U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today announced the award of $3.5 million over three years to the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) for after-school, mentoring and college preparation programs at their network of public schools.

"When I was Houston’s superintendent of schools, it was my pleasure to work with KIPP founders Michael Feinberg and David Levin in creating the first KIPP school in the nation," Paige said. "As they continue expanding, they offer more students the chance to excel, and I am pleased that the Department of Education can be a partner in their efforts to provide students from disadvantaged backgrounds with outstanding opportunities to learn."

KIPP seeks to provide educationally underserved students with the knowledge, character and life skills needed to succeed in top-quality high schools and colleges and in the workplace. KIPP trains school leaders to open and run effective public schools that emphasize more time in the classroom and a college preparatory curriculum.

Founded in Houston in 1994, with help from then-superintendent Paige, KIPP serves students in grades five through eight and supports them until they go to college. The nonprofit KIPP Foundation is based in San Francisco, with schools in New York City’s South Bronx, Gaston, N.C., and Washington, D.C., as well as in Houston. By summer of next year KIPP expects to expand to new locations, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Memphis and Oakland.

The grant will support efforts to provide KIPP students with more classroom time, through extended day programs, Saturday enrichment programs and summer school. In the first year KIPP expects to serve some 800 students, increasing to 2,255 in the second award year, and 5,710 in year three.

The grant is from the Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), under the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. FIE funds activities that stimulate reform and improve teaching and learning.