School critic prefers KIPP

By Anya Tikka
MILFORD — A former teacher and advocate of a demanding college prep program regularly blasts the Delaware Valley School District for not expecting the best out of its students. And he's been given ammunition by recent test results that show scores at DV plummeting.

But DV officials say his criticisms are unfair, and that with heightened new standards schools throughout Pennsylvania are seeing the same drop-off.

The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) scores, announced in September, have been the object of much comment and scrutiny by school officials and the public. The state toughened its standards this year to conform with federal requirements.

The critic, Anthony Splendora of Milford, says that “highlighted in those results are 48 Delaware Valley classes flagged as ‘historically underperforming.’"

He believes the district takes the results too casually. He wants to see DV adopt a rigorous academic program like K.I.P.P. (the Knowledge is Power Program), designed to help the “historically underperforming” student population.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education defines "historically underperforming" students as disabled and economically disadvantaged students and English language learners enrolled in school for a full academic year.

Splendora said he’s long advocated bringing special programs to DV to ensure that all students get the chance they deserve to succeed.

“I'm for implementing rigorous education at Delaware Valley, as you may have gathered from my letters going back those 20 years," he told the Courier. "We are already spending the money — not on intensive education but on building little cities in the forest and on diversionary programs. It seems that we have money for everything but intensive education, the kind that engenders education's highest desired results.”

The open enrollement KIPP program is much tougher than the usual academic regime, and gets results that have been lauded everywhere from "60 Minutes" to Education Week. Both teachers and students in KIPP work long hours, which is seen as the key to good scores and high rates of graduation and college acceptance.

The KIPP school day — from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. — is much longer than the usual school day. Students must also attend classes on Saturdays and for nearly four weeks in summer. And KIPP students get much more homework than other students do. Discipline is seen as another important factor in KIPP's success.

All this work is designed to help disadvantaged students not only to keep up with their peers but even surpass them.

KIPP has had its share of critics, however. Some say about KIPP what is often said about charter schools generally: that it attracts the best among historically underperforming students, and does not have to educate as many special education and limited English proficiency students as do public schools, which are obliged to take every student. One 2008 study found the rate of attrition as high as 60 percent in one case.

'Comparing apples with oranges'

Dr. Gina Vitacco-Vives, Director of Curriculum and Technology at DV, declined to comment on whether a KIPP-like program would be suitable for DV. But she said it was pointless to compare this year's test scores from previous years. She echoed Superintendent John Bell’s assessment that you’re "comparing apples with oranges" when the yardstick definition has changed.

Bell and Vitacco-Vives declined to comment on Splendora’s suggestion to adopt a more rigorous program.

Splendora said historically underperforming students "are precisely the students who benefit most from specialized regimens such as KIPP, which for 20 years I have been advocating for Delaware Valley. NPR recently reported that previously underperforming students who get through KIPP — no picnic, to be sure, with eight hours of classes six days a week for up to 48 weeks a year — those kids outperform their mainstream peers and are five times more likely to complete four-year colleges than their similarly stigmatized peers.”

Splendora claims that Delaware Valley has never produced a medical doctor, a mathematician, an astronomer, an astrophysicist, a veterinarian, an historian, or college professor from among the tens of thousands of graduates.

This claim was not immediately verifiable. Bell declined to comment.

Splendora also claimed the district is spending as much per student as private schools do, but not getting anywhere near their results. He accused the district of accepting as normal a huge population of historically underperforming students.

“Remedies are available, if only we would apply them.”

What do you think, readers? Would Delaware Valley benefit from an intensive program like KIPP? Post your comment at pikecountycourier.com. We'd especially love to hear from medical doctors, mathematicians, astronomers, astrophysicists, veterinarians, historians, or college professors who have graduated from DV.