Edison schools and the privatization of K-12 public education: a legal and policy analysis.

AuthorSolomon, Lewis D.

If you were asked to advise today's leaders, what do you think is the greatest single problem facing the United States today?

I don't have any doubt: The greatest problem facing our country is the breaking down into two classes, those who have and those who have not. The growing differences between the incomes of the skilled and the less skilled, the educated and the uneducated pose a very real danger. If that widening rift continues, we're going to be in terrible trouble. The idea of having a class of people who never communicate with their neighbors--those very neighbors who assume the responsibility for providing their basic needs--is extremely unpleasant and discouraging. And it cannot last. We'll have a civil war. We really cannot remain a democratic, open society that is divided into two classes. In the long run, that's the greatest single danger. And the only way I see to resolve that problem is to improve the quality of education. (1)

INTRODUCTION

Over the fifteen years following the 1983 publication of the landmark study, A Nation at Risk, (2) more than six million Americans dropped out of high school. Of those who remained in school, ten million students reached the twelfth grade unable to read at a basic level, more than twenty million were unable to do basic math, and nearly twenty-five million were unfamiliar with the essentials of American history. (3) In the most recent Third International Mathematics and Science Study, which compared half a million students in over forty-one countries at three grade levels, American twelfth graders were so inadequate on their math and science exams, that only students from Cyprus and South Africa scored lower. (4) In short, many American high school graduates are barely able to communicate, orally or in writing, they are deficient in mathematics, ill-informed about United States history, and lack good work habits.

The numbers are even more astonishing in urban areas where minority students drop out or slip through the cracks of an educational system on the brink of its demise. As America's inner cities deteriorate, the parents of children living in poor neighborhoods are further disadvantaged in the kind of education their offspring receive. Inner city public schools are shamefully deficient and are marked by low academic performance, increased violence, high dropout rates, and demoralized students and teachers. (5) Poor physical conditions, inadequate supplies, non-existent technology, transient students, poorly qualified teachers who quickly burn out, and highly qualified instructors who move on, (6) also characterize many urban schools in low income areas. We have re-created a dual school system, separate and unequal. A widening chasm exists between good and bad schools, between those students who receive an adequate education and those who emerge from school barely able to read and write. (7) Low income, minority children go to worse schools, have less expected of them, and are taught by less motivated and less knowledgeable teachers. As a result, an enormous achievement gap exists between white and Asian-Americans on one hand, and African-Americans and Latinos on the other. These gaps are reflective of those that have developed between high performing schools and low achieving schools; between those people who are educated and those who are not; and between those students who complete high school and those who drop out.

This crisis in American K-12 public education, marked by dissatisfaction with student outcomes and perennially underperforming schools, led, in part, to increased focus on accountability and the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. (8) This Act, the most extensive reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, increases federal K-12 funding, mandates student testing in math and reading every year in grades three through eight, and allows parents to transfer children from failing public schools to other public schools run by their present systems or to charter schools within the same district. It also led to an increased willingness to explore other alternatives, including solutions previously considered radical, such as the privatization of K-12 education.

Most generally, privatization involves the transfer of public funds to the private sector, and the provision of services by private enterprises that were once provided by the public sector. It connotes a shift in the control of public resources and an alteration in the structures through which public funds are spent. (9)

Privatization through outsourcing in K-12 public education is not new. For-profit firms have long supplied books, crayons, computers, tutoring, and counseling services. School districts have long contracted out transportation, custodial, and food services to achieve greater cost efficiencies. What is new is the use of business firms to manage a school, a group of schools, or even an entire school system.

In the 1990s, school boards began contracting out instructional services. For-profit educational management organizations ("EMOs") began to compete directly with public school bureaucracies. At the same time, many states allowed the formation of publicly-funded charter schools that operate with more flexibility than traditional public schools.

This Essay examines the private takeover of the management of K-12 publicly funded schools. Under this management model, private enterprises replace the administrators who had previously been appointed by local school boards. These private firms contract with charter boards or districts to operate one or more schools. Public sources provide funding for the delivery of services under a specific set of guidelines. EMOs receive authority to manage a school, set the curriculum, sponsor professional development, and, sometimes, staff the school and set performance incentives.

This Essay focuses on one particular EMO, Edison Schools, Inc. ("Edison"). A publicly held corporation with a highly visible profile, Edison is the nation's largest private manager of public and charter schools. The firm operates 150 schools in twenty-three states and the District of Columbia, and educates 80,000 students. (10) This Essay attempts to answer key questions regarding the quest to privatize K-12 public education. Specifically, can for-profit schools raise student achievement, streamline educational bureaucracies, retain talented teachers and administrators, be more responsive to consumers, achieve cost savings, and be profitable?

Part II of this Essay examines the situation in Philadelphia's public schools and the efforts of a local school reform commission to revitalize K-12 education. Part III looks into the personalities of those who started and today run Edison. Who are they and why did they create a business to privatize public schools? Who are the key players in Edison's management team? Part IV analyzes Edison's financial position. Edison seeks to create efficiencies by centralizing business services, curricular design, and teacher training. Yet, will the firm remain financially viable? Will it become profitable and eventually achieve profits comparable to other, traditional investment returns? Part V discusses the structured educational approach Edison uses in its schools. Is Edison improving test scores and helping children learn? Part VI addresses the policy considerations--the pros and cons behind the efforts to privatize public schools. Will privatization force public schools to rethink their approaches and devise more efficient management arrangements and more effective instructional practices? Can privatization help meet the needs of low income, minority families whose offspring are currently caught in failing schools that merely serve as warehouses for these children?

  1. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY: THE QUEST TO PRIVATIZE K-12 EDUCATION

    Philadelphia, the nation's seventh largest school district, (11) is one of many cities in the United States desperately struggling to find the answers to staggering academic underperformance. Philadelphia schools are so ineffective that roughly fifty percent of high school students drop out, and its schools fail to adequately educate seventy percent of those students who do remain to graduate. (12) Frustrated by an educational system that could neither retain students nor properly instruct those who remained, the Pennsylvania legislature enacted Act 46 ("Act") in 1998, (13) allowing the state to take over a fiscally distressed school district. The Act permits the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, after declaring a school district to be distressed, to establish a five-member school reform commission having broad authority to remake the district almost completely as it sees fit.

    To determine whether Philadelphia's school district should be revamped, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge awarded a $2.7 million contract to Edison on August 1, 2001 to study the Philadelphia schools, and, specifically, to: 1) examine the district's academic performance and finances; and 2) recommend structural changes. (14) After two months of research, Edison reported that the School District of Philadelphia is facing grave academic and fiscal crises, with two-thirds of its schools failing and a significant and growing budget deficit. (15) Not unexpectedly, Edison recommended selecting a number of schools for immediate and intensive intervention. These schools were to be operated by approved organizations in conjunction with an independent school management company, or by an independent school management company alone. (16)

    Because Edison concluded that an entrenched, ineffective bureaucracy represented a key obstacle to successful change, the report advised the streamlining and restructuring of the district's organization. (17) One option indicated by Edison, the use of a private management firm, could strengthen the central office's management capabilities. (18)

    Edison also called for...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT