Why KIPP Is Not Corporate: KIPP and Social Justice

Abstract

Critics see the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), a network of 141 charter schools, as part of the corporate based school reform movement (e.g., Horn, 2011; Grey, 2011), a view shared by many traditional public school educators. So-called corporate based school reform strategies allegedly exploit students and teachers, employ very narrow metrics of success, and seek to maximize growth and revenue rather than student well-being. Using the now substantial empirical literature on KIPP schools, supplemented by fieldwork, this article refutes these views. Compared to traditional public schools in disadvantaged communities, KIPP schools increase student achievement and attainment, and seek to build community rather than commodity among teachers, students, and parents. KIPP schools are driven much less by individual profit than by social justice, at least as defined by Gramsci (1971) rather than the more fashionable Freire (2007).