Learning About KIPP: Lesson 3, Social Justice in Blackface

[Hannah Bell]

KIPP’s organizational compliance model

In response to an extensive New York Times Magazine article by Paul Tough (2006) that lavishly praised KIPP and its methods, researcher Howard Berlak (2006) reported at the online discussion group, Assessment Reform Network (ARN), his recent own visit to a KIPP school in San Francisco:


When I was there children who followed all the rules were given points that could be exchanged for goodies at the school store.

Those who resisted the rules or were slackers wore a large sign pinned to their clothes labeled "miscreant." Miscreants sat apart from the others at all times including lunch, were denied recess and participation in all other school projects and events...

I've spent many years in schools. This one felt like a humane, low security prison or something resembling a locked-down drug rehab program for adolescents run on reward and punishments by well meaning people. Maybe a case can be made for such places, but I cannot imagine anyone (including the Times reporter) sending their kids there unless they have no other acceptable options.

While reporters like Paul Tough and Jay Mathew would, no doubt, balk at Berlak’s comparison to a prison, low security though it may be, their own descriptions of KIPP’s harshness are not inconsistent with what Berlak found, and the documentary reports of others (Smith, 2005; Brancaccio, 2007) offer visual evidence that readers may judge for themselves in terms the Berlak’s accuracy. As noted below, even researchers friendly to the KIPP cause have found this picture to be accurate as well.

The three weeks that KIPP students spend in summer school is devoted to an intensive socialization and enculturation process for new students soon to begin fifth grade, and for other students who are learning the compliance demands of the next grade level. New students must learn the SLANT rules, which means to “sit up straight, look and listen, ask and answer questions, nod to show understanding, track the speaker” (Browne 2008, 58).

They must learn that any rule infraction will bring an instant corrective response, and they must learn that the smallest misdeed will be no more tolerated than the most egregious offense. New recruits practice walking, getting off the bus, sitting in the cafeteria, and going to the bathroom the KIPP way. Students must learn that KIPP rules apply inside and outside of school.

“Miscreants” must learn, for instance, that isolation and ostracism from the KIPP family is total as long as the punishment lasts, and children who talk to “miscreants” at or away from school risk the same punishment if apprehended. In fact, it becomes the duty of other students to report offenders who are associating in any way with “miscreants.” If they do not, they, too, risk the same punishment...

New students must also learn by the remunerative power of the “paycheck,” and at KIPP, the “paycheck” accompanies student at all times, thus offering any teacher a handy way to keep track of student academic and behavioral performance in other classes, which may cause dollars to be added to or subtracted from a student’s paycheck (Jones 2004, 38-39)...

For white philanthro-capitalists, the KIPP charter schools offer an urban reform solution based on non-stop behavioral control, cultural sterilization, and psychological character interventions aimed at producing compliant, delusional, and hard-working children who will offer “proof” that the effects of poverty can be overcome by interventions less expensive and easier to control than the public schools.

KIPP, then, remains the billionaire philanthropist version of social and education reform on the cheap, where a dubious economy of scale is more important than the children who are sacrificed through the unethical and experimental excesses that are imposed under the shredded banner of equal access to quality education. There are humane ways to run schools and increase academic achievement at the same time. KIPP is not one of them.

In fact, KIPP and its imitators represent the antithesis to education reform based on caring and fairness, quality and equality. As such, KIPP offers us a policy version of social justice in blackface, an institutionalized caricature whose legacy and ultimate cost we cannot yet begin to fathom.


http://www.schoolsmatter.info/


I bet this is *just* the kind of education obama wants for his own kids.

[madfloridian]

1. We were NEVER allowed to force students to wear signs...

or hold anything embarrassing to them.

A good teacher would not have to do that anyway.

[Hannah Bell]

4. in the brave new world, that's *exactly* what good teachers *do* do. makes

kids wear shaming signs, & have their peers ostracize them for getting low scores.

that's modern education! for the poor & dark-skinned, that is.

[Starry Messenger]

2. Honestly, it sounds like Scientology to me.

Like the Rehabilitation Project Force and the Sea Org. There is no way any critical thinking is being fostered here.

[Hannah Bell]

3. does scientology practice group shaming? it does sound rather cultish, doesn't it?

[Starry Messenger]

5. Yes. It does.

Let me hunt around for a link. This is what I used to research before I got sucked into politics. (Via studying the effects of Scientology and its influence on politics, ironically.)

