Making Schools Work with Hedrick Smith . School-By-School Reform . Mike Feinberg Interview

INTERVIEW WITH MIKE FEINBERG, CO-FOUNDER
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER PROGRAM (KIPP)

Hedrick Smith: How did KIPP get started?

Michael Feinberg: KIPP got started back in 1994 by Dave Levin and myself whenwe were two “Teach For America” teachers that just got very frustrated at whatwas happening with our kids when they left our classrooms and went off to thelocal middle schools. We were realizing that the impact we could make from eighto'clock to three o'clock for 180 days on kids was very limited. We could havethem do well in our fifth grade classrooms, but when they left our classrooms,there was no long-term impact that was noticeable. Our kids would go off to themiddle schools and by Christmas time, unfortunately, even though they were inour classrooms well behaved, intelligent, enthusiastic students, they quicklywould start skipping just as many classes, start smoking just as much dope, startjoining just as many gangs and start becoming just as many parents as all theother kids in those middle school and high school feeder patterns. And that wasextremely frustrating.

Smith: And why did you start a school system and why did you start it at fifthgrade?

Feinberg: Well, originally, we didn't start a school system. I wish to saythat all of this was not some kind of brilliant idea we hatched up back in 1994and wrote a business plan on and a strategic plan on, but we were just tryingto do right by our students. So our original goal was, what can we do to reallyhave an impact so that what they learn in our classroom does get used well beyondthis year, that they succeed in middle school, have the success continue intohigh school, have the momentum, continue to be able to go to college and do whateverthey want to do in this world. So the original plan was just to create a fifthgrade classroom that really could accomplish all that. So one night we just satdown all night long after being inspired by one of our mentor teachers, RafeEsquith. We put on U2 “Achtung Baby” repeat play. By about five o'clock in themorning, our response to feelings of failure and frustration was on the computerscreen and that was the “Knowledge is Power Program”, with the premise that – borrowingfrom Rafe – that there are no shortcuts, no quick, easy magical solutions tomaking that kind of impact. It was about rolling up your sleeves and workingvery hard at it. So we designed KIPP to be a fifth grade program. We were goingto motivate the kids to come from seven-thirty in the morning until five o'clockin the afternoon, to come for four hours on Saturdays, to come for an extra monthin the summer and we'd give them two or three hours of homework every singlenight. We figured that about should do it.

Smith: So the core idea was a lot more time on task and also kids taking responsibilityfor a big chunk of homework at night?

Feinberg: You're right, the core idea back then is today fairly simple. It'sfocusing on the fact that people make the difference. So we wanted to work tobecome the greatest teachers we possibly could by learning from such great teachersas Harriet Ball and Rafe Esquith, as well as having enough time on the clockto get everything done so our great teaching could have a necessary impact. Soit's about great people with enough time to get things done. That was our recipefor success back then and a decade later that's still our recipe for success.

Smith: And when you take the Saturday classes, the long day, the weeks in thesummertime, how much extra time does that give students in an academic year?

Feinberg: It's about 67% more time in the classroom than that which is foundin a traditional public school setting.

Smith: That's a big difference.

Feinberg: Oh, it's a big difference. It's a big commitment, but one that hasa big payoff at the end of the day.

Smith: And then you're talking about a couple of hours of homework at nightfor kids starting at fifth grade onward, right?

Feinberg: Yes.

Smith: So, it sounds like there's a tremendous sense of urgency here. I mean,if you're putting in that much extra time, at the end of three years you've donefive years of work, right?

Feinberg: Right.

Smith: So what's the point here?

Feinberg: This is a race. This is a competition. There's no prize for winningthe race, but there's a prize for what you know at the end. And the prize isthat after twelfth grade, those who have the knowledge, skills, and characterhave amazing opportunities to go off to higher education and learn what theywant to learn in this world and get trained to do whatever they want to do. Andthose who don't have the knowledge, skills, and character are going to have doorsof opportunity closed in their faces. And so there's a tremendous sense of urgencybecause we know by fifth grade the children we're working with in underservedcommunities are already behind where they need to be to win that competitionand succeed in that race. And so we want to catch them up and get them wherethey need to be.

Smith: Where are they at fifth grade? I mean a lot of these inner city kids,poor kids, kids from families who don't speak English in their home, what arethey – a year, two years behind?

Feinberg: It's across the board. There are certainly some kids that are ongrade level, some who are ahead of grade level, but that success, unfortunately,in underserved communities is the exception to the rule. On average, our kidscome in one to two grade levels behind where they should be by fifth grade.

Smith: So how do you feel when you get them?

Feinberg: Angry, frustrated. We want to do whatever we can. Well, I say angryand frustrated because on day one of fifth grade, it shouldn't be that way. Ina perfect world, the kids should be coming into pre-K ready to learn, they shouldbe coming into first grade already reading so when they get up to fifth grade,they should be reading on grade level. You know, they should know their timestables and know how to problem solve. They should be ready to conduct scientificexperiments and make hypotheses. But they're not, so we either have two options.We can either shrug our shoulders and sit there and say, “What can we do aboutit? It's because of the families. It's because of the community. It's becauseof their former schools and former teachers. It's because of society.” Or wecan just say, “You know what, it might have been someone else's problem but nowit's ours and we need to do something about it.” And our take has always beenthat if there's a problem, we look for a solution.

Smith: Many people start middle school or junior high at seventh grade. Somesay “not soon enough, sixth grade.” You say fifth grade. Why do you start yourschools at fifth grade?

Feinberg: Our idea of fifth grade is like the fourth quarter – the two-minutewarning, we're down by a touchdown – that's how we view fifth grade. You canstill win the game but now every second counts; there's a tremendous sense ofurgency and there's no more margin for error. There's that heightened sense ofurgency to get everything done. After fifth grade it's simply a matter of lessthan eight years of time to prepare the kids to be ready to succeed in collegeas well. And less than eight years, when you're starting from close to scratch,is not enough time on the clock. So even if you are a great teacher and if you'rerunning a great school, the variable of not enough time still weighs heavilyon you and we want to eliminate that variable.

Smith: And you give them a pretty heavy dosage of seat time, structure, discipline,homework. Is it easier to work with kids at fifth grade? I mean you start toget a little bit older than that and you're dealing with all the hormones thatare raging through teens and pre-teens.

