Kipp Academy Chapter Summary

In his final chapter, Gladwell goes into detail about how kids with wealthier families do better in school than those of poorer families. Gladwell brings up an academy in New York called KIPP Academies, AKA hell. The KIPP Academy is a school that low income families are able to enroll their children in. The schools have a high standard of academic achievement and push their students so they graduate ready to go to college and succeed. Research showed that wealthier kids were not only doing better in school, but they were improving on their own during the summers because of the access to outside sources of learning that the wealthier family had granted them. The poorer students would fall back over the summers because they did not focus on learning. They were more focused on taking care of the family and surviving.

Lower income students have more than homework to worry about at home. As stereotypical as it is, children born into richer families get almost everything they want handed to them. They don’t have to work hard in and out of school, they get to enjoy their summer and maybe study a little bit. The poorer children may be working to help provide for their families, or they spend their summers cooking, cleaning, and babysitting siblings while their parents work long hours. The possibilities are endless. In my opinion, the study that was done wasn’t fair. Speaking of unfair, the KIPP students have got it pretty rough. What they go through over the weekdays, weekends, and summer are unbelievable. As I read through, all I pictured it as was a prison. However, the longer school hours and more amount of school days allows for longer classes. Teachers don’t have to rush through material, and as a result, students don’t feel pressure to be first, to be the fastest. Students don’t fall behind simply because they need a little more time to figure a problem out. That part left me feeling a bit