Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2011

Young Alumni Award from the Kenan-Flagler Business School in 2003, immediately went into teaching. He signed on with Teach For America, a nonprofit organization that attracts high-caliber college students and places them in underserved schools.

“I realized from that summer experience
that here was something more important in life
than earning money,” he said, “that impacting
kids’ lives was something that was personally
very fulfilling but also something that allowed
me to leverage my strengths and have a larger
impact on society.”
Teach For America assigned him to an ele-
mentary school in Atlanta, where he said he
didn’t have much chance to exercise his busi-
ness skills. “I used Microsoft Excel more than
the average teacher did to track student grades
and their performance,” he said.

His business education was unusually useful
two years later, when KIPP hired him to open
a school in Atlanta. “At the time I was in
charge of everything,” he said.

KIPP Schools Believe Knowledge is Power

KIPP, or Knowledge Is Power Program, is the brainchild of two former public school teachers — Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin — who designed what they believed would be an effective educational model for underprivileged youth.

They opened the first two schools in Houston and the Bronx in 1995. Now there are 109 schools in 20 states and Washington, D.C., including five run by David Jernigan ’00 in Atlanta.

As charter schools, KIPP schools receive state funding but not as much as regular public schools; that means they can dispense with many state-mandated rules and regulations. “We follow the same state curriculum and take the same tests,” Jernigan said, “but how we teach it is up to us.”

T. LYNNE PIXLEY

KIPP involves “rolling up our sleeves and working for our kids and asking them to do the same,” David Jernigan ’00 says.

The KIPP model sets high standards. It requires students and parents to sign a contract committing to extended school hours, completing homework assignments, and behavioral and dress code standards.

In return, KIPP promises to shepherd the
students through high school and beyond.
“What makes KIPP different,” Jernigan said,
“is that it’s focused on not only getting our
kids to college but through college.”
“From the very beginning, KIPP schools
have been grounded in the belief that
strength of character is as important as aca-
demic skills,” said KIPP spokesman Steve
Mancini. “We want our KIPPsters to possess
both the knowledge and resilience needed to
be successful in college and in life.”
KIPP academies have myriad practices in
place aimed at instilling a sense of responsibili-
ty and self-respect among its students or, as
they call them, scholars. The approach can be
as simple as making linguistic choices — for
example, using the word “scholar” instead of
“student” or “academy” instead of “school.”
The approach also can be much more
complex. Some KIPP schools, for example,
require entering fifth-graders to “earn” their
seat in the classroom. They do this by com-
pleting a series of exercises that involve team-
work and 100 percent completion of their
homework.