KIPP: Can Charter and Public Schools Actually be Compared?

KIPP, the charter school program that the Obama administration has established and advocated for, should, in my opinion, be intriguing to us as soon-to-be educators; who do these schools serve? What types of resources do these schools have at their exposure? What do these schools' student populations "look like"? Keeping these questions in mind, can we say that these charter schools are better equipped to serve our nation's students than our public education system? Schools Matter, an extremely relevant blog, further analyzes these types of questions in its most recent post, "Inner Oklahoma City Teacher Considers Neighboring KIIP". The author suggests that, in many respects (especially in regards to analytical data that is annually collected), KIPP and "traditional" public schools should not (and cannot) be compared.First, when attempting to compare charter and public schools, one must take the dichotomy that exists in regards to student density into account, especially when comparing the percentage of students placed within special education and/or other alternative settings. The author, when discussing KIPP charter schools within the immediate Oklahoma City area, states, "Our KIPP does a great job, but you simply can not compare a charter which had a decade to build up to serving 285 students, with 8.5 percent being on special education IEPs, with its neighboring school". The author continues, referring to a large, public middle school located in OC, "[This] school serves 792 students, with 26% of these students in special education, a 3% retention rate, and an 11.5% "middle-of-the-year" drop out rate". In comparison, the compared KIPP school placed 26% of students into special education classes, and retained close to 21% of their students the following school year. These numbers are alarming--obviously, with over 1/4 of students being provided with explicit and personalized scaffolding, academic achievement within KIPP environments are likely bolstered. However, who are these KIPP schools serving? Certainly, as an educational society, we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that our nation's charters are serving our most "at-risk" students; who's eligible for KIPPs? As the author alludes to, it would be absolutely absurd to suggest or believe that charter and public schools serve the same "types of students within the same type of building"--KIPP students are plucked out of an often hectic and standardized public school environment, and are provided with resources that are rarely found within our nation's "traditional", publicly-funded classrooms. Before we buy in to the KIPP system, as college graduates on the brink of embarking on our educational careers, as I've stated all semester, we need to do our research.