Day 18: Marc Mannella, KIPP Philadelphia Charter School
Marc Mannella founded KIPP Philadelphia Charter School (KPCS) in 2003, and served as its School Leader for five years. Prior to founding KPCS, Mannella taught middle school science in Baltimore as a Teach For America corps member, and then taught high school biology and environmental science at a charter high school in Philadelphia. Seeing very bright children in his high school classes struggle to do basic mathematics and read science textbooks, he decided to take on education reform on a larger scale, which led him to KIPP. Because of KPCS’ initial success, Mannella has taken on a new challenge as CEO of KIPP Philadelphia Schools. In this role he has laid forth a plan for KIPP to grow from one high performing charter school to a cluster of ten high performing charter schools, by 2019. At full enrollment this cluster of schools will serve grades K-12, and increase the number of minority students in North and West Philadelphia who are prepared to matriculate to college by 36%. Mannella holds a BA in Psychology and Biology from the University of Rochester, and an M.Ed. in Education Leadership from National Louis University.
04 MAY 2011