Feinberg: Right, well that's the other advantage of starting with fifth gradeversus sixth or seventh grade is that we're still working with the children whilethey're children.

They're still children at that age. The eye rolling and the talking back andthe having the attitudes that all of us have gone through when we started goingthrough the pre-adolescent stage starts somewhere in the sixth or seventh gradeyear. So at fifth grade, because they're still children, you can establish strongrelationships with the children and with the families and so when the storm ofmiddle school and pre-adolescence starts to hit, you already have strong bondsto weather that storm and get through it together.

Smith: So you want to lure them into your game and to your structure whilethey're still a little bit more manageable if not malleable.

Feinberg: Absolutely. Fifth grade, we feel, is the last year to truly makethat happen because by sixth grade, they're not quite as malleable, they're alreadykind of in that natural rebellious stage which we've all gone through; so itjust makes sense to try to start working with them before the rebelliousnesshits.

Smith: Speaking of that, I mean you have had kids coming into your fifth gradewho've had trouble. They've already been talking back to teachers and sassing,they know four-letter words and we've had some of them tell us, that they werebad actors even in fourth grade. But they say you get on their case. One of thekids we talked to said, “Yeah, KIPP is a little bit like the Army. They're onyour case right from day one.”

Feinberg: I suppose some people think that KIPP is like the Army; that's theirperspective. But I think as you spend some time here at our schools, you sensea whole lot of joy beyond the structure and the discipline. And I haven't beenin the Army but I would assume that this is a little bit different from that.The fact that we combine the structure and the discipline with the joy factoras well is critical around here. If we're going to motivate the kids to workthis hard day in and day out, week in and week out, and year in and year out,67% more time, there's got to be an extra hook in there for why they want tobe here. At the end of the day we don't want them working this hard because wetell them to, we want them working this hard because they want to.

Smith: You do put a lot of emphasis on structure and discipline. Talk aboutthat for a minute. What are you after? Why is structure and discipline so importantto kids in fifth grade, and particularly kids coming from high poverty homesand communities, minority families and families who maybe don't speak Englishat home?

Feinberg: I don't think structure and discipline is something that's necessaryin one community versus another. I think anyone who's been successful in thisworld will say that part of their success was owed to some measure of structureand some measure of discipline that they either created themselves or they receivedfrom someone else to help them along. That's a necessary ingredient for any recipeof success and we want to make sure we have that here.

Smith: Benching. People all talk about benching. What's benching all about?

Feinberg: Sure. The bench, the metaphor that comes from one of our values whichis teammates and teamwork. You know at KIPP we say all the time that we are ateam and a family and that team always beats individual. And so the bench hasbecome, basically, one of the consequences when kids are making bad choices andnot following the rules. They're “on the bench,” as in: they're not part of theteam playing the game, they're on the sidelines watching. And all it really is,is a middle school version of timeout from kindergarten days.

We do not want to punish children by taking away their education. We don'tbelieve in suspending children. When we suspend children they go home for a weekon suspension, they'll watch Jerry Springer and they'll come back worse thanever. We didn't want that to happen. Plus, the ultimate reward for the kids,the most important thing, is education. So sending them to the principal's officeor sending them on suspensions is what we don't want to do.

So in its place, we've come up with the idea of the bench in terms of not beingon the team. And on the bench what we've taken away is the social aspect whichthe kids at the middle school level so crave. So they're still in the classroom,they're still learning but they have to sit apart from their teammates and theonly one they can talk to in that classroom is the teacher. They can't talk totheir friends and their friends can't talk to them. So it applies not just tothe classroom but the entire school day so when they go eat lunch, they haveto sit at a separate table. Once again, they can't eat with their friends, theyhave to eat either in silence or they can work on their homework and readingwhen they're at the table.

Then over the weekend, if they're on the bench, they have to do some deep reflectionon the bad choices they made to go to the bench because that means they eitherweren't doing their work, or they weren't being nice and respectful to theirteammates, they have to write letters of apology to their teammates explainingwhat they did wrong and what they're going to do the next week to get off thebench and contribute to the team again.

Smith: And there's a whole system of incentives, of rewards, punishments, carrotsand sticks, paychecks, trips. Are these central to the KIPP method?

Feinberg: Well, it goes back to the general premise that all good teachersuse in their classrooms – that also applies in life for the most part – whichis when you do the right thing, good things happen and when you do the wrongthing, bad things happen. I know it doesn't always work out that way in lifebut it usually follows that pattern and we want the kids to learn that valuablelife lesson. So when they make good choices, when they choose to get their workdone, when they choose to be respectful to each other, when they choose to solveproblems, positively and constructively, we want to make sure they're rewardedfor it. And when they make bad choices, and they choose to not get their workdone or choose to be disrespectful to each other, we want to make sure there'sa consequence for it.

And whatever the age is, whether we're talking about fifth graders or seventhgraders or ninth graders, we want to make sure it's age-level appropriate sothe good things that are happening are things that kids that age really lookforward to. And the bad things that are happening are things that kids that agereally don't want to happen. So, therefore, there's always basically two reasonswhy one should make the right choice and there's always two reasons why you shouldavoid the wrong choice. You want the good things and you hate the bad things.And that's a good lesson for life.

Smith: There's also this thing that you earn privileges, you earn status, youearn the right to mix. Why, I mean that's true everywhere, you earn your grades,you earn rewards or you earn accolades from the principal or you win prizes andthat kind of stuff. But you've kind of calibrated it and carried it a lot furtherthan a lot of schools. What's that all about?

Feinberg: Well that's just, as you said, that's a value that is out there inthe world, that technically the kids don't really have to learn until they'reout there in the world but we want them to learn now. Because there's universalK-12, in many cases pre-K–12 education, children who are at public schools don'thave to feel that way, don't feel the sense of earning things which we know existsbeyond education out there in the real world. They're entitled to their desk,they're entitled to books, they're entitled to the breakfast and the lunch, they'reentitled to have a teacher in front of them, they're entitled to be in a schoolbuilding that's somewhere in their neighborhood.

All those are great entitlements and should be there, but without teachingthe value that things need to get earned, you can create a situation where kidsgrow up thinking that this is going to keep happening, that they're going tobe entitled to a college education, they're going to be entitled to become alawyer, doctor, architect, engineer, whatever they want to do in this world.And so I think it's important, while we have some very important entitlementsin this country, which we should be very proud of, we also at the same time haveto balance that by teaching the value that people should take advantage of theopportunity of having these entitlements to now build upon them and earn theirway in this world.

