Increasingly, the marketplace has rewarded colleges that turn away the most students, and the competition to be competitive has become white-hot. Winning that competition may be great for colleges, but the hidden cost is enormous — for the nation and for young people of great promise but little privilege. They are the ones left behind when colleges become laser-focused on exclusivity and lose sight of their vital role in inviting a new generation of students into opportunity and leadership.

I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with thousands of enormously talented, hard-working kids from working-class and low-income families. These are brilliant potential first-generation college students. But for kids in such communities, the belief is pervasive that there’s no point in applying to a selective college.

That belief is poisonous to our society, and there has never been a more important time for a cadre of college presidents to step forward and prove it wrong. It’s time to send a message of hope and opportunity to replace a dominant, powerful message of exclusion.

Here’s the situation today: According to a recent report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, a mere 3 percent of students at the nation’s most selective colleges come from the lowest-income quartile of American families, and only 11 percent come from the second-lowest quartile — while a stunning 72 percent come from the highest income quartile. And there’s been virtually no progress over the last decade. That’s not a plan to enable social mobility, it’s a way to reinforce a status quo of sharply limited opportunity for the poor, the working-class and a good part of the middle class. 

The nation’s selective colleges aren’t just centers for learning and research. They are also the gateways to leadership in business, public service, law, medicine and much else — and the networks of opportunity and privilege that accompany those roles. Whether the doors of those approximately 200 schools are genuinely open to all who qualify has a broader impact on the nature of opportunity in America.

It’s time for dramatic action to change the odds for low-income kids. It’s time for bold leadership by the nation’s elite colleges to enroll many more students from communities of poverty, color and rural isolation. And I believe that key leaders in higher education are ready to act.

Through my experience leading KIPP, a network of 183 public schools serving largely educationally underserved students, I’ve come to believe leaders in higher education have never been more interested in charting a new course. And it’s clear that when colleges make a priority of sending a message of opportunity, students respond and thrive. Just ask the 41 KIPP alumni who attend the University of Pennsylvania, or the 19 at UNC Chapel Hill, or the 10 at Wesleyan University, or the 34 at Franklin and Marshall, or the 15 at UC Berkeley. If this is possible for students at one network of schools, think what is possible for this nation.

Steven Susaña-Castillo, a KIPP alum, on his graduation day from Wesleyan University. (Courtesy photo)

Here’s how change could begin: Imagine if leaders at 40 of the most selective colleges in the country stepped up, with a commitment to create 100 new spots at each of their schools and combined that with a significant effort to expose talented low-income students to their institutions. That’s the equivalent of adding two Harvard or Yale freshman classes.

Seats for 4,000 new students might not seem like a lot, on a national scale. But the echo effect in low-income communities, among other colleges, and on the makeup of the nation’s future leadership, would be tremendous.

Here’s why this matters so much. Attending and graduating from college – particularly a four-year college – makes an astonishing difference in the life trajectory of a young person. (Workers with a bachelor’s degree out-earn those with only a high school diploma about $65,000 to $35,000 annually, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) To be sure, college debt is a real issue — but the big picture is that going to college and getting a degree will be the best investment most young people in this country will ever make.

That effect multiplies at selective colleges, which play a powerful gatekeeper role in our society, producing the majority of the nation’s top public figures, business leaders, jurists and more. The human networks that surround them are powerful and multigenerational.

And while some might argue that the academic pace is tough at such colleges, it’s crucial to note that students are more likely to graduate from such academically demanding colleges, because of the stronger supports they offer. This has absolutely been the case for our KIPP alumni, and research has been clear on this for years.

Yet today, patterns of whether, and where, students apply to college are reflective not so much of students’ talent, promise and academic record as of their wealth.

In a crucial 2013 study, Caroline Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard reported that “the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective college. This is despite the fact that selective institutions typically cost them less, owing to generous financial aid, than the two-year and nonselective four-year institutions to which they actually apply. Moreover, low-income high achievers have no reason to believe they will fail at selective institutions since those who do apply are admitted and graduate at high rates.”