Let's see:

The RPF

In November, 1973, Hubbard came up with an idea to handle troublemakers, backsliders or anyone else aboard who happened to displease him. He created the Rehabilitation Project Force (the "RPF"), the Sea Org's version of a prison camp. RPFers were to do hard physical labor all day and in the evenings were to audit one another to get off their overts and withholds and deal with their evil intentions. RPFers were not allowed to speak to a crew member in good standing, unless spoken to and had to wear black boiler suits. They were allowed to eat only after everyone else on the ship had finished and were not allowed to leave the ship. Hubbard considered RPFers to be psychotic criminals that should be grateful that he was giving them a chance to be rehabilitated. Isn't it strange that some of Scientology's top leaders today, including Pat Broeker and Norman Starkey have been on the RPF? Most Scientology executives have, at one time or another, been on the RPF.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/pignotti/#rpf

3. Social Maltreatment

A. Boiler Suits; Formal Address to "Superiors;" Armbands

The line between physical maltreatment and social maltreatment was not always clear, yet certain activities involving such occurrences as degradations, restrictions in verbal and written communication, and very low pay seem distinctive enough to warrant mention. RPF degradations were many. They included having to wear jumpsuits or boiler suits (Kent Interview with Pat, 1997a: 22; Kent Interview with Young, 1994: 18; Superior Court of the State of California, 1984: 1432; Whitfield, 1989: 5), and having to refer to everyone as "sir" (Rosenblum, n.d.: 2: Whitfield, 1989: 5). (By the late 1980s, the thirty or so inmates in the Happy Valley RPF were allowed to wear black shorts because of the extreme desert heat (Kent Interview with Prince, 1998: 45). Susanne Schernekau/Elleby in Copenhagen even had to write a letter to a superior (addressing it "Dear Sir") in an attempt to get a second jumpsuit and requisite cap, since she was wearing the only suit that fit and it needed washing (Schernekau/Elleby, 1989a). In addition, RPFers were prohibited from walking — running only (Rosenblum, n.d.: 1). By the late 1980s, different coloured arm bands — including white and gold — visually identified people's progress through the RPF program (Schernekau/Elleby, 1990a). According to former RPFer, Jesse Prince, people in the RPF's RPF in the late 1970s wore black strips of cloth on their arms (Kent Interview with Prince, 1998: 18). By (presumably) the late 1980s and the early 1990s, people on the RPF's RPF reportedly wore orange arm bands; new RPFers wore black arm bands; RPFers who had a few "privileges" (such as having dinner with family members) wore white arm bands; and persons who could sleep with their spouses one night a week displayed gold arm bands (SB, 1998b: 1).
B. Restrictions on Speaking and Writing

Many people indicated that their ability to communicate with others was severely curtailed, although they expressed the restrictions with slightly different emphases. Dale seemed to express the basic restriction most directly when he informed me, "ou could not talk to anybody was not on the RPF unless you were spoken to…" (Kent Interview with Dale, 1997: 5: see Kent Interview with Pat, 1997a; 23). Englishman Peter Forde stated that someone on the RPF was "allowed to speak with only 1 person at all (the MAA ," who directly oversaw the program (Forde, 1996: 3; see Pignotti, 1989: 24). Julie Mayo insisted that she "was not allowed to talk to the rest of the staff or even make a phone call" (J. Mayo, 1996: 8).

http://www.solitarytrees.net/pubs/skent/brain.htm


http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3191529/which_church_has_a_navy/

[XemaSab]

6. Interesting

Social control methods do sound similar.

[Hannah Bell]

7. hmmmm. wonder if they're all consulting some central reference.

didn't l. ron come out of the intelligence/military community somehow? can't recall the details, but a lot of the early sci-fi guys had a foot in there, military or intelligence experience...

[Starry Messenger]

8. L. Ron had a pretty undistinguished run in the Navy.

http://www.lermanet.com/L_Ron_Hubbard/ The most interesting thing about his connections to the MIC was an early association with Jack Parsons, who helped develop rocket fuel for the space race. Parsons was also into black magic and did all kinds of weird crap with Hubbard on the side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons I think Hubbard flirted around the edges of that community there.


I know there have been some parallels drawn between Hubbard's method and the so-called "Korean military brainwashing" techniques of the '50's, but honestly I don't know much about that side of it. I've always thought of Scientology as a weird mutant example of a corporation run as an enforced spiritual ideology.

[Hannah Bell]

9. ringing some bells there -- i did a little research on this once, i remember hubbard

was some kind of relation of this guy, maybe you've heard of him as you're an artist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard

and there were some other interesting things too.

may look through my notes & jog my memory.

[Starry Messenger]

10. No, I hadn't heard of him. Interesting.

I'll poke around too. The wiki article pings some familiar ground.

[Hannah Bell]

11. prep school boy, second-generation military, princeton, george washington university --

explorers club member (along with luminaries like prince phillip, uk)

office of naval intelligence posting...

sounds like a pretty standard intelligence background to me.

(if i were an armchair psychologist, i'd say his failure to "make good" in that milieu might have been the impetus to his empire building, & his stint inside it the source of the techniques he used...just idle speculation...)

[Hannah Bell]

15. here it is. he's a shirt-tail relative of the de wolfe slave-trading family.

