Customer Reviews

Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Jay Mathews's book is a good story and description of the history and accomplishments of the KIPP schools. Among its strengths are the following:

1. It is a well-written and highly engaging book. The personal stories of KIPP's founders are interwoven with their battles with institutions in a manner that attracts and keeps the reader's attention.

2. The book includes some detailed stories of what goes on within KIPP schools. The book does a good job of describing key KIPP program elements that include longer school days and school years, more homework, more teacher home contact, along with an eclectic group of pedagogical techniques.

3. The book highlights the contribution to the KIPP model of teachers Harriett Ball and Rafe Esquith, who greatly influenced KIPP's founders.

4. The book is fair in discussing some criticisms of the KIPP model, including that it may select more motivated students and parents in some cases, and may lead to selective dropouts of students who do not progress as well.

Among its weaknesses are the following:

1. I was surprised that the book did not more extensively discuss WHY KIPP appears to be successful. To what extent can KIPP's effects on academic achievement simply be attributed to its students spending more time in school? It would be interesting to discuss this with KIPP teachers, students, and parents, and with educational researchers who have observed KIPP. There are empirical estimates available of how time in school affects achievement gains, and it might be interesting to see whether KIPP performs better or worse than one would expect given the increased time it implies in school.

2. The report did briefly discuss some of the empirical research on KIPP's outcomes. I thought that this empirical research deserved a lengthier review. I recognize that Mathews may have felt that such a review might not fit into his comparative advantage as a journalist, and might put off some readers. For those interested, Columbia Professor Jeffrey Henig has written a useful recent review entitled "What Do We Know About the Outcomes of KIPP Schools?" You can find this online for free easily by googling.

I read this book on a plane. It's a fascinating story, but could have used some serious editing, particularly with respect to chronology. There was too much jumping ahead and then rewinding, which was confusing, especially because the story moved between New York and Houston after the first several years and it was sometimes hard to keep straight which school we were reading about. I don't like the recreated dialogue convention -- obviously, no one was taking notes during all of these conversations and confrontations over more than a decade. And do all of the physical descriptions of the major players (other than the two teachers) really add to our understanding of this story? Do we really need to know when Feinberg and his wife-to-be began their physical relationship?
With regard to the small section devoted to empirical research, I believe that the author has too easily dismissed the observation that the students attending KIPP schools are not randomly selected. Although their family socioeconomic background may be identical to students who are languishing in nearby non-KIPP public schools, each of the KIPP students who perseveres in this program, and their parents or other relatives, has freely chosen to be there -- to do the extra work, to put in the extra time, and to push themselves. The relatively high dropout rate in some KIPP schools illustrates that this approach is not a panacea for all lower-income students, especially those non-immigrant students whose parents are so mired in their own dysfunction that they would never even consider a program like KIPP. (The differences the teachers noted between the Hispanic immigrant families in Houston and the mostly black families in New York was profound, and perhaps deserved more attention in the book.) And although Feinberg and Levin may not have wanted to make much of their gender, the fact remains that much of what they achieved was made possible, at least in the early years, by their being big guys who could deal with troublesome boys in a way that petite women usually cannot. For most fifth graders, a young and energetic male teacher is a novelty, and these teachers clearly made the most of it.
Having said that, I think that this book should be required reading for all inner-city teachers and, especially, administrators.

You can't be more biased than I am in writing this review: I am a lifelong friend and co-worker of the author's AND a believer in KIPP (I'm a board member of KIPP-DC).

That said: I think this is one of the most important books that will be published in 2009--and for all its importance, a lot of fun as well.

The book describes an amazing, but now widespread group of charter schools that produce what look like impossible results. They take thousands of inner-city public school students and help them turn into top-class academic performers. Here in Washington DC, the number one public middle school on standardized reading and math tests in 2008 wasn't the school in Georgetown or another upper-income neighborhood. It was a KIPP school across the Anacostia River.

Jay Mathews tells the story of KIPP back to its earliest days--back to two lost Teach for America teachers in Houston groping desperately for help in becoming successful teachers--and being wise enough to find it in a classroom across the hall. They learned, and they started a school. Only a few years later there are KIPP schools all across the country producing extraordinary results. The book is detailed, fascinating--and often, very funny.

You'll enjoy this book no matter who or where you are. But if you are at all interested in urban public education, you won't want to miss it.

To their credit, no one in the KIPP story, neither the writer of this book, nor the teachers themselves, claims that the KIPP program is a panacea for all the ills of education among disadvantaged students. Nonetheless, I imagine that many of this book's readers are teachers like myself who continue to look for ideas and strategies proven successful in schools, especially among struggling students. I opened this book hoping that I might encounter an idea to apply in my own classroom or to bring up as an option for my school administrators as they look for ways to improve. This is not that kind of book.

