52 Kappan November 2011 POVERTY AND LEARNING C onsider these grim statistics: Helena-West Helena is the seat of Phillips County, the second poorest county in Ar- kansas. The town was home to more than 40,000 people in the 1960s; now, it has fewer than 13,000 residents, and they have a median household income of $24,427 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2011a). Federal data show that only 62.2% of adults have high school diplomas; only 12.4% have completed college (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2011b). In 2010, just 36% of Helena-West Helena 10th graders scored proficient or advanced on the Arkansas literacy exam. In spite of these numbers, in the second poorest county in the second poorest state, one school — nine-year-old KIPP Delta — has done remarkably well. There is no secret to its success. Most of KIPP Delta’s playbook might work at other high-poverty public schools. We conducted 12 days of fieldwork at KIPP Delta over the last two years and interviewed most of the teachers and administrators. To cut to the chase, we think KIPP’s culture explains the school’s academic success, and we believe that aspects of its culture are broadly replicable. Lessons from KIPP Delta A KIPP school in an Arkansas backwater succeeds by tightly focusing on its mission of getting kids into and through college, then organizing tactics and strategies around that goal. ROBERT MARANTO (rmaranto@uark.edu) is 21st-Century Chair in Leader- ship; and JAMES V. SHULS is doctoral academy fellow, both in the Depart- ment of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Ark. By Robert Maranto and James V. Shuls