Despite below-average test scores in third and fourth grade,
KIPP students make substantial gains in math and reading in
fifth through eighth grade, concludes a Mathematica study of 22
schools. In half the schools in the study, KIPP students —
nearly all low-income and black or Hispanic — made progress
equal to an extra year of math and reading instruction,
substantially reducing the achievement gap. Compared to the
public schools from which they draw students, KIPP middle
schools have student bodies characterized by higher
concentrations of poverty and racial minorities, but lower
concentrations of special education and limited English
proficiency students. “The consistency of the effects across
most of the 22 schools and the magnitude of the effects are
pretty striking and impressive,” said Brian P. Gill, a senior
social scientist for Mathematica and an author of the study. “We
do a lot of education studies, and often the effects are
nonexistent or quite small.” KIPPsters are more likely to repeat
a grade,