Visit to KIPP AMP Academy

December 19, 2006

Comments and photos by Whitney Tilson (WTilson@tilsonfunds.com)

I visited KIPP AMP Academy (www.kippamp.org) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn today with two friends and fellow education reform zealots, Kian Ghazi and Charlie Ledley.  (While I am not officially on the board of KIPP AMP, I am on the board of a sister school, KIPP Academy in the South Bronx.) (To see web pages with photos and comments from my visits to other charter schools, see www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/KIPP and www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/Newarkcharters)

KIPP AMP started two years ago with one class of 70 5^th graders and currently educates 145 students in the 5^th and 6^th grades.  It will grow to approximately 280 students in grades 5-8 over the next two years.  All students are minority (overwhelmingly African-American, reflecting the local community) and nearly all are low income.  The school spends approximately $11,000 per student, less than the middle school average for New York City.

Overall, we were extraordinarily impressed.  School leader Ky Adderley has the school firing on all cylinders: the culture is strong, attendance is 98% and last year’s test scores were off the charts, as this table shows:

To be specific, here’s the breakdown on the state ELA (English Language Arts) and Math tests:

                                                ELA             Math

Level 1 (below basic):                5.8%             0.0%

Level 2 (basic):                        24.6%             6.0%

Level 3 (proficient):                  60.9%           59.7%

Level 4 (advanced):                   8.7%           34.3%

Of course, these numbers by themselves don’t tell the full story because what really matters is the gain in scores over time.  The data here is equally compelling, as shown in this table, which captures the gain in KIPP AMP 5^th grade students from the beginning of the school year in the fall of 2005 to the end of the year in the spring of 2006:

                                             Fall ‘05       Spring ‘06

Reading:                                  27%              71%

Language Arts:                        41%              77%

Math:                                      48%              94%

(% of students at or above grade level on Stanford-10 tests)

Background on the School and the Neighborhood

KIPP AMP is located in one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in New York City – similar to what KIPP faced when it opened its first school in New York in the South Bronx in 1995.  To give you some idea of what it’s like, Ky told us that an 8^th grade girl at a school dance beat a woman security guard so badly that she had a heart attack and died just inside the entrance to the school last year.  Ky also said he has to carry a walkie talkie tuned to the frequency of the local police precinct so that he doesn’t let the KIPPsters to go home from school at the end of each day into a gunfight going on outside (seriously!).

The school is located in a large building that used to house one large middle school, which has now been broken into three smaller middle schools, one of which is KIPP.

This low-income housing project, one of poorest and most dangerous in the city, is directly across the street from the school.

This is the front of the school.  Looks like a prison, doesn’t it?

This is the back of the school – the entrance is at the end of the wall on the right.

Background on Ky Adderley

Ky was raised in Philadelphia and excelled in track and field (his uncle Herb is in the NFL Hall of Fame).  He was a track star at Georgetown and competed professionally in the 800 meters.  Here’s his story from Georgetown’s web site:

“After graduating with his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Ky went on to the Liberal Arts program here at Georgetown. "I was basically a research assistant focusing on the academic achievement gap between rich and poor students. It led me to the conclusion that teacher expectations and quality were far too low." This experience introduced Ky to an issue that grew to become his passion; however he was not sure in what way he could contribute. "I had no real previous inclination to teach, but close friends kept suggesting I apply for Teach for America." After much cajoling, Ky did apply, was accepted, and began teaching sixth grade at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School in D.C. In his first year of teaching, Ky was awarded the Outstanding New Teacher of the Year award for 2001-2002.

“About two years later, while serving on a Teach for America panel at Georgetown, Ky met a KIPP recruiter. "I consider myself a life learner and KIPP sounded like a great learning opportunity." Ky was attracted to the high expectations set for both KIPP staff and students and the opportunity to work alongside a co-founder of KIPP - David Levin.

“The training period was an intense 12 months, filled with classes and planning. During that time, Ky acted as both an assistant principal and teacher-in-residence in the Bronx. It culminated in the opening of KIPP AMP Charter school in Fall 2005.”

