KIPP Tech Valley Charter School

2 VIEWS OF KIPP'S NUMBERS, October 6, 2010, Times Union (Albany, NY)

…By the numbers, KIPP Tech Valley Charter School is Albany's best public school. Virtually every eighth-grader passed the 2009 English and math exams. The fifth-through-eighth-grade school sends graduates on full scholarships to some of the nation's top boarding schools, as well as to the advanced classes at Albany High School. The minimum passing grade on an assignment is 70 percent…
Despite solid test results, critics point to a different number -- an attrition rate of more than 50 percent -- that they say is evidence the school hasn't changed public education but is instead cherry-picking the best students and sending the rest back to the Albany district. Eleven KIPP students have returned to Albany schools since the end of the last school year, and the school does not enroll new seventh and eighth graders.
"The point is to educate every kid," Albany school board President Dan Egan said. "When you set up a different funding system and different rules, it's a diversion from what ought to be our main effort."…

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