An Assessment of KIPP NYC by a former TFAer

This is a very interesting assessment of what a lot of classes were like at KIPP’s only high school so far in New York City.

Not awesome, not excellent, just ‘meh’ at best. Though we are constantly assured how wonderful they are.

http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/04/10/teacher-quality-at-kipp/

Here is one of the comments:

Jane G.

I have mentioned on a few blogs of my nightmare experience working for a year in a KIPP school. I was a veteran teacher who was dumb enough to transfer into a KIPP school. In the year that I was there I saw tremendous staff turnaround. Teachers quit in the middle of the year and were fired in the middle of the year. The entire school seemed like a cult with constant chants, rituals, and songs. The students were told to NOT speak to other students from other schools and were constantly prodded to “work hard be nice”. There was an unrelenting pressure that life as you know it consists of getting into college. The staff was extremely overworked, underpaid, and even had to go on weeklong field trips out of state. All in all, it was the saddest experience of my teaching career. I would never even think of suggesting to any teacher to think of teaching in a KIPP school. They are a world within a world and they care nothing other than spreading their false bill of goods to parents, teachers, and the community. When you have carte blanche to brainwash kids, utilize boarderline mental abuse, and kick kids and teachers out at the drop of a hat, you will have a totalitarian school where results are met by means that are never justified by ends.

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