ABSTRACT
In a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, Paul Tough (2006) examined “what it takes to make a student.” He reviews the sociological literature on black underachievement and a number of schools, including the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Academies and North Star Academy Charter School in Newark, New Jersey, which have been successful in producing high academic achievement for low-income AfricanAmerican students. Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom (2003) profiled both schools in their book No Excuses as having the type of curriculum and pedagogic practices necessary for these students to achieve. The Thernstroms, KIPP, North Star build upon Lisa Delpit’s critique of progressive education that invisible pedagogies disadvantage lowincome African-American children because they often cannot read or misread the codes (Delpit, 1995). Rather, based in part on Delpit, KIPP and North Star believe that these students need an explicit set of pedagogic codes that are rooted in middle-class educational success. Critics of such an approach (Horn, 2006) argue that KIPP is trying to socialize low-income African-American children into a middle-class white student culture and in doing so rob them of their African-American identities.