Ky lives only a few blocks away and rides his bike to and from school.  He said when he first moved into the neighborhood, people thought he was an undercover police officer because he always wore a suit (hence the nickname “suit man”) and drove a car like those used by undercover cops.  So when he’d pull up to the housing projects (where drug dealing was rampant) to knock on doors to recruit students – that’s KIPP’s “creaming” for you again! ;-) – he said everyone would disappear.

This is Ky at the entrance.

Here’s another picture of Ky. 

Culture

Entering KIPP AMP on the 4^th floor, one is greeted by an oasis of calm and quiet.  Like every KIPP I’ve ever visited (nearly two dozen now), it’s completely silent.  You can’t tell if school is in session or not.  There are no children milling about in the hallway and in the classrooms, students are 100% focused on learning.

Anyone who knows the first thing about inner-city schools will recognize how completely abnormal this is.  We asked Ky how he got the kids to behave this way.  He replied, “With high expectations!  It begins long before school starts, with a three-week program in July.  The teachers and I are all there and we explain our rules and expectations to the students.  We begin in an empty room, teaching lessons in respect and the value of earning everything in life; everything from earning their chairs and desks to KIPP AMP uniform shirts, all of which they earn by the end of the summer session.  We are in the business of building children up, so that’s what we do; we focus on both the academic and character growth alike.” 

Classrooms

If you know what to look for, you can quickly see signs of a top school – pretty much anywhere, I’d argue – by visiting a few classrooms.  Most importantly, the children are totally focused on learning – what KIPP calls SSLANT (Smile, Sit Up, Listen, Ask and Answer Questions, Nod Your Head When You Understand and Track the Speaker).  Also, notice in the pictures below that the desks aren’t cluttered – each child has one notebook on the desk and that’s it.  Finally, the walls are filled with students’ work and slogans that capture KIPP’s culture: “Work hard.  Be Nice.”, “There are no shortcuts”, etc.

This is the 5^th grade math class of Jeff Li, a Stanford alum, and one of the math teachers that delivered the spectacular test scores noted above.  Notice how he’s decorated the back of the room to look like gym lockers, there are sports jerseys hanging up and it says “Li’s Math Gym” – all part of getting students to think of math as something fun and competitive, where they can win both individually and as a team. 

Another angle…  Note the “Math is life.  Life is math.” poster and, just below it, next to the door, the Stanford logo (every teacher has a pennant from the alma mater pinned just outside the door, reminding students of the goal).

Here’s a reading class.  You can tell it’s a 6^th grade class because some students are wearing orange (5^th graders must wear the blue and gray uniform; 6^th graders can wear orange as well).

This reading class gives a sense of how large the classes are – KIPP AMP has 70 students per grade, broken into two sections, so each teacher is almost always teaching a class of 35 students.  Yet more evidence that teacher quality is way more important than class size.  (Ky sometimes teaches a class with an entire grade of 70 students – not optimal, he admits, but it can be done and done well.)

Photos of the School Hallways

Like every other successful school I’ve visited, the walls are festively decorated, celebrating KIPP AMP’s values, staff and, most importantly, the achievements of the children.

This board, directly across the hall as you enter the school, has the name and bio of every teacher.

Yet another reminder of what the school is all about: putting kids on track to college.  The current 5^th and 6^th graders will enter college in 2014 and 2013, respectively.

More walls decorated with students’ work.  Note also the floor, which has been taped and labeled as part of teaching longitude and latitude.

Kids with high scores on quizzes get them posted on the “Wall of FAME”

More of the same…

Ky has incorporated into the school’s culture the martial art of Capoeira, an art form that began its evolution with slavery in Brazil. Africans from various countries brought with them the base for what we know today as Capoeira. Enslaved Africans used the art as a weapon against slave masters, as well as a form of expression and sparring amongst themselves. Because of its use as self-defense, Capoeira was outlawed. Following this, the element of dance was added to camouflage it. Today Capoeira continues to evolve worldwide.

Ky commented: “At KIPP AMP Academy we’re building our culture on Capoeira’s principles of discipline, desire and dedication, as well as benefiting from all that Capoeira has to offer us physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. Through Capoeira at KIPP AMP, our students are practicing self-determinism daily.”

Finally, it wouldn’t be a KIPP without “Work Hard” and “Be Nice” in huge letters everywhere!