“The tough-love discipline has led some to call KIPP the “Kids in Prison Program.” “

I didn’t say KIPP schools are run like prisons. I said in passing that some critics refer to KIPP as the “Kids in Prison Program.”

Here’s a quote from an article in the very same San Jose Mercury News and posted on KIPP’s own website:

The tough-love discipline has led some to call KIPP the “Kids in Prison Program.”

http://www.kipp.org/08/pressdetail.cfm?a=259

My blog post (which is commentary and labeled as such) is based on the info in the New Yorker article, so my conclusions are based on what I read there — except my speculation that the number of tear-gassing incidents has been understated.

Caroline, if you life in Southern California (Or does SF mean San Francisco?), or get down here from time to time, in that you’re clearly someone interested in education policy, I would respectfully suggest that you pay a visit to Locke and take a look around for yourself. Talk to kids. Ask them about the security guards—or whatever. Ask them about the difference with the school then and now.

I think you would find that, based on some of the verbiage in the article, you are drawing conclusions that are not accurate.

Green Dot is not perfect. No system is. But there’s so much about what Steve Barr is doing that is stupendously sane and genuinely effective for the kids Green Dot serves. You’re quite right; the original Green Dot charters are boutique schools. That’s why so many of us have been watching the Locke conversion with such intense interest. Locke, one of the four worst high school’s in the district, is a different animal, a hard core test of Green Dot’s methodology for many reasons, but high among them is the fact that, with Locke, there was no self-selecting into it. Locke had to take every kid.

It is still early days, but so far Green Dot is passing the “test” in a most heartening fashion.

http://tinyurl.com/ooxrba

…the article reports: “Green Dot [has] blanketed the school with guards from a private security firm, club-bouncer burly, carrying handguns and pepper spray. … Guards have occasionally displayed a heavy hand. Twice this year, they pepper-sprayed students…”

I wonder what public commotion would ensue if private security guards at a public school repeatedly pepper-sprayed white middle-class students – but oh well, these are only poor minorities. And the outcry would probably be considerable if Unified hired the security guards too, but charter-school Teflong protects Green Dot.

And I’ll bet my firstborn that if Green Dot owns up to two pepper-spraying incidents, there have been far more. Gosh, how idyllic. And critics call KIPP the “Kids in Prison Program” — Green Dot is certainly mounting a challenge for that title. I know; the supporters’ view is: whatever works. Don’t tase me, bro!
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This snippet also caught my eye: [Barr] “started a citywide group called the Los Angeles Parents Union, an activist alternative to the Parent-Teacher Association, in the hope of mobilizing foot soldiers for Green Dot’s escalating war against the district. He even put a school-board member on his payroll – ‘a mole,’ Barr said — to report back on closed meetings.”

“Escalating war against the district.” Gee, that’s good for our kids and schools. And is it actually legal to pay a school board member to reveal information about closed sessions? Whatever works.

If this experiment succeeds, great, and we’ll all learn a lot. Perhaps this will be the one that will transform urban public education. Will it show us that what all our schools need is to be blanketed with burly private security guards carrying handguns and pepper spray? And wage escalating wars against our school districts? What a cheering scenario. Whatever works.