TEAM (i.e., KIPP’s Newark consortium) responds to another meme of anti-reformers: that students who struggle at charter schools are “pushed out” in order to maintain high achievement rates at the cost of attrition. I’m sure that this happens sometimes, but so does its inverse. For example, a charter school principal told me that the neighborhood traditional school “sends” her students with behavioral problems.
Here, TEAM asks the question, “are our students staying with us?”
Because these numbers aren’t consistently collected or reported here in New Jersey, we wanted to take an opportunity to share our numbers and talk about student attrition more generally.
Our results:
TEAM’s student attrition is very low, both in an absolute sense and relative to district schools in Newark.
Across our six schools in Newark, our student attrition last year was only 7%, among the lowest of any region in KIPP. Our attrition rates are low and getting lower – we’ve reduced student attrition by a full percentage point over the past four school years, even as KIPP New Jersey has grown significantly in size.
More, including methodology, at this link.