Ivy League Aspirations

[aapride]

<p>[Why</a> KIPP Charter Schools Are Obsessed With College | Newsweek Politics: The Obama Presidency | Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/id/180108/page/2]Why”>http://www.newsweek.com/id/180108/page/2)</p>

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Strong teacher-student relationships drive the KIPP college effort, too. One of Levin’s former students, a senior at the private high school Saint Mark’s, called him for help when she was arrested for shoplifting, and was astonished to see his stern face at her door the next morning, finding a lawyer, arranging transfer to another school and lecturing her on bad choices. When the unmarried status of one Houston student’s parents hurt her immigration and financial situation as she applied to college, Feinberg persuaded the couple to wed.</p>

<p>Dan Castillo, whose family still lives in a Bronx public-housing project, remembers KIPP classes full of collegiate insignia. University banners covered the walls. Homerooms were named after KIPP teachers’ colleges, so Castillo was in the University of Chicago in fifth grade, the Brown group in sixth grade. He went to a private high school, Northfield Mount Hermon, where the workload was a shock. “But I learned at KIPP I had to make sacrifices, like the fact that I had been going to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. since the fifth grade,” he said. He will graduate from Colgate this spring with a joint major in economics and political science.</p>

<p>Not all KIPP graduates go to college, and not all stay, but the network is working on that. Every KIPP educator serves as a college counselor. Doric Gassaway, now in his high-school senior year at the Friendship Collegiate Academy in D.C., has gotten into some Maryland state colleges but dreams of Ivy LeagueColumbia, with his former middle-school principal, Schaeffler, still cheering him on. “We are hoping he will be valedictorian this year,” she said. She has him interning at the new KIPP primary school, and telling kindergartners they too will be going to college.

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<p>I disgaree do not take any loans in this environment as they may be harder to pay off.</p>