$65-Million Raised to Expand Charter Schools in Houston

The Knowledge Is Power Program Foundation, a national nonprofit charter school organization, in Houston, said yesterday it had raised $65-million toward its $100-million goal to substantially expand its presence in the Houston area, reports the Associated Press.

The announcement of the most successful fund-raising campaign in the charter-school movement’s history “raises the charter-school movement to a new level of influence, financial strength, and public notice,” The Washington Post reported.

Starting this summer, KIPP officials said, the money will be used to expand the Houston chain from 8 schools and 1,700 students to 42 charter schools with 21,000 students over the next decade.

The foundation was created in 1994 to support alternatives to the public school system for students in kindergarten through high school. The system now has 52 schools in 16 states and the District of Columbia, serving 12,000 students. Most students are minorities and are from low-income groups.

Several local school-board members welcomed the expansion, but the board’s president, Manuel Rodriguez Jr., said he wished the foundation’s donors—which include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, in Austin, Tex., and the family of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton—would instead invest in the traditional public school system.

(Free registration is required to view the Post article.)