Smith: You got 38 KIPP schools. By and large, who are the kids who are in thoseKIPP schools?

Feinberg: By and large, these are kids from underserved communities, from neighborhoodsthat are not experiencing tremendous success, in the education areas, in thesocioeconomic areas, in lots of the other areas we use to measure how societyis doing. And they also come from families where there are not many choices availableto them other than the one public school down the block. The families are hardworkingfamilies, working long hours and sometimes two or three jobs to put food on thetable and pay rent, but they don't have the funds to decide that because thatone public school is not a great option for their child they want to look forother private choices. They don't have the funds to do that so we want to makesure they have other public options available to them.

Smith: We're talking largely minority kids, we're talking largely high poverty,low income. Can you give me a better description of the kids in your schools.

Feinberg: Our schools are located in underserved communities where, in general,usually around 89% of the kids are on the federal free breakfast and lunch program;98 - 99% of them are children of color, and they're coming from neighborhoodswhere there's a whole lot more high school dropouts going on than kids matriculatingto college. Unfortunately.

Smith: Did you deliberately set out to reach kids from high poverty families,kids from minority families?

Feinberg: Yes, originally that's why Dave and I joined Teach For America inthe first place because we wanted to be part of this national movement to ensurethat all children in this nation achieve an excellent education. And so we joinedTeach For America knowing we were going to get placed in school districts aroundthe country that were working with underserved communities and there was a needfor more excellent teachers to be there.

Smith: So you're a missionary, an educational missionary.

Feinberg: Am I an educational missionary? I'm certainly a man on a missionand I'm one of many people on a mission, but I don't view this as missionarywork. Missionary work, to me, conjures up images of going out there in the NewWorld and creating missions to save other people. I'm not trying to save anyone,I'm trying to level the playing field and equip people with the necessary skillsthey need to save themselves.

Smith: And what is your mission, then? Is that it?

Feinberg: To provide kids with the academic, intellectual, and character skillsthey need to succeed in high school, college and the competitive world beyond.

Smith: Why were you drawn to Teach For America? Why did you want to go workin underserved communities in the first place?

Feinberg: My parents must have raised me well, with a sense that it's importantto be appreciative of what you have and then give back to others as well.

Smith: Mike let's be honest, there are a lot of people in this country whosay public schools don't work. There are a lot of people in this country whoeither say or believe, without stating it quite directly and openly, that a lotof these kids of color who come from poor homes, across the track so to speak,can't learn, they can't be reached, it can't be done. What drove you to do it?I mean, you're an enormously energetic guy, you're pouring absolutely your heartand soul into this thing, so are a whole lot of other people. I think peopleneed to know straight from the shoulder, what's moving you.

Feinberg: (laugh) I think it's a combination, Rick. You right, there's so manypeople out there who still have a mindset that because of a zip code you're bornin or the color of your skin or something like that, that there's limitationsto what one can achieve in this world. And there might be exceptions to the rulebut there's still a rule. And that drives me nuts. At the same time, there'slots of people who want to be part of the solution to all that. The people whowant to contribute and want to fix things are missing the target. It's stillout there, the flavor of the month, the flavor of the year, looking for shortcutsas solutions, focusing on one piece of the puzzle.

You walk into the teachers' lounges in elementary schools and you hear theteachers ponder, “What happened to our bright, motivated children? How come wesee them out in the community now acting like such punks?” And you go then tothe high school teacher lounges and there the teachers are wondering how comethey get kids every year who can't read, can't write, can't compute and can'twalk down a hallway without causing trouble every two minutes.

You just observe all this finger-pointing going on. And so no one's workingon the solution, they're just finger-pointing. The people that are working onthe solutions are out there saying, “All right, the answer is pre-K. We get greatpre-K, everything'll be fixed.” Or, “All right, the answer is high school. Weaddress our high schools and fix our high schools, everything'll be fixed.” Orit's, “Oh, the answer is, we're so behind in utilizing technology well in theclassroom. We get computers in all the classrooms, we put hand-held devices inthe kids' hands, magically all that knowledge is going to filter into their brainand that'll fix everything.” Everyone's looking for the magic bullet insteadof just getting after it and realizing this is extremely hard work.

It is something that's not easy, it's something that our schools are beingasked to do more so today for their kids and their communities than we've everasked schools to do in our history. And as hard as it is, it's still possibleto succeed but the answer is not found in any shortcuts or gizmos or quick fixes,the answer is looking at it from a 3-year-old to an 18-year-old problem and rollingup our sleeves and working very hard at it. And I think because of the frustrationsfrom that, people are not willing to look at the entire problem and address itfrom that standpoint. Instead they try to cherry-pick which parts to fix, whichat the end of the day doesn't work.

Smith: So what is it we need to roll up our sleeves and do? What do we needto believe and what do we need to act on?

Feinberg: Well, we need to believe that all children can learn. But then whatwe need to act on is changing the word “can” to “will.” And so we need to acton the fact that all children will learn. We need to have an attitude that everyday there's 101 reasons why the kids come into the school not set for success,not ready to learn. Some of those reasons are ridiculous, some are very legitimate.And I think we have to act on the fact that, as a school, we do have the potentialand we do have the power, if we want, to eliminate those variables and do whateverit takes to help the kids learn.

Smith: So what you're saying is the failure of the kids is the adults' responsibility.

Feinberg: Yes.

Smith: And the adults can do something about it.

Feinberg: Adults can do everything about it. One of the things on our frontwindow when you walk into KIPP is that – to be the constant, not the variable.Once again, there's lots of variables out there for why the kids are not goingto learn but at the end of the day, like any good science experiment, we shouldeliminate all the variables but one. And I think the one variable that we cannotdirectly or indirectly affect is the kids' hearts, how badly they want it, thegannas, as we say in Spanish.

Smith: Okay, when you're recruiting a new crop of teachers and you're bringingthem in to KIPP, what do you tell them they need to do? What is it they needto focus on?