Halfway through Work Hard, Be Nice, I realized that the heart of the KIPP method--extended teaching hours, Saturday school, summer school, evenings spent with students' families and a cell phone at hand to ensure that students can reach the teacher for homework help--was a recipe for teacher burn out. No one should be surprised by KIPP's success; these students get nearly twice as much attention as most students do. Unfortunately, KIPP's success seems to be built upon the backs of young, energetic teachers who do not yet have families and who do not seem to have a personal need for down time. For those of us who are committed to teaching as a lifetime profession, the book simply underlines what we already know: there are no short cuts, and there is never enough time to do all that we would like to for our students.

Five years into my career, I knew that I had to adopt some limits to the time I would give my students. If I didn't, I would end up leaving a career I loved. I began to limit my workday to eleven hours. That gave me one additional hour of prep and assessment time for each hour I spent with students. I limited my weekend work time to five hours or one set of essays; I would answer email and phone calls during my workday, but not once I was home with my family. Largely because I learned the limits of what I could do, I stayed with the profession and will begin my twenty-fourth year of teaching this fall. And I still love it.

I applaud the idea of doubling up the time we give our students, but to do so, we need two teachers in every class room.

"Work Hard, Be Nice" is the story of how two young dedicated 1992 Teach for America graduates drove themselves to study successful teachers and experiment themselves to create a model for significantly improving the academic achievement of mostly low-income, minority pupils - beginning in Houston and then New York city. En route, they also persuaded several of their earlier role models to join them, and founded the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) that has now grown to 66 schools in 19 states and D.C., with more than 16,000 students. The majority of these schools teach 5th through 8th-graders; over 90% of the students are minorities, and over 80% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs. In 2007, nearly 95 percent of KIPP alumni went on to college-preparatory high schools; more than 80% of those completing 8th grade in KIPP matriculate into college.

The two founders, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, did not have an easy time of it. Their early formal training was of little/no value, the children were often ill-behaved and spoke mostly Spanish, and the education bureaucracy was almost always more of an obstacle than benefit. Yet, they learned how to impose strict discipline, took the initiative to visit parents at home (a "no-no" per school rules), improve their beginners' Spanish, and extended the school day (7:30 - 5:00, M-F), school week (selected Saturdays 8:30 - 1:30, usually twice/month), and school year (2 - 3 week mandatory summer-school). All pupils were given their teachers' home phone # - to call about homework or anything else. The two teachers usually got 10 - 20 calls/night, sometimes collect calls from neighborhood pay phones.

Finding their pupils frustrated by less demanding and rewarding classes after finishing Levin and Feinberg's 5th-grade classes, the two hit upon the idea of expanding through the 8th-grade, by which time the habits would be thoroughly ingrained and the pupils could be then relayed to magnet or college-prep high-schools.

Feinberg and Levin's work was initially measured by the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. The practice was to exempt low-scorers from taking the test - either parents or the teacher would sign a form stating the pupil's language skills were not adequate for the test, or that they had a learning disability. Both Feinberg and Levin refused and asked the parents to do so also - this got Levin (teacher of the year at his school in his second year) fired, but only from that school. Needless to say, their pupils did very well.

"Work Hard, Be Nice" includes several instances of strong leadership that helped turn individual pupils around. My favorite involved a young girl that repeatedly failed to do her homework. At a home visit, Levin discovered the problem - watching TV. He then persuaded the mother to let him take the TV away - to be returned upon her completing the homework every day for three weeks. She did, went on to become a success, the TV was returned, and all the other pupils took note.

Critics point out that there is a degree of self-selection for KIPP classrooms - only the motivated parents and pupils join and stay. This ignores, however, the strong role Levin and Feinberg have in building that motivation. It also ignores the fact that sometimes principals encourage problem pupils to join KIPP so they no longer have to deal with them.

Bottom Line: Fineberg and Levin are making a major contribution to America's future, and "Work Hard, Be Nice" does a great job telling their story.

Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America

Exciting! Challenging! Thrilling! Having been in the high school classroom for 30 years and now in the college classroom, I was HOOKED on reading this book immediately when I received it and started reading... EVERY active classroom teacher OUGHT to read this book ASAP... EVERY educational administrator OUGHT to read this book ASAP... EVERY parent of a student currently in grades K - 12 OUGHT to read this book ASAP... EVERY grandparent (like me) OUGHT to read this book ASAP! WHY? So that we gain awareness of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) - I confess that until I started reading this book, I did NOT know about KIPP! - so that we can consider the practical ideas for reform of EDUCATION throughout our USA!

There is the INSPIRATION as one learns the story of the founders of KIPP - Teach for America volunteers - Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin. There is the PRACTICAL DESCRIPTION of effective classroom attitudes, techniques/strategies and extra classroom involvements.

I confess, this book has enkindled a NEW commitment on my part for the GENUINE REFORM of EDUCATION in our USA with FOCUS on my own state of Wisconsin. (SHOCKED when I checked KIPP online to learn that there is NOT a single KIPP school in WI as of now!)

Read "WORK HARD. BE NICE."! JUST DO IT! And see what happens... I have the audacity of HOPE that this book will generate a tsunami-like wave of reform of EDUCATION throughout our USA... and, in fact, the whole wide world. (There are KIPP schools around the world. See the list on the KIPP website: www.kipp.com.)

