Private Firm Bids to Run Public School

In a potentially groundbreaking move among the state’s public schools, the Orange Unified School District was approached Thursday by a private company proposing to operate one of the district’s schools.

If the concept wins approval from parents, faculty, the local school board and state authorities, McPherson Middle School would become the first public school in the state to be run by a private company.

Officials with the New York-based Edison Project, the brainchild of media entrepreneur Christopher Whittle, made their first formal presentation to the board Thursday night.

Orange Unified officials say McPhereson Middle School, which is now closed but slated to reopen in 1998, first would have to be declared a charter school, which is run by a board of parents and teachers and independent of state regulations. The school then could apply to the school board and the state to be run by Edison. (The state Education Code prohibits school boards from contracting for academic services with private companies.)

Whittle and Edison Vice President Kathy Hamel painted an alluring picture of a school that would have a computer for every student, including one for each household, and arts, music and language programs. The company invests $1.5 million in each new school and then operates on the allotment the district receives for each child from the state.

“We are essentially a national system of magnet schools,” Whittle said.

But they faced some skepticism from teachers in the audience.

“There’s no substantial profit to be made from running public schools,” teacher John Rossmann said. “Demanding that school be profitable is like demanding that churches turn a profit. It is not what schools are meant to do.”

The contract exploration represents another example of the school board’s efforts to encourage privatization in the district of 27,000 students. The district already has contracted out its bus transportation and wants to do the same with the school’s food services.

The bus contract, however, hit a major bump earlier this month when its contractor suddenly walked out in a dispute over insurance. Despite the trouble, which sent the district scrambling to hire bus drivers on 90-day contracts, the school board still wants to keep bus services privatized.

Essentially, Edison promises to run schools more efficiently and less expensively than public school districts do. The company would earn a profit only if it operates schools for less money than the district receives for running the same school.

Students would be tested annually to ensure the quality of their education, school officials said.

The Edison Project currently operates a handful of schools in Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas and Kansas.

Trustee James Fearns said it’s too early to evaluate Edison.

“I do not want to take taxpayer money and bet on a long shot,” Fearns said.