Feinberg: We need to focus on making sure that kids are mastering what we wantthem to master. And there's a whole set of academic skills and there's a wholeset of character and life skills that we want kids to learn. I think we needto focus on making sure that the teachers in those classrooms know very clearlywhat it is that they need to teach at that grade level in terms of the academicsand in terms of the life skills, and that they are very good at teaching that.And then from an administrative standpoint, we need to make sure that they areset up for success so whatever they need to do a great job in that role, theyget.

Smith: What do you look for when you recruit teachers?

Feinberg: I look for three things. I look for teachers that are very smartand very passionate in the subject matter they're going to teach. The type ofteachers that don't need the teacher's edition to teach and the type of teachersthat also are going to bring a wealth of outside resources to the classroom.You know, if a teacher loves history, the kids are going to love history in thatroom, too. Second, I look for people and teachers who can take all that knowledgeand passion from their brain and heart and transfer it into the brain and theheart of a nine-year-old or a 12-year-old or a 15-year-old – which on the rareoccasion is a gift, but for most of us mortals, it's a skill which has to beacquired and refined over time. And lastly, I look for teachers who have thatgannas, who have that desire to work really hard and do whatever it takes tohelp the kids learn.

And those three things – the knowledge and the passion, the ability to reachand teach in the classroom and the desire to roll up your sleeves and work veryhard – if that's found with someone that has a piece of paper that says they'rea certified teacher, terrific, and if it's found with someone who doesn't havethe piece of paper and they're not certified but they still possess all thoseskills, I still want them in front of my babies.

Smith: People will have knowledge by going through good schools; people willhave passion because they care and they love what they're interested in, whateverit is, science or history or you name it. But the ability to reach and teach – doesthat mean you essentially hire only experienced teachers who have demonstratedthe ability to reach and teach kids?

Feinberg: No, it means that we're looking for people who possess either theability today or certainly possess both the potential and willingness to learn.Early on when Dave and I first started, when there were only just the two ofus at KIPP and when there were just two KIPP schools in Houston & New York,it was pretty easy to find people that were already doing this. KIPP does nothave a monopoly on hardworking, great teachers. There is a hardworking greatteacher in every single school in this country. Every single school in this countryhas a teacher car in the parking lot at seven o'clock in the morning and thatcar is still there at five, six o'clock in the evening.

What's different at KIPP is that all the cars are there at seven in the morningand all the cars are there at five o'clock in the afternoon. We could go outthere and find those teachers pretty easily. As we've started to grow once again,you know, growth creates some interesting problems. One problem is that findingthe great teachers easily is no longer possible, it takes a lot more effort tofind them. Or in some cases where we can't find them, we have to find teacherswho possess the potential to do that, and teach them and train them, and givethem the skills they need to be able to do that.

Smith: Where do most of your teachers come from? Do most of your teachers comefrom the surrounding school systems in the cities where KIPP is already establishedor is establishing schools? Do most of your teachers come from Teach For America?Young people moved by idealism, with a few years of experience in the schoolof hard knocks. What are the demographics on your teachers?

Feinberg: I'd say the average teacher in a KIPP school has probably been teachingthree to six years, even though the range goes from a brand new teacher to someonethat's been teaching over 35 years. So you know, we certainly have the wholerange in there as well. A lot of our teachers are Teach For America alumni. Afterthey do their Teach For America two-year commitment, they still want to continueto raise the bar on the impact they made and so they come work in KIPP schools.

In general, I think we're finding teachers that also feel that feeling of failureand frustration and want to do something about it. They're sick and tired ofbeing the only car in the parking lot at seven, the only car in the parking lotat five and they're feeling like Sisyphus, the Greek myth of the person thathad to push the boulder up the cliff every day and when it fell back down, he'ddo it again. They're sick and tired of being in the one classroom at the endof the hall that's trying to bring order to the chaos and get the kids up fromthree grade levels behind. And they're sick and tired of trying to figure outhow to do that all by themselves and they want to be part of a team, they wantto be part of a movement that will be part of taking the “all children can learn” andturning it into “all children will learn.”

Smith: When you hire teachers who are in this three to six year experiencelevel, and you're hiring people coming out of Teach For America, what are yougetting from the experience?

Feinberg: Well I think certainly what you get is energy. What you get is creativity.What you get is people who are part of that mission that want to make a big impactand want to watch their kids not just succeed at that grade level, but in thefuture walk across the stage, get their high school diploma and go off and succeedin college. And because you're getting also energy and creativity, they'll alsomake sure that KIPP continues to grow and doesn't stagnate.

The way that I taught the three's times tables back in 1994 might have beenversion two of what I learned from Harriet Ball; today the way a lot of schoolsare doing their three's times tables is probably version 85. There have beenso many new ways that people come up with of how to teach creatively so thatthe kids learn it, the kids are mastering it and the kids are enjoying themselvesin the process. And I think that's what you get from bringing in the Teach ForAmerica alumni and these other teachers who are coming in with a wealth of ideasand finally feel like the shackles are off and they can teach in the way theysee fit, they can experiment, they can try new things and they can do what'snecessary to get the kids from where they are to where we want them to be.

Smith: You're a fifth grade math teacher by experience, isn't that right?

Feinberg: Yes, this is my favorite title.

Smith: Okay. Does KIPP have a fifth grade math curriculum?

Feinberg: No, KIPP does not have a fifth grade math curriculum; it has a fifthgrade math philosophy, it has a fifth grade math scope and sequence but not acurriculum. We realized early on that trying to view the solution as reinventingthe wheel and creating a brand new curriculum didn't make a lot of sense. There'rea lot of smart people in this country who've already spent a lot of time workingon what is good curriculum at first grade, fifth grade and ninth grade. The issueis not that we don't have good curriculum; the issue is that we're not gettingthe kids to learn it.

Smith: But what's that all about then, getting the kids to learn?

Feinberg: Getting the kids to master the material.

Smith: No, I understand that but what's the key to that? If the curriculumis reasonably good, then what's the key?

Feinberg: Instructional delivery, being very good at teaching in front of theroom, very good at using those resources. Being very good at assessing the studentsand where they are and re-teaching and whatever, doing whatever is necessaryto get the kids to really, truly master the material.

