A new study finds lasting, positive effects for students who attend KIPP’s prekindergarten program and then go on to enroll in one of the charter school network’s elementary programs.
The Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP, is a network of more than 200 charter schools. Mathematica Policy Research studied students who had won a lottery to attend a KIPP pre-K program and their counterparts who had not won a slot to attend. Five years later, when students who attended KIPP pre-K were in 2nd grade, their reading scores were much higher than their fellow students who had not attended KIPP on Woodcock-Johnson reading skills tests, approximately equivalent to going from the 66th to the 80th percentile. The KIPP students showed similar gains in math, outperforming peers on the Woodcock-Johnson’s applied math skills test to the tune of an approximate increase from the 47th to the 60th percentiles.