And indeed, low-income high school seniors with good test scores are actually less likely to enroll in a four-year college than are high-income seniors with only average test scores, according to a 2010 Century Foundation report.

Dramatic, well-publicized action by a sizeable group of selective colleges would do more than create thousands of seats for talented individual students. It would send a message that would be heard in inner cities and working-class and rural communities throughout the nation, inspiring students with a new sense of possibility.

Such a plan wouldn’t exist in a vacuum; it would need to be combined with strong supports for high-need students. The plan could start by exposing more students to college experiences during their middle and high school summers. Imagine, for example, if 4,000 of our nation’s most academically advanced low-income middle school students were invited to spend the summers of their 8th, 9th and 10th-grade years on an elite college campus, preparing for college. KIPP would commit to help build such an effort. Likewise, we are committed to continuing to work to improve the quality of pre-K-12 learning students receive, to prepare them as well as we possibly can for college.

Now is the time for a bold new effort to expand opportunity, and I am convinced college presidents have never been more eager to play a leadership role in reversing a trend of income polarization and social stratification that is dividing our society. Not because it will improve their standing on traditional rankings, but because it’s the right thing to do. And because it will send a message of hope that will echo throughout the country.

In the next generation, opportunity will be the new exclusiveness. Who will step up to lead?

Richard Barth has been CEO of the KIPP Foundation since December, 2005. Over the past 10 years, he has overseen the significant growth of the KIPP network of public charter schools from 45 to 183 schools.

This article was published in partnership with The74Million.org. 

Top-ranked Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies

In the extensive U.S. News & World Report ranking of all the public high schools in the country, LA’s top 10 include four independent charters, three magnets and three traditional schools.

The Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies was the top-ranked LA school and the only LA Unified school in California’s top 20. It was 18th in the state and 138th nationally. The school was just honored last month for exceptional merit and innovation by the Magnet Schools of America.

The magazine evaluated nearly 20,000 public high schools throughout the country and ranked them on several factors, including state test scores, the number of students taking Advanced Placement and college-level courses and overall college readiness.

The rankings showed that 47 LA Unified schools, or 19 percent of all local high schools, rank above the California average.

“These results affirm our commitment to prepare our students for college and careers,” said Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson. “LA Unified is proud of our students, teachers and leaders for their scholarly accomplishments, both locally and nationally. This recognition represents the best of the best.”

LACES Principal Harold Boger pointed out that 90 percent of students at LACES take Advanced Placement classes, and minority enrollment is 72 percent.

“Obviously we are thrilled to get recognized for creating a culture where students are not afraid to challenge themselves by taking AP courses,” he said. “We have made a special effort to eliminate middle school courses that have the effect of tracking students at an early stage of either being AP or non-AP students. In fact all of our students know that they will take AP World History in the 10th grade and that all of their prior courses will have been sufficient preparation to succeed in this course.”

But they may be a victim of their success. Boger added, “On the other hand we are a little concerned that we have done such a great job in developing this AP culture among students that maybe it is time to encourage students to consider taking less AP courses. Presently about 40 percent of our juniors and seniors take four or more AP courses. Even though students continue to find ways to ultimately be successful in these courses, we have noticed that the stress level of some students has increased. This has led us to pay more attention to students’ emotional development as we strive to maintain high academic standards.”

The second-highest ranked LA Unified school is Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy at 196 nationally, and third is the charter school Magnolia Science Academy 2 at 223. Two charter schools, Wallis Annenberg High and Bright Star Secondary Charter Academy, rank 246 and 247 nationally, and fourth and fifth in the LA Unified rankings.

Listed at sixth in the district is the magnet school Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High, at 252 nationally, seventh is Elizabeth Learning Center at 277, and eighth is Downtown Business High at 360.

Rounding out the top 10 locally are the charter school Alliance Gertz-Ressler Richard Merkin 6-12 Complex at 383 and, at 406, the traditional school Foshay Learning Center.

Five Alliance College-Ready Public Schools are in the top 20 California schools in the rankings.

Dan Katzir, Alliance’s CEO, said in a statement, “A record-breaking 14 Alliance high schools were recognized. Six were ranked among the top 10 percent of high schools in Los Angeles County. We are proud to announce that, once again, Alliance schools rank among the best in the nation.”