You know, talk about curriculum, if I put in front of you a fifth, sixth, seventh,and eighth grade textbook in math and opened up to page 200 and I jumbled themup, and said, “order them from fifth through eighth grade in order,” you'd havea very tough time because they all look the same. That's because, unfortunately,we have this national strategy of “we're not really going to teach to master,we're going to teach to exposure and over lots and lots of years of kids seeingpage 200 in the math book, eventually somehow they're going to learn it. We'regoing to teach them how to reduce fractions in fifth grade, in sixth grade, inseventh grade, in eighth grade, in ninth grade and continue until finally somehowmagically they're going to get it.” Instead of thinking, “let's teach the kidshow to reduce fractions at a mastery level in fifth grade, maybe spend a littletime reviewing it in sixth grade but let's move on to pre-algebra and let's moveon to algebra then.” And that's been our take and so it's not that we have adifferent math curriculum as much as we have a different math strategy and adifferent math philosophy.

Smith: So it's about teaching methods. It's about engaging students, is thatit?

Feinberg: That's it, and once again it comes down to people make the difference.Another neat way I ask people to look at this is to imagine that you're choosingbetween two classrooms for your own child. And the classroom over here on thisside doesn't have a bad teacher in it, it has a mediocre teacher and there'severy resource to the hilt. There's a great curriculum, there's great textbooks,there's science equipment, there's computers, there's math manipulatives, there'sreading books, everything you can imagine. Classroom over here is a bare room,not even desks in it but it's a master teacher. Where do you put your child?You know, most people asked that question will tell me instinctively they know, “I'mgoing to put my child with a master teacher.”

But then I guess, society gets in the way and we get group think going andwe start thinking what extra little gizmo can I try to cram into this classroomor how can I write a better textbook so that magically all these kids are goingto go from a low level to a mediocre level or from good to great. We know thatpeople make the difference, but at the same time I guess it's because we livein this microwave generation where we want everything quick and easy. Microwavesare great for cooking popcorn but they're horrible for teaching kids how to read.

And that's what we want to get away from. It's about people making the difference.It's not about the curriculum, it's about the delivery of that curriculum.

Smith: Well, what kind of training and development do you give your teachersfirst when they come on board and then as they carry on?

Feinberg: Not enough. I think that's certainly one area where we have to geta lot better, especially as we keep growing, and, as I said, it's getting harderto find the teachers that are already at the master level, and it's plug andplay and off they go. As much as we're big at KIPP on instruction, we're alsovery big on culture, and creating and teaching the values of the schools thatwe want the kids to learn. And, of course, before the kids learn it, the teachersneed to learn it. And so at KIPP schools there's a lot of very good things earlyon when they first bring teachers in to KIPP-notize those teachers and teachthem about the values and operating norms that they want to have in a very consistentway happen throughout their building, in the science room, in the math room,in the bathroom, in the lunchroom. I think where KIPP needs to keep improvingis once we teach the values, we've got to get continually better at teachingthe delivery of those academic skills so the kids, once again, are truly learningat a mastery level.

Smith: You began as a middle school; you've now gone into, elementary, I guessat the pre-K level.

Feinberg: Baby KIPP.

Smith: Okay, Baby KIPP, and you've now gone into the high school. Why are youbranching out and going both higher and lower than you did initially?

Feinberg: Well there's two different answers to that. I'll address the highschool answer first. The high school is a necessity. When we first recruitedthese kids into KIPP in fifth grade, we sat in the living rooms or at the kitchentable with the kids and the parents and we all signed the ‘Commitment to Excellence'form where we agreed to teach in the best way we know how and do whatever ittakes to help our students learn. And we made a promise that we wouldn't makethem smart fifth graders or we wouldn't make them smart eighth graders, we wouldmake them smart students in general all the way up through high school and intocollege and beyond college so they could do in this world what they wanted todo. That was our promise. And at KIPP we believe that promises to children aresacred.

Up until this year, our strategy has always been that we could keep that promiseby keeping kids for four years, from fifth grade through eighth grade, and bythe end of eighth grade with a lot of great teaching and all the extra time onthe clock our kids would be ahead of grade level and they could compete and gainacceptance at the several good public high schools that don't give me nightmaresto send the kids to, as well as the local private schools that are doing an excellentjob of getting the kids to college and, of course, boarding schools as well.And they would be so well-wanted at all these schools that they would also competefor scholarship dollars. That was our original strategy when it was just Houstonand New York, sending 120 kids a year up to the high schools – it worked. Ourkids were getting into the good public schools that had a good track record ofcollege preparation, and they were also getting into all the local private schoolsand they were getting into the boarding schools. Kids in our two schools in thelast 7 years have earned over 20 million dollars in scholarships to attend thesegreat college prep high schools, which is all well and good – it's worked.

Of course, once again, growth creates interesting problems. Another interestingproblem is that as we keep adding more KIPP schools that are now up through eighthgrade, where are all these kids going to go, because as I said there's only ahandful of public schools in Houston that don't give me nightmares to send thekids to. The other high schools are not improving fast enough to assure us thatthey're going to get a great education there. The private schools are not goingto increase their seats or their scholarship dollars, so we have a problem.

And in KIPP fashion, when there's a problem, we look for a solution. And thesolution is to increase the seats at great college preparatory high schools,so we're going to start high schools ourselves. And the first one is in its secondyear here in Houston. And as the other KIPP schools mature up to eighth grade,if there's not enough local great high school options, they will add high schoolsas well modeled after the original high school program we started here in Houston.

On the other end of the spectrum, Baby KIPP has basically been a wish of mineand a dream of mine ever since I started teaching fifth grade back in 1992. Andthat is, once again in a perfect world kids should not come into fifth gradewhere day one is spent teaching the three's times tables, as well as teachingthem that a short “a” goes “ah.” It shouldn't work that way. We should be muchfurther ahead so we can truly address the fifth grade curriculum and off we gofrom there.

So as much as we figured out how to win the game from the fourth quarter andthe two-minute warning when we're down by a touchdown and we've succeeded atthat, for long-term sustainability we can't depend on that being our game planevery single time to win every game, by waiting until the very last minute thencoming up with a heroic victory. We need to get a little bit more proactive andso I see starting with pre-K as we're still down by a touchdown, no doubt becausekids from underserved communities come in with a word gap vocabulary in the millionsby the time they start at age three or four. So we're still down, we're stilllosing the game at the time but now there's enough time on the clock where wecan win that game and we can also stick to our original game plan and don't haveto go to a heightened sense of urgency.

