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KIPP HOUSTON $10 million gift energizes charter chain
Online comments to this article are all ecstatic.
By Jennifer Radcliffe
Houston's largest and most prominent charter school chain got a major shot in the arm Wednesday when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced plans to help finance its aggressive expansion plan.
The foundation pledged $10 million to help the Knowledge is Power Program secure a $62 million bond, helping the charter system start construction that will more than double enrollment 11,500 students in five years. KIPP hopes to reach 21,000 students at 42 schools in Houston over the next decade.
"It allows us to fight another day," KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg said.
KIPP's $100 million expansion plan, announced in March 2007, had stalled some because of difficulties securing credit in the bad economy, officials said. Gates' help is expected to save KIPP about $10 million by lowering the interest rate on the 35-year note.
"A year, even six months ago, trying to do a bond on our own was virtually impossible. The credit market was frozen," Feinberg said. "We're Kipsters, we say nothing is impossible. We could have done it, but it would have been a lot more expensive. $10 million buys a lot of books."
KIPP is the first charter school to receive such a guarantee from the Gates Foundation, but others, including Houston's YES Prep Public Schools, are expected to follow suit under the program unveiled Wednesday. YES Prep hopes to use Gates financing to help with its $34 million growth plan, which would increase enrollment to 10,000 by 2020.
The foundation is making a total of $30 million available for high-performing charter schools.
"While charter schools have proven to be extremely effective at improving access to quality education, they face unique challenges with respect to expansion," stated Vicki Phillips, director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "Innovative approaches to financing are critical to addressing the funding gaps that result as successful programs like charter schools endeavor to scale."
The financial support helps charter schools — public campuses funded with tax dollars — overcome one of their biggest obstacles: finding money to build campuses. Unlike their traditional counterparts, charters systems cannot hold bond elections or levy tax rates.
"Financing facilities is one of the biggest challenges charter schools have," said David Dunn, executive director of the Texas Charter School Association. "This kind of support from the Gates Foundation in just terrific."
The association lobbied last legislative session for Texas to make it easier for high-performing charter schools to expand. They didn't have luck in lifting the state-mandated cap of 215 charters, but the state did create a financing program to generate a public match for a fraction of private credit enhancement commitments.
"We are optimistic that other foundations will want to participate with the state," Dunn said.
About 85,000 children in Texas currently attend charter schools. Thousands more on are waiting lists for KIPP and YES campuses, which have gained popularity with their long school days, Saturday classes and track record of enrolling low-income, minority students in college.
— Jennifer Radcliffe
Houston Chronicle
2009-11-11
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6716027.html
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