Green Dot has one school in the top 200 high schools nationally, Animo Leadership Charter High which came in at 168, and six schools in the top 200 charter schools nationally.

KIPP had two schools in California’s top 20, both in Northern California.

Magnolia Public Schools had two schools in California’s top 100 and also had the top charter in LA Unified, Magnolia Science Academy 2 in Van Nuys. It was the 66th highest-ranked charter high school in the nation.

In California, Magnolia Science Academy 2 was ranked 32, and Magnolia Science Academy Reseda was ranked 96.

“We’re proud to once again have our schools recognized as among the best in the state and nation,” said Magnolia CEO Caprice Young. “When our charter schools repeatedly rank high on this list, it’s further validation of Magnolia’s successful track record of ensuring that all students—no matter their socioeconomic, ethnic or cultural background—graduate prepared for college because they’re already succeeding in college-level work in high school.”

For more: Read LA School Report’s in-depth look at one of the top schools, Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet. 

Jose Rodriguez and Alvaro Quintero recount their journey from a public charter high school in South LA to attending Yale and Harvard. (Credit: Kathy Moore)

By the time Alvaro Quintero and Jose Rodriguez reached the end of their senior year, they were no longer Alvaro and Jose.

“Before we left, we got our names changed to Harvard and Yale, respectively,” Rodriguez recalled. “That is how we were referred to.”

At once they had lost their familiar identity in the halls of Animo Pat Brown Charter High School in Los Angeles and taken on instead the weight of becoming the first graduates in the 10-year history of the Green Dot school to reach the Ivy League.

That they won admission to two of the most elite colleges in the country coming from a heavily Latino community where 74 percent of the residents don’t have a high school diploma and 72 percent of families live on less than $40,000 a year was no small feat.

“The first school I got into was Princeton. I remember getting home and being super excited,” said Quintero, who ended up at Harvard. “My dad didn’t know what Princeton was until I got in. I told him it was ranked the best school in the country and I was getting to go for free. ‘Where is it?’ ‘New Jersey.’ ‘You can just go the community college down the street. It’s the same thing, right?’”

“It’s been great for the most part,” Rodriguez said. “My parents are super proud of me, but even to this day I don’t think they understand what it means for me to be at Yale. And they probably won’t have the chance to visit me until I graduate, which is kind of a bummer.”

But that was only part of the story they told Tuesday in Austin, Texas, at the South By Southwest Education Festival panel From South LA to the Ivy League. What happened to them once they got to those bastions of East Coast privilege and how they are surviving their critical first year was the other.

With them on the panel was Joel Snyder, a teacher and advisor at Pat Brown who is tracking the college outcomes of 10 graduates from the class of 2015 who ended up at places ranging from community college to Cal State, to the University of California, Berkeley, to the Holy Grail of Harvard and Yale.

Some of these students have special education classifications, some were undocumented. All, including Rodriguez and Quintero, bore the statistical burden that they were not likely to graduate.

“A lot of the excitement when an alum comes back to see me is tempered by a lot of concern with what they are going to say,” said Snyder, who taught for several years at Morris High School in the South Bronx before moving to the West Coast. “There are too many stories of students coming back with an explanation of why they are no longer in school or why they won’t be after this current semester.”

Panel moderator Ellie Herman said afterward that a recent study from high-performing charter network KIPP showed that only 33 percent of their graduates who went on to college graduated in six years. The two additional years were already tacked on to recognize the extra courses that students might need to take or that some would be forced to leave school to help support their families.

“For me, the most difficult part was the academics,” Rodriguez said. “Green Dot does a wonderful job preparing kids for college, but as hard as they try, there is no way they can prepare for the vast change of what is expected of us.”

Rodriguez and Quintero said they took advantage of study groups, support networks with other first-generation college kids and professors’ office hours. Some of their classmates from more privileged backgrounds might need the same help, they said, but were embarrassed to seek it. They were not.

