If a kid comes into school from a completely chaotic household where he has been soaked in distilled negative influences the chances are very low that he will succeed. There is no educational program or school structure that can fix that. The kids who are the very worst off need tons of personal caring attention just to get to the point where they care about learning. This can only be accomplished by individuals going into the community where these kids leave and spending time with them. I post this because I think it is a bit unfair to criticize the KIPP programs or any programs that only help the motivated. Those who are motivated but lack resources need help and helping them is good. Those who aren't motivated need help too but it is a different kind of help.

To be fair I did not see it as a criticism, but more as an example of why the program cannot be scaled up to a national level. On a national level we are supposed to attempt to educate everyone, not just the best and brightest.

we do attempt to educate everyone in this country, the whole problem is we have started to ignore the best and brightest and pour ever more dollars into a rat hole with no chance of a return.

we must come to grips with the fact that not all kids are equal in ability or motivation.

some just can't be taught, some just don't want to be taught. not ot mention the fact that schools are soaked in gangs, sexual stimualtion, marxist brainwashing.

sending your child to a public school now amounts to child abuse. they will be scarred for life and never know a day of peace at school.

Sexual stimulation. LOL.

You are a weirdo, Bigfeet. Sending your kid to public school is child abuse? Oh my...

No...I shall not feed the troll!

I agree. Why not spend more money on children that are teachable. I also think we should find ways to encourage middle class parents to have more children instead of giving welfare checks to parents to have more children that are hard to teach. This would raise the test scores all over the USA and would keep us competitive with other countries in the future. There are many studies showing that IQ is inheritable and if you encourage the wrong parents to have kids, this will increase the number of children who will struggle and there is nothing you can do about it. Real life is not about rote learning. We need people that are innovative in an ever more global environment otherwise we will become a 3rd world country.