I'm looking forward to the Baby KIPP we just started. When those kids are readyin six years for fifth grade, it will be a great day, and we'll have anothergreat problem. We're going to have to take our current curriculum and scope andsequence and take it out on the field and burn it because it won't apply anymorebecause the kids will have learned everything we normally teach in fifth grade.We're going to have to teach them how to split the atom.

Smith: Let me go back to the teachers. How much do you pay your teachers? There'snow beginning to be a more competitive race all over the country for better teachersand people are talking about differential pay.

Feinberg: We follow the local teacher pay scale, but our teachers also getpaid extra on top of their base pay for all the extra hours they're working duringthe day, during the week and during the year so they make about 20% more thantheir peers in the other Houston schools. Plus, potentially on top of the 20%,there's about another up to 4% they could earn as bonus depending on their levelof performance.

Smith: Okay, so what does that mean just in Houston here, in practical terms?

Feinberg: It means instead of coming in and earning around $38,000 dollars,they're earning somewhere between $45 to $50,000 dollars.

Smith: Okay. So that would be coming in the first year here?

Feinberg: It would be like a third, fourth or fifth-year teacher.

Smith: Okay. So now you've opened up the high school, you've opened up thiselementary school. Where is KIPP going? Do you have any idea? You have 38 schoolsaround the country now, what's your target?

Feinberg: Our target's not a number of schools as much as our target is anoutcome. And the outcome is that we are chasing the “yes, buts.” We are huntingthem down and we are getting rid of them one by one. And by “yes, buts,” I meanall the people that come and visit KIPP and tour the schools and in the end thinkit's great, it's one of the best schools they've seen. But when I get to thedoor with them I hear, “This is great, it's the best school I've seen, but there'sno way it would work in Chicago. There's no way it work in the Mississippi Delta.There's no way it would work in Washington, DC, there's no way it would workin Los Angeles, California.” And I hear wherever they're from, they tell meall the different political, socioeconomic, financial or legal reasons why theirplace is the most screwed up place in the planet and no, nothing can work there.And I realize I can't win the debate at the door. There's nothing I can do toconvince people that yes, this can work in the Mississippi Delta, yes this canwork in Chicago.

So now when I hear people say, “This is great but it can't work in Chicago,” Iget out my notes and write down “all right, we have to start a school in Chicago”,because the actual proves the possible. And so wherever people are making excuses,we want to prove what can actually be happening there so we eliminate them, becausethe day the excuses end are going to be the day the solutions start.

Our country is not yet a place that truly addresses the problem because, aswe talked about earlier, people are not yet ready to really agree that thereis a solution to this problem. There are still a lot of people out there whothink there is a barrier to what the kids can achieve. The ones who think thatit is possible have such a very narrow focus on trying to come up with a shortcutsolution. So we have to first get rid of all of the excuses. It's an importantvariable to eliminate so then we're really ready to address solutions.

I don't think that all 50 million kids in public education today should beKIPP-notized and be in KIPP schools. But I do think that we can contribute tothe whole by getting rid of the excuses out there and by empowering other peopleto think “well if those KIPPsters down the block can do it, I can do it, too;I'm going to improve my school, or I'm going to start a new school that's alsogoing to do great things.” Or if they're not going to be motivated intrinsicallylike that, at least they'll be motivated from a competition standpoint. You know, “Idon't want to lose all my kids in my bad school to that KIPP school that justopened up down the block so now I got to compete with them. I got to run withthem. What am I going to do to catch up?” Either way we're going to raise thebar on everybody.

Smith: So how many out-of-state and out-of-town visitors do you have here atthe school a year?

Feinberg: We probably are somewhere in the neighborhood of around a thousandpeople a year.

Smith: From how many different communities?

Feinberg: All over the country and usually several different countries aroundthe world come through here as well.

Smith: So maybe 200 communities, 300 communities?

Feinberg: Sure.

Smith: and what percentage of them say, “but” at the end of their visit?

Feinberg: Probably about 90 percent.

Smith: So we're at somewhere around 200 or 300 communities you've got to goto. You have 38 schools now, you've got to go at least 10 times that high, somethinglike that to get rid of all the yes buts.

Feinberg: Right. We don't necessarily have to go to all the communities, butwe have to go to a lot of them.

Smith: I'm just trying to give it some notion of dimension. I think one ofthe questions here that's got to be addressed is, we've got to not only do effectiveschool reform in America, we've got to do effective school reform at scale.

Feinberg: Right.

Smith: So the question is, what kind of scale can this model go to? Can a charterschool which has been recruiting master teachers, particularly from a corps ofteachers who are pretty idealistic and young, continue to recruit enough teachersand generate enough of the extra financing that's necessary to keep these schoolsafloat, to really go to a much larger scale?

Feinberg: The alternative is we should all move to Canada quickly because ourcountry is going to go down the tubes. We're talking about investing in the futureof our country, investing in our children. The gap between the haves and have-notsis just continuing to grow and it's not something that's sustainable. Maybe itis in our lifetime right now but this certainly is not something that long termcan continue to exist. We have to address this challenge, providing all childrenof this nation with an excellent education.

We have 38 schools today and we'll be up to 46 schools shortly and we'll growby ten or 15 schools a year. I think within the next five, six years, we canbe up over 100 schools. That certainly won't address a chunk of the need butwhat we're doing is helping to motivate others to start their own network often, 25, 50 schools as well. We can also motivate the traditional public schoolsto raise their bars and get better as well. And I think that's how we're goingto address the needs of all 50 million kids.

I don't think we can look at any one model to serve as the answer for everythingacross the board. I think as Howard Fuller talks about so eloquently, schoolsystems need to evolve into systems of schools. And I think that we need to stophaving “one size fits all” and have lots of models out there that parents andchildren have the freedom to choose what's right for them and that have a proventrack record of success. And I think that's how we can contribute to raisingthe bar on everybody.

Smith: What's the deepest motivation here? To provide parents choice, or isit something else?

Feinberg: The core motivation here is to set the kids up to succeed in thisworld. And we feel that choice is one way to help get at that. It starts by makingsure that the kids and the parents and the teachers are all choosing to be inthat classroom together and choose to be on this mission together. It's not justlearning what's necessary to be a smart fifth grader, but it's learning what'snecessary in fifth grade so that you're climbing the mountain to college. Choiceis one of the inputs for the ultimate output around here and the ultimate motivator,which is having freedom to do in this world what you want to do.

