Fuller Statements Misleading

Dear Editor,
    I read Richard Whittaker’s article “Uncontrolled Experiments” [News, Dec. 9] with great interest. Examining the new partnership between the Austin Independent School District and IDEA charter schools, Whittaker featured extensive quotes from Ed Fuller about his research on Texas charter schools.
    We are proud of our four high-performing Knowledge Is Power Program schools in Austin, and welcome rigorous research at all KIPP schools nationwide. I want to correct two misleading statements Fuller made about KIPP’s performance outside of Austin.
    Regarding KIPP’s transformation of Cole Middle School in Denver, Fuller’s claim that KIPP “pulled out amid poor test scores” is untrue. As the Rocky Mountain News reported in 2007, Cole outperformed the district in almost every subject, and students who finished eighth grade went on to some of Denver’s top high schools. In 2007, the last group of students moved on to high school, and KIPP would have had to restart the school with new students. We could not find a quality school leader to continue the transformation process, so we decided to sunset our efforts at Cole.
    Fuller also claimed that “history is repeating itself in KIPP's schools in Houston's North Forest ISD.” This is a misleading characterization. KIPP has never engaged in school turnarounds in North Forest. KIPP Polaris and KIPP Voyage were both started as brand-new open-enrollment public charter schools that are not part of North Forest's school district. Fuller also implied that these schools are troubled, which is untrue. In 2010-2011, KIPP Polaris was rated academically acceptable by the Texas Education Agency, and the school’s eighth grade TAKS scores were at or above the state average.
    I am glad to see a spirited debate in Austin about the role of charter schools in raising the bar for underserved students. It is only fair to hold researchers to as high a standard as we hold our schools.