Not to pile on, but KIPP is everyone’s example of a successful national chain of charter schools and I just happened to see an analysis done by Gary Rubinstein, a math teacher and well informed blogger.  He looks into the publicly available data and shows that the KIPP schools in Newark, NJ have the kind of high attrition rates they would not have if they were doing a good job.  Here’s his conclusion, but you should read the full post here and see if you don’t agree:

KIPP has received a lot of money on the facade that they have the secret to getting amazing results from the ‘same kids’ with the ‘same resources.’ Their own reports and publicly available data from New Jersey clearly show that their success is extremely limited.

At KIPP, at least for 07102, zip code is destiny | Gary Rubinstein’s Blog.