Conor "The Megatern" Clarke has a good piece in TNR today about the high-performing KIPP charter schools that were so adoringly profiled in last week's New York Times Magazine. As currently stands, the schools get impressive results, with the one confounding question being whether they do so with a higher-quality pool of applicants. The problem, however, is that their hype will now ensure them a higher-quality pool of applicants, and since charter schools are legally mandated to hold entrance lotteries, there ain't nothing KIPP can do about it.
This doesn't worry me too much. The evidence seems pretty clear that KIPP is doing something right, and if selection bias drags their results back from the stratosphere, they're nevertheless flying pretty high. In which case, the overwhelming press is precisely how charter schools are supposed to work. Concerns about replication aside, the whole utility of charter schools is that, once one does figure out a program that works, market forces will encourage its propagation. In this case, media coverage encouraging KIPP's duplication looks like a perfectly fine substitute.
Lastly, if the critics are right and KIPP is simply offering enhanced opportunities to the children of already-engaged urban parents, that's still a good thing, even if it would do less for the median kid. A major problem in deteriorated urban communities is a lack of options and opportunities for those who are doing everything right. If schools like KIPP do very little for the mass in the middle but enlarge the zone of opportunity at the top, it'll be a desirable outcome all the same.
