Vasquez Heilig, J., Williams, A., McNeil, L & Lee, C. (2011). Is choice a panacea? An analysis of black secondary student attrition from KIPP, other private charters and urban districts. Berkeley Review of Education, 2(2), 153-178.
Public concern about pervasive inequalities in traditional public schools, combined with growing political, parental, and corporate support, has created the expectation that charter schools are the solution for educating minorities, particularly Black youth. There is a paucity of research on the educational attainment of Black youth in privately operated charters, particularly on the issue of attrition. This paper finds that on average peer urban districts in Texas show lower incidence of Black student dropouts and leavers relative to charters. The data also show that despite the claims that 88-90% of the children attending KIPP charters go on to college, their attrition rate for Black secondary students surpasses that of their peer urban districts. And this is in spite of KIPP spending 30–60% more per pupil than comparable urban districts. The analyses also show that the vast majority of privately operated charter districts in Texas serve very few Black students.
See KIPP’s response here. See Austin Chronicle article here. See my response to KIPP’s criticism here.
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[...] April of 2012, KIPP responded to a press release for Is choice a panacea? An analysis of black secondary student attrition from KIPP, other private chart…, a peer-reviewed paper published in the Berkeley Review of Education (BRE) about African American [...]
[...] In our BRE article, we also found that this is a very serious issue for charter schools. In 2003, a [...]
[...] published in the peer-reviewed journal Berkeley Review of Education. I have previously profiled our study, their response, and my response to their response. See the entire KIPP thread [...]
[...] that they have triple the school leaver rates amongst African Americans. (I discussed here and here). As Ravitch alludes, charters are also often not very interested in serving special needs [...]
[...] April of 2012, KIPP responded to a press release for Is choice a panacea? An analysis of black secondary student attrition from KIPP, other private chart…, a peer-reviewed paper published in the Berkeley Review of Education (BRE) about African [...]
[...] We do know, on average, African American leavers (attrition and dropout) are double and sometimes triple in charter schools compared to traditional urban public schools. [...]
[...] argued that KIPP schools have no higher attrition rate than surrounding schools and districts. Our Berkeley Review of Education study found had an opposite finding for KIPP’s African American students in Houston over the past [...]
[...] my response to KIPP’s critique of our peer-review study of their African American attrition, I [...]
[...] wrote at the time: In April of 2012, KIPP responded to a press release for Is choice a panacea? An analysis of black secondary student attrition from KIPP, other private chart…, a peer-reviewed paper published in the Berkeley Review of Education (BRE) about [...]
[...] I have discussed KIPP’s (and charter) attrition extensively in Is choice a panacea? An analysis of black secondary student attrition from KIPP, other private chart… and Exiting: A sample of charter chains vs public district’s [...]