Quintero said he didn’t speak to a soul for the first month he was at Harvard and can recite without hesitation that Cambridge is 2,295 miles from LA. Eventually, both he and Rodriguez were excited to encounter students so foreign to them, ones who who flew home on the weekends (they won’t go home again until summer vacation), were from countries they never heard of or are majoring in obscure subjects like elliptical metallurgy.

“Meeting people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds is a little intimidating at first, but it’s fun,” Rodriguez said.

“No matter how different they might be, no matter how much the gap might be in wealth, they are still very much like me,” Quintero said.

Going home and fitting in with old friends has its own challenges.

“They fall into two categories. They are either super proud of us, we are like goals to them, or they fall into the category where they kind of resent us,” Rodriguez said. “We have to be careful talking to them about our experience at college or they feel like we are showing off.”

“It’s gotten to the point where I can’t tell people about my school. It’s kind of like I’m ashamed,” Quintero said. “I never thought I would be judged by the school I went to. They treat me like the guy that goes to Harvard, not as Alvaro. They treat me differently.”

As for moving from South LA to the Ivy League, Quintero and Rodriguez credited their teachers: a chemistry teacher who stayed after school to prepare students for the AP exam, or any number of teachers who would still be in the building at 6 or 7 in the evening doing work or “sometimes just talking, trying to get to know them, and it was wonderful,” Rodriguez said. Quintero recalled the guidance counselor who paid for some of his college application fees.

Snyder said these educators should be commended but the bigger issue was figuring out a system of sustainable support, to help students surrounded by family and friends without college diplomas get through to earning their own.

“It’s a dirty, messy complicated question and no one really wants to get in the middle of it,” he said. “We won’t get by on heroes.”

This article was published in partnership with The74Million.org.

Amber Young Medina

KIPP Raíces Academy School in East Los Angeles celebrated its National Blue Ribbon Schools award on Tuesday. After the ceremony, LA School Report caught up with the school’s founding principal, Amber Young Medina, who opened Raíces in 2008 and is now the managing director of KIPP LA Schools. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.

LA School Report: Tell me about your background, where you grew up and how you got into education.

Amber Young Medina: I was born and raised in Los Angeles and I went to college at Amherst in Massachusetts. I grew up in Agoura. I knew my parents had sacrificed a ton for my sister and me to go to private school, but I never knew why. And then when I went to Amherst I took a class where I had to teach in a local high school, and it was the first time I had actually been in a public school, I realized. I was infuriated by what I was seeing, that students of color were making up the mainstream classrooms and Caucasian students were making up the AP classes, and I was outraged. I called up my mom to talk about what I was seeing and experiencing, and she said, ‘Why do you think your father and I sacrificed so much?’ Because my mother is Mexican-American, and based on her educational experiences in Los Angeles, she wanted to pay to have a voice, so that no one would look at my sister and me and not believe anything less than what she was believing. And so I felt that parents absolutely need to believe in the schools in their community and not have to question whether or not the teachers and the staff believe in the families.

At that point I knew I was committed to education, I knew that’s exactly what I was going to be doing in my life, and so when I graduated from Amherst I did Teach For America at Compton Unified and I was part of a change of what was happening there. We had an incredibly dynamic principal that was leading a team and we were making incredible growth at the school and we became Compton’s first California Distinguished School. So I was part of that, and then my principal went on maternity leave, so at the age of 26 I stepped in as the interim principal.

LA School Report: Were you the youngest principal in Compton Unified?

Young Medina: I don’t know the exact statistics. It was meant to be three months and it turned into two years. And so it was an incredible experience. I absolutely loved my time in Compton. And then I found out there was an opportunity to found the first KIPP elementary school in California. And it is funny because when I had been at Compton my friend’s father had sent me a news article about KIPP and wrote a note on it that said, ‘You need to work for KIPP.’ But KIPP was only middle schools at the time.

LA School Report: There were no elementary schools in LA?

Young Medina: Yeah, no elementary schools, and when KIPP was founded there were only a few elementary schools. It was a very new part of KIPP and so when I found out about the opportunity, leaving Compton was a tough decision, but I knew it was the right thing. I really wanted to be a part of KIPP where it is all about the students first. So I applied for the Fisher Fellowship, was awarded the Fisher Fellowship and spent a year planning.

