Spelman Honors KIPP Co-Founders with National Service Award!

Media Contact: Audrey Arthur
Office: 404-270-5892
E-mail: aarthur3@spelman.edu

KIPP began with just one school in Houston and now KIPP schools serve more than 60,000 students across the country. As we grow, we’re looking for passionate graduates of HBCUs to come make their impact at KIPP. Whether you aspire to master the art of teaching or to lead your own school, you can build your career at KIPP. Learn more >

Dave Levin

Dave Levin is a native of New York City, where in 1995 he co-founded the KIPP Academy in the South Bronx.  Levin currently heads up the KIPP Foundation’s Teaching and Learning Lab focused on instructional innovation, leadership development, and teaching training.

After graduating from Yale University in 1992, Levin joined Teach for America and taught fifth grade in Houston, Texas. In 1994, he co-founded the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) with Mike Feinberg and won the Jefferson Award for outstanding community service in the city of Houston. In the same year, he earned Teacher of the Year honors from his school in Houston and an outstanding teaching award from Teach for America.

Passionate about innovative teaching, Levin co-authored KIPP Math, a comprehensive math curriculum for students in grades five through eight that culminates in students completing a two-year high school Algebra I course by the end of eighth grade. Levin also has a master's in education from National Louis University.

In the spring of 2000, Levin and Feinberg were approached by Doris and Don Fisher, founders of Gap, Inc., to replicate KIPP's success nationwide. Together they co-founded the KIPP Foundation which supports the opening, growth, and evaluation of KIPP schools around the country. KIPP has grown from two schools serving 400 kids in Houston and New York City to 162 schools serving over 58,000 kids in 20 states and the District of Columbia. An impressive 88% of the KIPP alumni have matriculated to four-year colleges and universities, and KIPP alumni are graduating college at more than four times the national average for kids from underserved communities and above the national average for all demographic groups.

In 2007, Levin, along with Norman Atkins from Uncommon Schools and Dacia Toll at Achievement First, co-founded Teacher U which has grown into the Relay Graduate School of Education, a master's program designed to prepare teachers with the best of both theory and practice so that their students can develop the transformative academic and character skills needed to succeed in college and life.

Levin is the recipient of the Robin Hood Foundation's John F. Kennedy, Jr. Hero Award in Education and an Ashoka Fellowship, awarded to leading social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions and the potential to change patterns across society. Levin also served on the New York State Commission for Education Reform. In 2010, Levin and Feinberg spoke at TED on the topic of how to reform America's public education system.

Levin and Feinberg have been awarded the Thomas Fordham Foundation Prize for Valor; the National Jefferson Award for Distinguished Public Service by a Private Citizen; the Charles Bronfman Prize, an honorary degree from Yale University; and the Presidential Citizen's Medal, our nation's second highest presidential award for a private citizen.

Levin and Feinberg's work is the subject of Jay Matthew’s best-selling book  Work Hard, Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created America's Most Promising Schools.  Most recently, KIPP’s work around character was featured in Paul Tough’s best-selling book, How Kids Succeed – Grit, Self-control, and the Hidden Power of Character.

In 2012, Dave partnered with Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dominic Randolph, head of the Riverdale Country School, to launch the Character Lab.  The Character Lab’s mission is to develop, disseminate, and support the implementation of research based approaches to character.  Its goal is to bridge the world of scientific research and educational practice.

Also in 2012, Levin partnered with Norman Atkins, David Saltzman, Evan Rudall, and Shalinee Sharma to launch Zearn – a digital learning non-profit dedicated to maximizing the joy and rigor of how and what kids learn on-line.  Zearn’s first project is the building of a kid-facing K-8 math curriculum.

Levin speaks regularly to groups from across the country on issues relating to leadership, teaching, coaching, transforming education, character, motivation, and parenting. He also plays an active role in the leadership of the KIPP Foundation, KIPP NYC, the Character Lab, Relay Graduate School of Education, and Zearn. He lives in New York City with his wife, two sons, and yellow-lab named Bubbles.  

Mike Feinberg

Mike Feinberg, Ph.D.,  is co-founder of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Foundation and executive vice chair of KIPP Houston, which includes 22 public charter schools: ten middle schools, eight primary schools, and four high schools serving over 11,000 children. 

To date, 90% of the KIPPsters who have left the KIPP Houston middle schools have gone on to college, and 52% of those former middle school KIPPsters have graduated from college (compared with a national college graduation rate for low income children of 8%).  Feinberg received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and a Masters of Education from National-Louis University in 2005.  In 2010, Yale University awarded Feinberg an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters. 

After graduating from Penn, Feinberg joined Teach For America and taught bilingual fifth grade in Houston, Texas. In 1994, he co-founded KIPP with Dave Levin and established KIPP Academy Houston a year later.  In 2000, he co-founded the KIPP Foundation to help take KIPP to scale.  Today, KIPP is a network of 162  high-performing public schools around the nation serving nearly 58,000 children.  In 2004, Feinberg was named an Ashoka Fellow, awarded to leading social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions and the potential to change patterns across society. 

In 2005, Feinberg was the commencement speaker for the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences.  Also in 2005, he led the effort to start a public K-8 school in Houston for Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans.  The school, NOW College Prep (New Orleans West), opened in 10 days.  In 2006, Feinberg and Levin were awarded The Thomas B. Fordham Prize for Excellence in Education, and the National Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen.  In 2008, they were named to the list of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report and received the Presidential Citizens Medal in the Oval Office of the White House. 

In 2009, Feinberg and Levin received the Charles Bronfman Prize as well as the Manhattan Institute’s William E. Simon prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship. In 2011, they were awarded the Guardian of the Human Spirit award by the Holocaust Museum Houston given to dedicated Houstonians who have worked to enhance the lives of others and to better humankind. In 2012, they won they Brock Prize and in 2013, they were recipients of the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.

 In 2014, Feinberg were named one of the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs of the Year for their work in the U.S. as well as supporting the start of similar schools in other countries via The One World Network of Schools, incubated by KIPP Foundation.  Feinberg and Levin's efforts became the story told by Washington Post reporter, Jay Mathews, in his book Work Hard. Be Nice.  KIPP has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS 60 Minutes, ABC World News Tonight, and in The New York Times, Houston Chronicle, Washington Post, and more.  Feinberg is married to Colleen Dippel and they have two children:  Gus, age eight, and Abadit, age three, who they adopted from Ethiopia in 2011.​

KIPP began with just one school in Houston and now KIPP schools serve more than 60,000 students across the country. As we grow, we’re looking for passionate graduates of HBCUs to come make their impact at KIPP. Whether you aspire to master the art of teaching or to lead your own school, you can build your career at KIPP. Learn more >