter college and begin to set concrete plans to ready themselves for their freshman year.

A set of operating principles called the Five Pillars guides the work of each KIPP school. First and foremost, schools follow the principle of high expectations, setting ambitious academic standards that lead all students toward the skill and independence they will need in college. They value choice and commitment, offering an alternative to low-performing neighborhood schools and engaging students, parents, and faculty in contractual commitments to give the time and effort needed to sustain student achievement. A third principle requires more time on task, requiring students to attend school from 7:30 in the morning to 5:00 at night during the week, on alternate Saturdays, and for 3 weeks in the summer. The extended school days, weeks, and years allow teachers to delve deeper into lessons, offer one-on-one attention, and provide enrichment activities unavailable to students in traditional public schools. Following Mike’s model, KIPP schools also give their principals the power to lead, ensuring that administrators have full authority to organize budget, materials, and personnel to meet the needs of their specific students.

Most importantly, KIPP schools focus on results. They value and strive to achieve high student performance on standardized tests and all measures of academic success. Public schools in low-income neighborhoods often seek exemptions from statewide exams for students identified as bilingual or learning disabled, but KIPP requests no exemptions. They work with the same populations as nearby public schools, drawing their students randomly through a lottery, but they consistently rank among the top-performing middle schools in their states.

Although KIPP schools currently operate mainly at the middle school level, Mike ensures that the connection between students and faculty continues throughout students’ lives. Following the motto “once a KIPPster always a KIPPster,” the KIPP to College Program helps graduates gain admission to top high schools across the nation, and to secure any financial aid they need. When they reach 11th grade, a KIPP counselor guides them through a similar process to set students up at the college of their choice. Students are encouraged to call their former KIPP School at any time in their life, and they very often do.

KIPP began in 1994 as an alternative fifth grade program in a Houston public school. Mike and his co-founder recruited the first students by going door to door. The district provided only one classroom for the program’s 50 students, so Mike and Dave taught together as a team. Their students achieved remarkable success: two-thirds came in bearing the labels “bilingual” or “learning disabled;” after a year’s work, two-thirds left with the label “gifted and talented.” However, most students went on from the program to low-performing middle schools, and many were caught up in the culture of dropouts, drugs and gangs.

To keep their students from such dangers, Mike and Dave expanded the KIPP program to serve young people through the eighth grade. The two founders applied to start charter schools in Houston and New York, and then split up to maximize their impact: Mike started the first KIPP school in Houston, while Dave founded the first in New York. The two schools achieved nearly identical records of success, shattering old misconceptions about the academic potential of disadvantaged students. Today, Mike and Dave run the first two public charter school districts in the country. Dave is Superintendent of a KIPP public charter school district in New York—welcoming five new schools each year—and Mike is Superintendent of a Houston public charter school district that includes two KIPP schools. This year he will open the first KIPP elementary and the first KIPP high school, on a street that Houston authorities have renamed KIPP Way.

Mike and his co-founder established a national foundation in 2000 to operate and develop the KIPP School Leadership Program. They hired a CEO to run the foundation and developed a year-long training program for KIPP principals based on the best practices of business and education. The program includes courses on instructional and operational leadership and immerses new principles in the KIPP model through residencies at several KIPP schools. To date, over 1,000 aspiring school founders have applied to the program; from this group, Mike and Dave have selected 43 entrepreneurial leaders to guide their schools.

While principals prepare to found and lead new schools, KIPP’s regional teams prepare the way by tracking down facilities, obtaining charter or district authorization, securing loans, and promoting local support for each new school. With their help, Mike has established 32 KIPP schools in 26 cities. Each school builds its own distinct identity, but must meet KIPP standards and create a culture that expects and supports success. Mike and Dave plan to found at least 10 new schools each year. As their network grows, they share information with other public and private charter schools, ensuring that their ideas reach the broadest audience and serve the greatest possible number of students.

The Person

When KIPP needed a special authorization to begin its alternative middle school program, Mike Feinberg went to get the signature of the superintendent of Houston schools, Rod Paige. The superintendent’s office refused to offer him, as a classroom teacher, an appointment. Determined to get what he came for, Mike waited by Dr. Paige’s car for four hours until he appeared, and then convinced him to sign the papers. He will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

Mike grew up in a suburb of Chicago. His father, kind and quiet, was a salesman and a largely unsuccessful entrepreneur. His mother is a loud and gregarious contrast, a psychotherapist working in alternative schools. Drawing from both sides of his family tree, Mike describes himself as “the loudest introvert you’ll ever meet.” With a natural gift of relating to children; as a youth he helped run sports camps and worked at his congregation’s kindergarten class. After high school he spent a summer in Israel, working with children who were recent immigrants. An outstanding student and athlete, Mike went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as student body vice president and president of his fraternity. He graduated from college in 1991 with a degree in international relations and began service to Senator Paul Simon as a legislative aide. Mike drew inspiration from Senator Simon’s credo: “Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make it happen.”

Mike deeply appreciated the educational opportunities he had enjoyed, and dreamed of creating the same opportunities in underserved communities across the United States. He joined Teach for America, where he met Dave Levin and began a partnership that has lasted more than a decade. Together, they have established a national network of charter schools. After traveling to San Francisco to set up the KIPP foundation, Mike is glad to be returning to his home base of Houston, where his program began.