LA School Report: What is the Fisher Fellowship?

Young Medina: The Fisher Fellowship is, you spend a year planning and designing the school. It’s a KIPP national fellowship … you go through selection and then you spend a year in leadership training with them, visiting schools across the country, writing your school design plan, and writing your charter. And then it happened, August 11, 2008, we opened.

LA School Report: I would imagine that time at Compton was like spring training. Because Compton is a district that has challenges but you got to see how a school can do well within that, since it was a California Distinguished School. Tell me more about that time. It must have been crucial for everything going forward.

Young Medina: It absolutely was. So much that I learned there I brought here. And over time, the beautiful thing is when you create a new iteration you can make it better. So people that have taught at Raíces and now they are founders, I see what they take and how they make it their own. Many of the practices that I started in Compton still exist here.

LA School Report: And then when school started here, you were the principal?

Young Medina: I was the founding principal. So I was the principal here for six years. And then Chelsea [Zegarski] took over. She was one of the founding teachers and then assistant principal. So I transitioned to KIPP LA as managing director of schools.

LA School Report: What do you think it is that has made this school special, and above and beyond so many other schools?

Young Medina: I think it starts with our values. It’s a really loving place, but it is also coupled with high expectations and a focus on results. It’s about having an incredible team truly committed to our mission. And working in partnership with our families. It’s truly a family. Like today, one of the most beautiful moments was [parent Mirna Cardenas] saying [about Young Medina], ‘She came into my home and made me feel like I was joining a family.’ And I think that’s incredibly powerful. Those relationships and that partnership we have with our families from the beginning is really a beautiful thing.

LA School Report: Have any KIPP LA schools been a Blue Ribbon winner before?

Young Medina: We are the first.

LA School Report: So what does today feel like for you? On stage you were talking about running booths at farmers markets to recruit kids. What a journey from there to here.

Young Medina: It is. Because when, at that time, I literally roamed throughout the parks, and if I saw a child that looked like they were 4, I would go up to them and say, ‘Are you 4?’ It’s amazing people didn’t call the police on me. But I would essentially approach families, and I was a stranger to them. And I started talking to them about this idea of what we were creating and this promise of what we were going to deliver. And I think promises to families and kids are sacred, and to see that the promise is being upheld and honored is incredibly powerful.

UPDATED*

LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines has corrected a statement he made at Tuesday’s board meeting, telling the members in an email that he erred in saying charter schools receive more in state funding than traditional public schools.

“One of the problems is the funding of charters versus regular schools. And the charters in the state get more money than the regular schools do,” he told the board. (Click on the above video to view his comments on charter funding.}

Board member Tamar Galatzan was not present during the discussion, but no other member challenged him. Monica Ratliff and George McKenna seemed to agree with him.

“He’s telling us the truth,” McKenna said. Ratliff added, “We need to discuss the impact of having different rules and different funding for traditional public schools versus our public charters.”

But Cortines took the comments back yesterday. In his email — a copy of which he sent to LA School Report  — he said: “After reflecting on statements I made last night concerning funding for charter schools and regular schools and speaking with staff to obtain clarification, it was made very clear to me that the law has changed since I last served as Superintendent. Charters do not appear to receive more funding than regular schools. Under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), charters and regular schools are treated equally.”

He also asked for “budget staff to prepare a brief Informative to clear up this matter.”

Cortines served as interim superintendent for LA Unified for about six months in 2000, and as superintendent from 2009 to 2011. In October, he was named interim superintendent after the resignation of John Deasy.

It’s not clear, however, that any laws have changed since his previous years of service.

Some recent studies on the subject concluded that independent charter schools had been receiving less money, not more. A 2012 study by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office and 2010 study by Ball State concluded that California charters got fewer dollars per pupil than traditional public schools.

Once the Local Control Funding Formula was enacted, it was heralded by charter movement leaders for leveling the funding playing field.