His great-great grandpa was first cousin to the "Marc
Anthony" mentioned here:

"In her late 20s, Katrina Browne questioned her place in
the world. Burned out by social work in Washington, D.C., she
sought refuge in a seminary school overlooking San Francisco
Bay.

There, in a spot called Holy Hill, she asked herself,
"Who am I? Where do I fit in?"

In fact, Browne could trace her family back seven generations
to Mark Anthony DeWolf, the father of the largest
slave-trading family in U.S. history."

http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/day6/side1.htm

http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/day6/images/day6-katrinabrown.jpg


Charles
\      \
Matt    Charles
\        \
Marc      Edward
Anthony         \
\                \
Children        John A.
                  \
                Ida
                \
                Ledora
                \
                L. Ron



Harry Ross Hubbard, LRon's dad, died in Bremerton WA, home of
the Bremerton Naval base, & incidentally, the site of Bill
Gates' paternal grandfather's furniture store, which he ran
during the war years and beyond.

Harry ross hubbard died there in 1975, gates in 1969.  Bill
Gates' dad was born there and enlisted for his three-year war
hitch there -- army.

stanley armour dunham, also army, also a furniture salesman,
but never apparently in bremerton -- only mercer
island/seattle.

wonder if any of them ever met each other.

[Starry Messenger]

18. Whoa.

One of Hubbard's kids reverted to the DeWolf surname to disassociate from the Hubbard taint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_DeWolf

[leftstreet]

12. This is just creepy

For white philanthro-capitalists, the KIPP charter schools offer an urban reform solution based on non-stop behavioral control, cultural sterilization, and psychological character interventions aimed at producing compliant, delusional, and hard-working children who will offer “proof” that the effects of poverty can be overcome by interventions less expensive and easier to control than the public schools.

There's a racist element to school 'reform' that rarely gets talked about.
Article does a good job

K&R

[Hannah Bell]

13. The racist element, though, is pretty obvious if you look beyond the surface:

starting with the fact that it's mostly black & hispanic teachers being shitcanned & publicly shamed & called defective (because they're usually the majority in the low-income minority districts targeted by school deform).

And it's mainly white teachers taking their places. And upscale white teachers in the case of TFA.

Just not enough jobs for the trustifarians these days, the black strivers need to be pushed aside to make way for the spawn of the upper classes.

[leftstreet]

14. trustifarians

:thumbsup:

Yeah, and it's nice to see people calling it out for what it is

[soleiri]

16. I had an interesting conversation about TFA

At a rally on the USC campus for Sen Boxer and others. I was talking with some people around me about education, etc.. One guy, an engineering major wasn't sure what he wanted to do after graduating. His friend suggested TFA, so we start talking and I expressed my dislike for TFA and how it hurts kids by giving them a teacher with only 5 weeks training. His friend then said, but these are poor areas that no one wants to teach in. They can't find teachers!
I told her that actually there are plenty of teachers, in fact they are laying off good experienced teachers who want to help their communities. The teachers that they are getting rid of are the black and hispanic teachers who don't look at teaching as a 2 year charity project or something that looks good on a resume. I told her that I know teachers who grew up in the inner cities, and they teach in the same neighborhoods because they care and it's insulting for TFA to spread these lies about where credentialed teachers will or will not work.

she bit her lip and looked at the ground and then got really quiet.
Oh, crap, I think she's TFA.
I quickly added, but I do admire those who volunteer, but maybe instead of taking jobs away from teachers they could tutor after school instead.

[Hannah Bell]

17. quick thinking. it's not the volunteers' faults. generally speaking.

[Starry Messenger]

19. Glen Ford is a good source of charter school opposition articles on BAR and elsewhere.

I don't know if he has written about KIPP specifically, but he and other black writers have pointed out how this is going on under the cover of extremely racist and paternalistic elements. http://blackagendareport.com/?q=category/us-politics/school-privatization Ironically, it is the white corporate hedge fund authors of this travesty who turn around and point fingers at critics to call them racist for not supporting privatizing reform. Because, you know, it's all about the children. :sarcasm:

[LWolf]

20. "Miscreants?"

Unbelievable.

Some of that sounds a little like the PBS system that my district adopted a couple of years ago...concrete, extrinsic rewards for positive behavior. I've been on the fence with it. They do supply research that suggests that negative behavior is shaped first by extrinsic, and later by intrinsic, "rewards." One of the interesting pieces of that research, though, is the 5-1 ratio. If you want to change behavior, there has to be a 5-1 ratio between positive reinforcement and correction/consequence. That 5 can be anything; a smile and positive word or something more concrete.

Not that we didn't know that we needed more positive than negative to create a positive climate long before PBS came along.

We also know that teaching expected procedures, like how to leave class to use the restroom, etc. is important. But 3 weeks of summer school training?

What do parents and adults at school tell these kids to get them to become little soldiers? That they don't want to be "miscreants?"

I know I wouldn't want to teach in this kind of a system, and I wouldn't want my grandson there, either.