KIPP in New Orleans: Beating the Odds

Towana Pierre-Floyd  was one of the lucky ones. Back when the lion’s share of schools in New Orleans was “pretty awful,” as Patrick Dobard, the superintendent of the city’s Recovery School District, says, teachers saw a light in young Pierre-Floyd’s eyes and steered her toward one of the city’s few select-admissions middle schools. After taking the school’s exam, she was admitted. “I had a fantastic experience,” Pierre-Floyd recalls. “I had opportunities to travel and to work with community organizations.” At the same time, even as a youngster she knew she was getting an education that was very different from that of her siblings and cousins.

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Pierre-Floyd, today an assistant principal and instructional coach at KIPP Renaissance High School on the city’s west side, draws heavily on the rich experience of her own specialized education. “What I love about what I do now is we work hard to ensure that all students have a really rich, varied, and character-driven experience that will lead them to what I had been able to experience.”

KIPP, the national network of public charter schools, considered by many one of the better charter networks–in 2014 several KIPP schools were recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools–stresses character nearly as much as it does academics. That’s one way KIPP is different from what Pierre-Floyd experienced as a child: “We focus more intently on character than I found in my middle school or high school,” she says.

Pierre-Floyd believes so much in balancing academics with character education, she sends her own two sons to KIPP schools.

“We’ve done some research on the character traits that allow a student to persist. Schools have gotten better at getting kids to college–our focus has strongly been on to and through college.” To help her students develop that persistence, Pierre-Floyd says KIPP Renaissance “lives and breathes by” the following character traits: grit, self-control, optimism, and zest.

Grit, which, though overused in some educational circles, is still a kind of virtue, means resilience, Pierre-Floyd says. “All people face challenges. But when you have grit, your automatic response is getting back up if you’ve been knocked down–it must become automatic.” There’s no indulging of feelings of defeat.

And zest? “Zest looks like the love of learning. We want students who will hear about a concept and want to take it further. We want students who will not just do math, but who want to be the next wave of mathematicians. We want them to see themselves as people kids in the future will be studying, because they’ve done something really important in the field.”

The goal is greatness.

Pierre-Floyd sees the character emphasis as essential to KIPP’s approach; it’s not an add-on. “Each KIPP school focuses on character development, and that’s powerful because we want our kids to not just be smart but to be great people.”

Greatness? That may sound lofty and idealistic, but hearing Pierre-Floyd say it, it comes across as reasonable and, in a sense, inevitable. Kids who come from high-poverty communities where there is a decided lack of zest may need to aim really high. Being “smart” or having a degree isn’t enough of a goal. Exerting this much effort the goal has to be worth it. Maybe for the teachers as well.

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“We work incredibly hard,” says Pierre-Floyd. “We want our kids to go to and through college, not just to get great jobs but to change the world.” She spends a lot of time talking to parents about college-going rates for students of color, “not just because we want them to be a rich person but to be an advocate of change and to make our world a better place. Our job is not just to make them smart and wealthy; our job is to ideally make them even better than the generations before them.”

Two unique programs.

These are powerful goals, and KIPP Renaissance has two unique programs that Pierre-Floyd says is helping the students to persist toward attaining a college degree.

Every Renaissance senior is required to take Senior College Scholars, an embedded college counseling class. Students apply to a minimum of nine colleges before completing their senior year. Counselors work with the students to determine the best match schools for them, says Pierre-Floyd, “because we know it’s not just about getting students into any school; it’s about what school is going to help them stay and get through, that has a high minority graduation rate and supports so that minority graduation is consistently happening, that it’s planned for.”

Students also take a financial literacy course so they understand what’s required of them as they start thinking about taking out loans. They get SAT prep so they’re armed with the best possible scores that will qualify them for scholarships and grants.

The school also offers KIPP through College, a staff member that keeps in touch with students through on-campus visits and e-mail. The staff member connects students to summer internships; she also helps with grades, tutoring, and navigating financial aid. “She’s an incredible resource to students to make sure that we’re balancing things that sometimes force students to leave,” says Pierre-Floyd.

Last year, the school’s first graduation class of about 90 students reflected an 83% graduation rate. Pierre-Floyd says the school leaders are learning all the time how to get better at what they do. Of course, they want to see a 100% graduation rate; some of last year’s seniors are back in school this year. “We’re still working with them,” she says.

According to the school’s website, in 2013—2014 on state test results KIPP Renaissance surpassed the state in algebra 1 and biology, but trailed it in English 1 and 2, U.S. history, and geometry. The average senior ACT score was 18 out of 36, and 11% of Advanced Placement test takers passed with a score of 3 or better.

The test results aren’t scintillating, but the school is only 5 years old. All the students are eligible to receive free lunch, 97% are African American, and 20% receive special education services.

“We’re working every year to get smarter, to get better,” Pierre-Lloyd says of the school’s leadership, who also practice developing in themselves the character strengths, especially optimism. “The work we’re doing is super intentional and focused on the result–which is helping to develop incredibly smart, incredibly skilled, incredibly character-strong young adults.”