Two Guys...and a Dream
At the same time, KIPP students are offered novel incentives to work hard and behave. They earn--or lose--points toward a weekly "paycheck," a chit that can be cashed for books or T-shirts at the school store or the privilege of attending a weeklong field trip at the end of the school year.
The impact of this carrot-and-stick approach is dramatically evident at the KIPP school housed in Independent School 151, a dingy industrial-style building in New York's bleak South Bronx. In the main lobby, visitors are greeted by two New York City policemen and posted tips on preventing grand larceny. Lined up for lunch, the kids are shouting, shoving, and demonstrably ignoring reprimands from a hall monitor. Upstairs, on the KIPP floor, is a very different scene: In hallways lined with A-grade work and pennants from teachers' alma maters, uniformed students stand silent and still. What's remarkable is that both groups of students come from the same neighborhoods and demographic.
Above all, though, it is passionate teaching that makes KIPP work. And Feinberg and Levin, no slouches in the passion department themselves, have handpicked and nurtured exceptionally smart, creative, and energetic educators who are willing to give their utmost to reach their students, even if it means leading them in silly multiplication-table raps. "Traditional education for the hip-hop generation," Levin calls it. When a teacher asks a question, most of the hands in the room fly up.
It is a crucial part of the founders' mission to foster a culture in which these kinds of teachers can thrive. "We don't have a monopoly on hardworking teachers," says Feinberg. "All over the country there are teachers' cars in the parking lot at 7 in the morning that are still there at 5 at night. But they are often working alone. At KIPP, all the cars are in the parking lot at 7, and they're still there at 5."
Finding qualified teachers to sign on to this cruise, however--even with the higher salaries KIPP pays--is a growing challenge, one that Feinberg and Levin say they can't solve without taking control of the training and certification process themselves. Already, KIPP runs a training program for principals at the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley. Extending that to teachers is an ambitious goal, one that would very likely require new legislation in individual states. But Levin, nothing if not persistent, insists that anything less is just tinkering around the edges. "Teaching has to become one of our society's most critical professions, rewarded and respected," he says. "And the cartels that control entry--the unions, the education schools--need to be addressed."
Certainly, when they chose the classroom, neither Feinberg nor Levin imagined he was entering a glamorous or lucrative field. "How many of those women on Sex and the City ever dated a teacher?" Levin wants to know. Feinberg, who majored in international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, likes to say that he became a teacher because Mardi Gras coincided with the administration of the law school entrance exam. But both men were possessed of a strong social conscience and a wide reformist streak. "My personality is not to sit and watch a problem develop but to do something about it," says Feinberg. "Not that I don't sometimes make it worse, but at least I do something."
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