So the possibitity of having student loan debt is suppose to make us think twice about pursuing such dreams? I don't understand that thought process. KIPP students are often time the most improvished students in the country, who were told up until KIPP that they would amount nothing. Now, I see an obviously educated person asserting that we "are going to find a hard, unpleasant truth.... after following our dreams" I am a graduate of KIPP Academy (the original KIPP school in the Bronx, NY)... the 2nd class ever to go through the program... I went on to attend Spelman College and now have a B.A. in Economics and am currently pursuing a Masters of Professional Accounting. Yes, I have debt! What college graduate doesn't who isn't practically rich. Its not an end all. The values, determination and persistence that I learned at KIPP, when I wasn't getting it at home, opened my eyes to all the possibilities. Just because you fall, does that not mean you can't get back up. You have $80K in student loans, so you're going to wine about it or do something. It may seem like a pretty, painted picture that is fed to us but you can not comment on the situation the same way that a child, now woman, who went throught the program. That unwavering notion that everything IS possible that was instilled in me as a KIPPster is what keeps me pushing on EVERYDAY. I was recently laid off but I'm not gonna complain and get down on myself about my 53K in loans and sing that old song "wo is me"... I know how hard I've worked, in KIPP, in high school, at Spelman College and now grad school. If you're expecting a lost, you damn sure are gonna get it. You reep what you sow. Stop worrying that you aren't gonna get a job or be able to pay of your student loans and do something about it.
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Ivy League Aspirations
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Strong teacher-student relationships drive the KIPP college effort, too. One of Levin's former students, a senior at the private high school Saint Mark's, called him for help when she was arrested for shoplifting, and was astonished to see his stern face at her door the next morning, finding a lawyer, arranging transfer to another school and lecturing her on bad choices. When the unmarried status of one Houston student's parents hurt her immigration and financial situation as she applied to college, Feinberg persuaded the couple to wed.
Dan Castillo, whose family still lives in a Bronx public-housing project, remembers KIPP classes full of collegiate insignia. University banners covered the walls. Homerooms were named after KIPP teachers' colleges, so Castillo was in the University of Chicago in fifth grade, the Brown group in sixth grade. He went to a private high school, Northfield Mount Hermon, where the workload was a shock. "But I learned at KIPP I had to make sacrifices, like the fact that I had been going to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. since the fifth grade," he said. He will graduate from Colgate this spring with a joint major in economics and political science.
Not all KIPP graduates go to college, and not all stay, but the network is working on that. Every KIPP educator serves as a college counselor. Doric Gassaway, now in his high-school senior year at the Friendship Collegiate Academy in D.C., has gotten into some Maryland state colleges but dreams of Ivy LeagueColumbia, with his former middle-school principal, Schaeffler, still cheering him on. "We are hoping he will be valedictorian this year," she said. She has him interning at the new KIPP primary school, and telling kindergartners they too will be going to college.
Mathews is the author of “Work Hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America.”
© 2009
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