KIPP Houston Public Schools

KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program) is an academically rigorous, college preparatory, public school for at-risk students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. At KIPP Houston Public Schools, we have six primary schools, eight middle schools, and one high school. Six of these schools are full size, and nine are still adding grade levels one year at a time. We will open two new schools for the 2010-2011 school year—a primary school and a high school. As we get bigger, we focus on getting better and we share our best practices with other educators and school systems, so that in the end, ALL of our children in Houston WILL succeed in school and in life.

KIPP Houston Public School's mission is to develop in underserved students the academic skills, intellectual habits, and qualities of character necessary to succeed at all levels of pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, college, and the competitive world beyond.

To this end, KIPP students attend school from 7:25 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the week and come to school 214 days each year, which adds up to 67% more time in the classroom than the national average. Students at our middle schools also attend an additional two Saturdays a month and three weeks during the summer.

Each year KIPP Houston Public Schools schools are recognized as "Exemplary" by the Texas Education Agency with a few classified as "Recognized". The ultimate scoreboard is college matriculation and graduation—we are currently at a 90-90 level. Ninety percent of our KIPPsters qualify as low-income children and ninety percent of our KIPPsters have matriculated into college (we track this data from end of 8th grade to provide greater transparency about our results). While we're proud of being at the 90-90 plateau, we have problems to solve and better methods to find. It is up to all of us to find those solutions so that we can prepare the children for success in school and in life. In doing so, we will prove the possible, and together, we WILL build a better tomorrow.