Mike received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and a Master of Education from National-Louis University in 2005. He joined Teach For America in 1992 and taught as a 5th grade bilingual teacher in Houston. In 1994, he co-founded KIPP and established KIPP Academy Houston a year later. In 2000, he co-founded the KIPP Foundation to help take KIPP to scale. Mike received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Yale University in 2010 and from Duke University in 2015.
KIPP Co-Founder Mike Feinberg and long-time education reformer Leo Linbeck III both recognized a growing problem in education reform: a singular focus on scaling schools. In the last decade, education leaders have focused on increasing the size of successful small schools to apply their solutions as widely as possible. While this is admirable, there is no one school system that can answer all of our public education challenges.
Feinberg always believed that his students would grow to be leaders—and told them so. So when those same students, now adult alumni, asked for his guidance in creating their own schools and institutions, Feinberg and Linbeck founded Texas School Venture Fund. Our organization leverages Mike’s 30+ years of education experience founding over 200 schools in order to increase the scope and diversity of great school options for families.
Rather than creating schools directly, we help our alumni and other educators start mission-driven organizations where school options for children and their families do not meet the demand.
Connect with Mike Feinberg
