Ackerman cautious on KIPP plan

Philadelphia schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has responded cautiously to a nationally recognized education organization's proposal to open eight charter schools in the city over the next 10 years.

Ackerman said plans by KIPP Philadelphia - and those of any other school-management organization - would be rejected if they do not fit into the five-year reform plan that the school district announced last week.

"What KIPP wants - and I really like their model - and what we end up granting is another thing," Ackerman said during an exclusive Daily News interview.

Ackerman's "Imagine 2014" plan calls for shutting about 30 chronically low-performing schools and reopening them under the management of a successful charter or other proven school operator.

The first 10 of the schools would get new management by fall 2010, Ackerman said.

But KIPP, or the Knowledge is Power Program, built its national network of 66 tuition-free, college-prep public schools by starting schools from scratch - not taking over failing ones - putting the group at odds with Ackerman's reform plan.

Converting existing schools "would be out of our comfort zone," said Shawna Wells, KIPP Philadelphia's managing director of development.

"We know how to start schools, how to work with communities, how to work with families," she said. "We don't want to change something that's working for us."

KIPP, whose students attend school for significantly more hours per week than most public schools, already operates a middle school in North Philadelphia and has permission to open another this fall in West Philadelphia.

Wells said that the goal is to operate a cluster of five schools in North Philly and a cluster of five in West Philly.

Each cluster, she said, would have two elementary and two middle schools that feed into one high school.

Ackerman, however, insisted that the standards for approving charter schools have been tightened since KIPP was awarded its other charters. She noted that supporters of the seven charter proposals that won operating agreements this month waited more than a year for approval while the district determined where the schools should be placed to relieve overcrowding, among other considerations.

"This business of just opening up schools because organizations want them is not what we are into anymore," Ackerman said.

"We're into: This is what the district needs," she said. "Build this need and you can come here. And if you can't, then you need to probably find some other place to open." Under her five-year reform plan, Ackerman said, no school will be turned over to an outside manager unless they have community support. *