Smith: One of the things you said just a couple of moments ago was “the gapbetween the haves and the have-nots is not sustainable. It may be sustainablefor our lifetimes but it's not sustainable overall.” When I heard you say that,I thought I heard the core idea behind Mike Feinberg. You're reaching out tokids from have-not communities. You're not doing it accidentally, you're doingit on purpose. You're trying to give them a choice and you're trying to givethem a path to excellence.

Feinberg: I think I'm just trying to do what I think is fair and just, andthat is that I think people should be in charge of their own destinies. It shouldnot be a situation where people are going down the river of life which flowsin the wrong direction. The river of life in a fair and just world doesn't flowdownwards, it doesn't flow upwards. You shouldn't just be able to go with theflow and you wind up in a good or bad place. You should have some control overyour destiny and wind up where you would like to see yourself wind up. I guesswhat drives me is to make sure that the children we work with are in a situationwhere at the end of the day they wind up somewhere where they can probably say, “I'mhere because I put myself here. I had a lot of people who helped me get here,good, bad, indifferent, but the main reason why I'm here is myself.”

Smith: But when I hear you speak about your anger and frustration, it soundsas though – and you have to correct me and tell me whether I'm right – but itsounds as though you're saying you're angry and frustrated that “have-not” kidsdon't have a level playing field with “have” kids and it's the fault of the adultworld or it's the responsibility of the adult world to fix it.

Feinberg: It certainly is. It bothers me that there's a difference betweenthe haves and the have-nots for reasons other than what people can directly control.What angers and frustrates me is that no one seems to be addressing it. Thereare some people out there that either might not care or the ones that do careand are addressing it are missing the key trigger points to truly address thisin a successful way.

Smith: Talk about “have-not” kids and “have” kids. What bothers you?

Feinberg: What bothers me is the fact that a lot of the solutions out thereat the end of the day are not working and we don't seem to be really doing anythingabout it. And we keep missing the simple boat, which is that there are no shortcuts.

Smith: But isn't what bothers you is that have-not kids aren't getting a fairbreak?

Feinberg: Yes, that's fair to say.

Smith: But you've talked about it as an educator. Talk to me as a citizen,talk to me as the guy who signed up for Teach For America. What bugged you?

Feinberg: What bugged me is going to school at the University of Pennsylvaniaand living and working and studying in West Philadelphia, and realizing thatthe kids who were growing up in West Philadelphia did not have nearly as manyopportunities in this world to succeed as I did growing up in Oak Park and RiverForest outside of Chicago. And it wasn't because they didn't choose to take advantageof opportunities, it was because those opportunities just simply did not existin the communities where they grew up. And I think everyone should have thoseopportunities to take advantage of if they so choose.

Smith: And you're working 24/7 to do what?

Feinberg: To provide those opportunities and to open the doors for kids andfamilies who want to take advantage of this American dream. To try to fix aninadequate education system, an inadequate socioeconomic system that exists todaythat prevents children from growing up in this world and succeeding in whateverthey want.

Smith: Going back to the question of the teachers and going to your issue often or 15 new schools a year. How tough will it be for you in the years aheadas you expand, to get and retain the quality of teachers that are so importantto your system?

Feinberg: It will be very tough. That's probably one of the most importantthings that we do. Our success goes back to the people who make the difference.We're betting the ranch on great people to start and lead KIPP schools, and thenthose great school leaders to go out there and recruit and select and train greatteachers to be in those schools. That's not an easy thing. It would be much easierif we thought we should just pick the good software program, or try to reinventa whole new curriculum. That would be a lot easier than going out there and finding,cultivating and training great people. But at the end of the day that is theanswer, that's what every other industry has discovered along the way, and that'swhere education is lagging behind.

Smith: So are you going to get more heavily into teacher training so you cantake the existing corps of teachers and upgrade them?

Feinberg: We're going to have to heavily man ourselves. We're going to haveto partner with organizations out there such as Teach For America, such as theNew Teacher Project, which are already working to motivate more talented collegestudents to want to go into education, as well as motivating and training talentedpeople out there in the workforce to switch careers and come into education.We have to get good at that ourselves, and we have to work with these other organizationsthat are out there already doing that so there is a scalable number of qualityteachers out there wherever there's a need.

Smith: As co-leader of KIPP, what do you see as your personal biggest challengein the years ahead?

Feinberg: I think my biggest challenge is probably to keep us focused on ourmission and keep us focused on the strategy to achieve our mission. As we getbigger in size, it is easy to start being pulled in different directions, off-mission.I think as we get bigger in size it also becomes more of a challenge to makesure that everyone who's part of the organization – whether they work for KIPPFoundation, whether they're teaching in the schools or whether they're drivingthe buses to get the kids to and from school – also understands that mission,understands the culture, understands the operating norms and believes in allthose same values as well. And I think as we continue to grow, making sure everyonekeeps their eye on the prize and understands what it means to be a KIPPster,remains our biggest challenge.

Smith: What does it mean to be a KIPPster?

Feinberg: It means to work hard and be nice.

Smith: Well that sounds nice but what does that mean?

Feinberg: Well, it sounds nice, but I think it really boils things down toa very simple level. I think what it means to be a KIPPster is to realize thatthere are no shortcuts, that you're going to do whatever it takes, and whetheryou're a teacher or student or bus driver or the lunch lady, you're going towork very hard at your job and take pride in it. And I think being nice refersto the life skills. At the end of the day it's about being nice to yourself andbeing nice to your neighbors and being a responsible and respectful and contributingperson in this world.

Smith: And as you look at the years aheadand you think about expanding, is there any part of your brain that worries thatgoing both in the direction of high school and in the direction of pre-K, howevergood that might feel to have a complete system from pre-K to 12th grade herein Houston, but as you think about staying focused on your mission do you haveany fear at the moment that you're already starting to sprawl?

Feinberg: You just called me on it, didn't you? I think that it's remainingfocused on our mission, but also evolving our strategy to address the new environmentand new factors that are out there. We talked about the fact that the numberof great high schools has not grown at the same pace with the number of greatmiddle schools we're starting. So, therefore, to keep focused on our missionwhich, once again, is not to crank out smart eighth graders but crank out smartcollege graduates, the high school end is important.

