AFT Ed is asking what The Chalkboard makes of a situation highlighted by the blogger "From the TFA Trenches" in which he complains, basically that the local KIPP school with which his school is competing isn't educating the "same kids," i.e. there is a lot of creaming going on.

The TFA guy, who always ignites blogfires whenever he wades into the land of KIPP, takes an interesting approach in terms of framing the discussion: he writes that what KIPP is doing in his community is "a paragon of best practices" and a replicable model of classroom instruction, but as a model of public education "is still the worst thing since Plessy vs. Ferguson."

His beef: There is a lottery, which tends to require already-engaged parents to make the effort to try to win a spot in the KIPP school, while TFA guy's school has to take all-comers. As he put it, "Solutions that do not equitably offer themselves to all of the children in my community are half-measures, or worse, and simply not acceptable." The end result is that TFA guy's school has a lot more tougher-to-educate kids than KIPP, he says.

This strikes me as an absolutely crucial discussion for public education. A couple of points, which I can hopefully update later in the week if the discussion continues:

1.) I would probably be inclined to agree with TFA guy with his premise, if KIPP is universally being suggested as "The Solution" to education's problems. If that was the school reform goal, 99% of the people on the inside of the charter movement (who could turn their schools into cloned KIPP's but don't because they believe strongly that other styles and choices of schooling are essential in the larger framework of public schooling offerings) would have bolted by now.

KIPP is one brand of school. They manage to get a lot of attention and considerable press (including face time with The Oprah.) But they are really just a blip on the reform radar screen. Have I heard some KIPP supporters sell themselves as "The Solution?" Yes. But they are wrong.

2.) Likewise, I'm extremely sympathetic to AFT Ed's points about the tensions that play out within districts and the system's responsibility to allocate and police equitably. But I think it is a stretch for him to say that the mere existence of a KIPP school in TFA guy's district "undermines the public good." I also think he is not quite right in his assertion that the challenges outlined in TFA guy's post can't be addressed through the political process.

Why can't the political process support a number of different undertakings that ensure there are other offerings than KIPP? Why can't the political process support enhancements to the existing district's offerings to, say, enrich the experience of the English Language Learners that appear to be attending the district's schools at a higher percentage than those at KIPP? I tend to believe that as bad as the political process can be at times, the right kind of politics can seek out creative solutions for any problem. (Which is not to say that I don't see some urgency here, because I agree with both Ed and TFA guy that there is.) Part of the political process, I would think, would include some realistic discussions led by those like TFA guy who are "in the trenches" about what is happening. I'm with him on that.

3.) That said, I'm not sure it is fair to blame KIPP for the complicated disparities that may exist. Just like TFA guy's school, KIPP has to take all-comers, only they have to go through a lottery first because the demand so far outstacks the supply. The lottery is not a sorting mechanism, it simply spreads chance across the board to all who apply. While the realities of the final enrollments can be complicated, they seem to be one of the trade-offs of creating a rigorous KIPP-style school. The alternative is not creating the rigorous KIPP-style school, which seems like a horrible choice if we are forced to choose between the opposing tensions.

4.) Last night's event in Harlem has me thinking more about the issue of parent engagement, struggles with English Language Learner families and TFA guy's general suggestion that there is creaming going on in his neck of the woods. I wonder to what extent the discussions about "creaming" make us blind to the possibility that cream itself can be created. Does the difference between active/engaged parents and parents who can be encouraged/forced to be active/engaged have to be as large as we make it? When you look at one small example of how Harlem Success got its parents to move from 38% participation in nightly reading logs to 99% participation (including finding creative ways to help their non-English speaking families and those where parents didn't know how to read) might it not suggest we're missing a golden opportunity to do better?

5.) In the spirit of moving the debate along and nodding to AFT Ed's sincerity on the issue: to the extent that any one charter school is offering itself up as "The Solution" rather than "an important contributor to finding multiple solutions" it probably only exacerbates the problems identified here. I guess what I mean is that the quality of the overall education discussion - on all sides - has a tremendous amount of room for improvement.

UPDATE: To be clear, I do agree with AFT Ed that the trade-offs involved in these kinds of cases should be explicit, rather than implicit, and than minimizing the harmful effects should be a goal.