KIPP Schools: No thanks we’re kiwis

Box 56482

Dominion Road

Auckland

19 September 2012

Media Release:

KIPP Schools: No thanks we’re kiwis

Wealthy “philanthro-capitalist” Julian Robertson has brought Mike Feinberg from the KIPP (Knowledge is Power) charter school programme to New Zealand to promote charter schools and prepare the way for the privatisation of public education.

Feinberg is speaking at public meetings in Auckland and Wellington and in reporting on his visit we hope the media will look beyond the glossy PR promotion and report accurately the obvious weaknesses of these schools as well as their alleged strengths.

Pasted below is a Q & A on the main issues we see with this proposal to begin privatising our public education system.

What this portrays is a hideous caricature of education which would be anathema to most New Zealand parents. KIPP has overall dropout rates of 30% before Year 9 – which rises to 40% (sic) for African American male children – and this would never be tolerated in a New Zealand school.

If 40% of lower-achieving Maori or Pacific boys dropped out of school by the end of Year 8 there would be questions asked in parliament and a commission of inquiry – and quite rightly so.

KIPP prefers to weed out these kids and then bask in the warm glow of the successes of the students that remain.

It’s the kids who drop out of KIPP who are the very children New Zealand charter schools are supposed to help. KIPP leaves them behind.
ends

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