Secrets of ‘miraculous’ charter management organizations - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Secrets of ‘miraculous’ charter management organizations - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post: "At KIPP schools, one of the CMOs honored as “successful,” students are, on average, paid $40-$50 a week to incentivize compliant behavior. Again, no groundbreaking insight here: for decades this reward/punishment method has been used by parents in the form of a far more modest “allowance” which depended on complying with parent rules. Since the policy is not financially replicable if charters are brought to scale, then why is it cited as a model to be emulated?

But the most wafer-thin finding of the report is that successful CMOs engage in more coaching of teachers. First, frequent coaching of teachers can be a sign that charter teachers are poorly prepared for the profession. I know of one KIPP school that was largely staffed by novice Teach for America teachers and so had one vice principal for every 10 teachers who needed constant on-the-job training. But assuming that extensive coaching is necessary for a skilled teaching staff, do these CMOs coach more frequently and more effectively than other schools?"

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