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

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."

"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 t

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.

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!