THANKS to JAY MATHEWS, the education journalist with The Washington Post, for writing this book!

By the end of Work Hard. Be Nice., I found myself weeping in every chapter. I think this book may become a classic.

I hope teachers will include Work Hard. Be Nice. on summer reading lists for upper middle school and high school students. Boys especially may cherish this book given how feminized our public schools have become.

Mike Feinberg and David Levin are teachers, yes, but they are fighters, too. In this era of character education and "collaborative learning environments," the story of two young men who refused to collaborate with a failed system is strong medicine.

KIPP (KNowledge is Power Program) schools have recieved a lot of press recently. Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book "Outliers," devotes a whole chapter to prais of KIPP's methods. A few years ago, the book "No Excuses" offered KIPP schools as a prime eample of how poor and minority students can excel as well as those in the status quo. As a teacher, I have been long curious about KIPP schools, their backstory, and how they educate.

This is that story. In Work Hard, Be Nice, a journalist tells the story of two Teach for America teachers, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, who were dissatisfied with the public schools in which they taught. They created a small program (not a school, but a program within a school) based on the methods of some of their mentors. Students had longer days, more homework, "thinking skills," class, etc. AS the program experienced overwhelming success, a program became a school, which became two schools, which became a charter, which became a nationally recognized name in charter schools.

As a teacher, I cannot reccomend this book highly enough. Not only does it tell a very inspiring story, but it also offers some great advice to teachers, as seeing KIPP's methods gives us clues on how to harness some of these methods in our schools. We see Feinberg, Levin, and the host of teachers who joined them, experiment with different methods of discipline, instruction and motivation and get to see what worked and did not.

I reccomend this book not only to teachers, but those concerned with the difference between how education is and how it can be. There is even a discussion towards the end of the book (after KIPP's story has been well told) about the merits and demerits of KIPP methods and whether such methods could work in any but a charter school. Thus, this book would appeal not only to teachers, but those concerned with education policy.

It may even restore some faith in the possibility of education!

Jay Mathews offers a very entertaining book; perhaps, more importantly, he offers an informative and timely and important book about educating minority students in the inner-city.

"Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America" is the story of Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg--founders of the highly successful charter schools known as KIPP [Knowledge is Power Program]--two young teachers starting out in Houston with a two year commitment for Teach for America. The KIPP story is an impressive one: inner city 5th graders, after one year in KIPP, essentially double their scores over their 4th grade performance in reading (from 32% to 58%) and in math (from 42% to 84%).

The Levin/Feinberg story is one of inspirational dedication to their students. There are daily evening phone calls from students with homework questions. There is an uncommon effort to teach subject mastery by requiring longer class days--school days begin at 7:30AM and last to 5PM, with periodic half days on Saturday and three weeks of school each summer. There are also struggles and campaigns with supervisors and administrators to get adequate class space.

Mathews tracks their progress from beginning classroom teacher to the present day as leaders of an expanding chartered school program with a national footprint and 66 schools. During the journey they gain teaching skills in the classroom. They discover how to work with and win over parents. They master the art of cooperating with or going around school administrators. They deliver students a disciplined and challenging course of study to ensure success. They push into unchartered territory expanding the number of classes, the number of teachers, and the number of schools under the KIPP umbrella.

They are now receiving national recognition for their success. Their journey, however, would have been much more improbable, if not uneventful, if they hadn't met Harriett Ball, Rafe Esquith, and Scott Hamilton along the way. Each of these individuals appeared at just the right time, bringing their own expertise to bear and helping our two neophytes move to the next level--in the classroom, in the education bureaucracy, in the business world.

As the KIPP schools expand, Mathews' notes there are certain pillars that stuck: "(1) high expectations, (2) choice and commitment, (3) more time, (4) power to lead, and (5) focus on results." He argues KIPP's success really comes down to a desire to find what works, that is, find what helps the students perform better. It is this continuous quality improvement, this flexibility to see something is not working and make changes, he argues, that explains KIPP's success.

Matthews does an excellent job of answering the doubters, refuting the critics, and setting out the evidence. In the process he confirms the KIPP motto: "All children will learn."

If you found yourself out of your depth trying to teach students from a poor socio-economic background with little apparent interest in learning, how would you go about fixing the problem? That is essentially the problem that Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, two fresh graduates participating in the Teach for America program faced, as described in thsi book.

The book tells the story of the problems and obstacles faced by Feinberg and Levin in the US public school system which led to the creation of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) chain of charter schools. The schools are built around five principles: high expectations, choice and commitment, more time, power to lead, and focus on results. Most KIPP schools run from 7.30am to 5pm on weekdays and 8.30am to 1.30pm on alternate Saturdays, so that teachers have a lot more teaching time than in normal schools.

KIPP schools use highly engaging teaching methods designed to bring out the best in each student, and they achieve outstanding academic results. The book is well worth reading for any parent or teacher interested in educational techniques, or any communicator interested in holding the attention of an audience, but prospective readers should be aware that the story is told in a warts-and-all manner including occasional coarse language.