Also, we don't want to become a flash in the pan and we don't want to becomereferenced in the index of whoever writes the next history of educationin the early 21st century. If we want this to become a sustainable movement,then starting with the heightened sense of urgency in the fourth quarter withfifth grade when you're trying to fix everything at the last minute, that's notlong term sustainable for 50, 100 years. And so, therefore, I think for the sakeof the mission, we need to evolve the mission. Now that we've succeeded, howcan we continue the success and build upon it and not let it just fade away.And so therefore, that's the reason why we should be starting early and goingall the way through twelfth grade.

Smith: So what does it take, in terms of money, to run a KIPP school?

Feinberg: It takes the same amount of money that it takes to run a public schoolin whatever community those public schools are operating. We do not believe intrying to run schools on more money than what already is out there because thatwould be the biggest “yes, but” of all. No matter what kind of results we got,people would say, “Well they did it because of the money.” Money is, certainly,an important factor but money is not going to guarantee success. There are toomany school districts out there that are spending twice as much money as theyget here in Houston, that are just failing the children miserably. So money isobviously not the ultimate answer.

Smith: Yes, but you are, in fact, getting foundation grants and you get buildingsthat are either rent free or highly rent reduced and that kind of stuff. So isthere really a strict adherence to the local school budget per capita?

Feinberg: Not very many of our schools are getting the same per people dollarsthat the traditional public schools are getting. Because we're starting eitheras charters or we're creating a school in a school under contract. Most of ourschools are getting somewhere around 80 to 90% of the public revenue that thetraditional public schools are getting. So the fundraising that goes on is tomake up that difference, and to go from getting 80 to 90% of the funding to 100%of the funding.

But we will not spend over, and we've also figured out how to run KIPP andrun all these extra hours on that same nickel. The way we do that is simply bybeing very lean on the administrative side. You're looking right now, in thefirst couple of years, at not just the school founder and school principal, butthe fifth grade math teacher, the bus driver, the lunch lady, the custodian anda few other things. That's how we save all that money. We're very lean on theadministrative costs so all the money saved gets pumped in the classroom mainlyto pay the teachers for doing the extra hours during the day, during the week,and during the year. That's how we're able to run the KIPP schools very efficiently.

Smith: You ask a tremendous amount of your teachers. You pay them more, theywork longer hours, but you ask them in particular to be available almost 24/7by cell phone to their kids. Is that asking too much of teachers?

Feinberg: I don't think so, because it depends how they're going to make themselvesavailable and depends what they've done to get calls. I used to tell my staffback in the day that if you were getting 70 calls a night you didn't do a verygood job of teaching that day. In a perfect world, if someone did a great jobof teaching a lesson, they're not going to get calls that night. Or they're onlygoing to get the one or two calls for the extenuating circumstance for why achild cannot finish their homework because there was a family emergency. So itactually serves as a little bit of a motivator to make sure that the teacheris doing a good job of teaching that lesson during the day and giving clear directionson the homework.

The other part of that is that it's also just a motivator. I think the teachersthat wind up teaching at KIPP schools would rather deal with the few minutesof getting a few calls a night than the frustration that occurs the next morningwhen you realize that only half the kids completed your homework. One of theultimate excuses out there why kids don't complete their homework is that theydidn't understand it. That is a variable. And the way we eliminate that variableis by giving kids an opportunity to do something about the fact they don't understandit when they're at home and not with the teacher – they now have the abilityto call at night.

Smith: From experience, can you say that the better teachers don't get manycalls at night and the teachers who are having a struggle themselves get morecalls?

Feinberg: Oh absolutely. I learned over the years how to just do a better jobof teaching the lesson. Year to year, you learn. My lesson that I would teachon long division, I learned how to break it down into very manageable parts thatkids could understand easily so that their skills would be built upon themselvesinstead of sending them into a land of confusion trying to learn too much inone night. I also learned how to give very clear directions so the kids understoodit. I learned how to teach kids how to write their homework down the way we showed.And over the years you learn, like any experienced teacher, how to anticipatethe problems and how to anticipate the questions before they come.

Smith: Talking about the land of confusion, in KIPP it's the land of chants.Now, are you personally a creator of mathematics chants?

Feinberg: (laugh) I'm a creator of a couple of them. Most of those chants camefrom one of our greatest mentor teachers, Harriet Ball, who has the creativemusical ballpoints, who learned how to teach in this multi-sensory, whole bodystyle where the kids are singing, chanting, dancing, moving around the room ina way where they're learning from mastery and they're enjoying themselves. Andshe taught us a lot of those songs and chants. Once you learn her philosophy – howyou make the learning relevant and how you make it fun, but also how you makesure the kids are learning what they need to learn – that opens up a whole newworld of how to both reach and teach. And we owe that to Harriet. I don't havea lot of rhythm, but I've learned over the years how to come up with some neatchants and songs.

Smith: You said a moment ago that the gap between the haves and the have-notsis not sustainable over a long period of time. What does that have to do witheducation and with KIPP?

Feinberg: Knowledge is power. I think education is the greatest way we canfix the gaps that exist between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” I think thatthe “haves” are continuing to get great education and educate their children.It's how they make sure they keep it at a “have” level. The “have-nots”, thebiggest way they break out of that and get into the “have” level is through education.Education is the greatest way to eliminate those barriers, eliminate those gapsand allow people to do what they want to do in this world and to be able to contributeback to society as well as support themselves and support their families.

Smith: And are the “have-nots” not getting a decent break in education at thispoint by and large?

Feinberg: Most I don't believe are. There are some great public schools outthere, there are some mediocre public schools out there, and there are a lotof lousy public schools out there. And under the current delivery of public educationwhere it's one school down the block that you have to send your kid to, whetherit's performing awesome, mediocre or poor, there's really nothing that familiesin underserved communities can do about it. So there has to be some sort of choiceopen to them and there has to be other alternative deliveries of public educationthat raise the quality that they can get for their children.

Smith: So are you saying that the “haves” have a choice? They can leave, theycan go to a private school, they can move neighborhoods, and it's the “have-not” kidswho are left with the lousy public schools?

Feinberg: That's the scenario that, unfortunately, too many communities facetoday. And that's a challenge we have to figure out a solution to.

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