“Instead of being seen and treated as second-class citizens with separate funding streams constantly at risk of reduction or elimination, charter schools will now be funded in the same way that traditional public schools are funded,” California Charter Schools Association chief executive Jed Wallace wrote in a message to charter school operators, according to Ed Source.

The discussion that led to Cortines’ comments at the board meeting was the approval of a new independent KIPP charter school, which spawned a wider discussion on the financial impact independent charter growth may be having on the district, in particular a recent report from Moody’s Investor Service that concluded that the coming expansion of KIPP charter schools in LA Unified was a credit negative, as it will result in a loss of $35 million to the district.

*UPDATED to clarify research showing independent charter schools receive less money

(Photo via Kipp Empower Academy’s Facebook page)

KIPP LA Schools today announced plans to open nine additional campuses, nearly doubling its presence in south and east LA by 2020.

The high performing charter schools are part of the Knowledge Is Power Program,which runs 162 campuses, educating 58,000 students nationally. In LA, the organization currently operates 11 schools serving 4,000 elementary and middle school students in some of the city’s most downtrodden neighborhoods.

“The families in these communities are demanding access to an excellent college-preparatory public education for their children. KIPP LA’s growth will help meet that demand,” said Executive Director Marcia Aaron at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the organization’s new home.

The campus features 27 classrooms designed for KIPP’s blended learning model. That learning style has contributed toward an Academic Performance Index score of 991, making KIPP Empower the highest performing school in LA Unified and the 10th-best performing elementary school in California.

KIPP also operates three other schools in LA Unified that have earned API scores above 900; the state standard is 800

KIPP has not yet detailed plans for location of future campuses.

Several of the brightest, including the highest score for any school in the district as well as the highest scoring middle school, belonged to KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) charter schools.

It’s welcome news for the San Francisco-based network of schools which is celebrating 10 years of operating campuses in south and east Los Angeles and is expanding to nine campuses this year from seven.

“We’re thrilled about the (API) scores and especially proud of all of our students and teachers,” Marcia Aaron, Education Director for Los Angeles’ KIPP network of schools said. “But we still have some that we’re working on.”

Four of KIPP’s seven schools operating in 2012-13 academic year scored above 900 — that’s well over the state’s 800 API target.  The other three schools scored between 717 and 789:

• The KIPP Empower Academy in south LA, earned a score of 991, making it the highest performing school in LAUSD and the 10th-highest performing school in California.

• KIPP Comienza Community Prep in Huntington Park, scored 979, making it the third highest performing school in LAUSD.

• KIPP Raices Academy in East LA earned an API score of 969, the 6th highest performing school in LAUSD.

• KIPP LA College Prep in Boyle Heights earned a score of 916, down from 925 last year. Still, it was the highest performing middle school in LAUSD for the third year in a row.

While only about half of LA Unified 228 charters met the 800 standard, several factors contribute to the high scores for KIPP. For starters, the charter schools are very small compared with traditional district schools, each founded with only two grades at a time, adding a new grade level each year.

Empower Academy, for example, served only K-2 students.

KIPP schools also practice extended learning days. The average school day lasts nine hours, and students attend two-weeks of summer school every year.

For the KIPP schools that didn’t reach 800, Aaron says the staff is “doubling down” on providing teachers with extra professional development support. They’re also planning for more academic intervention for 5th graders across all campuses.

“The concepts that are taught in higher grades are far more complex and they require more complex teaching,” she said.

As children get older the differential between students at the low end and the high end increases.

“In middle school we will have students whose scores will range from Kindergarten to 8th or 9th grade in different subjects,” Aaron said. “Our typical incoming 5th grader is performing below our exiting 2nd graders.”

But as KIPP elementary schools matriculate 4th graders, whose average API scores is a 983, and funnel them into network middle schools, Aaron says she expects to see more gains.

Still, API scores are not the endgame, she said.

“At KIPP we’re all about college so it’s a long way before they receive their college degree,” she said. “There’s still lots of work left to do.”

Previous Posts: API Tests for LA Unified Improve Slightly, State Scores Fall, LA Unified Schools Top Lists of California’s Best Charters, By the Numbers: Charter School Waitlist Exceeds 15,000