A Renewed Fight Over Firm’s Role in School

Last spring, the graceful old campus of Edison Charter Academy in San Francisco became the battleground for a bitter ideological struggle over the role of for-profit companies in running public schools.

The school’s backers contended that, under a contract with the nation’s largest such education management company, “test scores have gone sky-high.” But the local school board was both dubious of those results and philosophically opposed to a private firm making money from public education. In the ensuing struggle, the school board drew fire from across the country as killjoys intent on squelching success.

Now, a new round of low test scores has reopened the debate at a time that’s particularly sensitive for Edison Schools Inc. The company is reportedly ready to take on its biggest challenge yet by recommending to Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker next week that it be hired to manage some or all of the ailing Philadelphia school district, the nation’s seventh largest.

It is also part of a team bidding to finish the Belmont Learning Complex near downtown Los Angeles. The company has joined with a group of local Latino leaders who want to open the partly built campus as a charter high school for 3,600 students--perhaps as early as the fall of 2003.

But the performance of Edison’s San Francisco school is forcing the company to once again defend its record. This fall the school saw its state performance rating plummet by 65 points to 487 on a scale of 200 to 1,000. The test scores put the academy behind every other school in the city.

“It was at the bottom before privatization and it’s at the bottom still,” said Caroline Grannan, a San Francisco parent who led the opponents of Edison.

But the drop in test scores hasn’t shaken the faith of Edison parents, who blame the turmoil of the last year for some of the decline.

“There are people in San Francisco to this day who continue to wage a campaign to discredit us and harass us,” said Heather Mobley, whose two children are enrolled there and is co-chairwoman of the school’s Parent Teacher Council. “We’re trying to focus on our children and their success and ignore the naysayers as much as we can.”

Edison was launched in 1992 by Chris Whittle, a New York entrepreneur who had previously created a television news program for classrooms as a vehicle for advertisers to reach students. The company took over its first school in 1995 in Sherman, Texas. This fall, Edison is operating 136 schools nationwide and is a leader in the burgeoning movement to privatize public schools.

Company Brought In as Last Resort

Typically, the company is brought in as a last resort to take a shot at reviving schools that have failed to educate poor and minority students. What Edison brings to the task is a commitment to provide a computer to every family of a third-grader or above, a longer school day, as many as four more weeks of instruction a year and a curriculum that’s rich in music, art, foreign languages and physical education.

In September, the company issued an academic performance report asserting that 84% of its schools are making progress. But, just as in San Francisco, skeptics continue to question whether the company’s positive assessment of its impact is justified.

The American Federation of Teachers union evaluated its performance and pronounced the results mixed, saying Edison schools did not do as well as schools with similar demographics and challenges.

More recently, a study sponsored by the National Education Assn., the nation’s largest teachers union, reached a similar conclusion.

“Our findings suggest that Edison students do not perform as well as Edison claims in its annual reports,” the report issued by the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University said. In looking at 10 Edison schools, the researchers concluded that the company had overstated the progress of the schools in every case.

John E. Chubb, Edison’s chief education officer, said each of those reports looked at limited samples of schools and used questionable methods. He said the company judges its schools on the amount of progress they are making toward the goal of having all students performing at grade level.

“We are given schools that have generally poor children and poor test scores and we’re brought in to try to fix that situation,” he said. “The fact that there are other schools in town with poor children and great test scores is good news, but it didn’t happen to be happening in the schools we’re asked to work in.”

Despite the controversy over its performance, the company’s growth is accelerating nationally. In California, in addition to San Francisco, Edison operates schools in Fresno, East Palo Alto, Chula Vista, Napa, West Covina and Long Beach.

But the company has yet to show it can make a profit running public schools without spending additional funds. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reports it has lost $153.6 million since 1996. The company also reported to potential investors that “the success of our business depends on our ability to improve the achievement of the students enrolled in our schools, and we may face difficulties doing so in the future.”

Biggest Test Could Come in Philadelphia

The company’s biggest test yet could come in Philadelphia. Last summer, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas J. Ridge hired Edison to analyze the woeful performance of the Philadelphia school district and to recommend solutions. The district was deep in debt and more than half of its fifth-, eighth- and 11th-graders had failed state tests in reading and math the previous two years.

The company’s study, due next week, reportedly will say it should be hired to oversee the district. Local newspapers say the study also will recommend that 60 of the district’s 264 schools be taken over by universities, community groups or private companies, such as Edison.

Both Adam Tucker, an Edison spokesman, and Gretchen Toner, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania education department, declined to confirm those reports.

But, Toner said, Gov. Schweiker “comes to it with a definite feeling that a private company can help solve the problem of academic failure and improve test scores. . . . We shouldn’t be demonizing them because they’re private companies and they can make a profit.”

That’s also the feeling of Heather Mobley, the parent leader at the Edison academy in San Francisco. “I don’t care if someone makes money,” she said. “If they can deliver . . . good education and satisfy me as a board member, I say God bless them.”

The academy, in San Francisco’s Mission District, was controversial from the time it was proposed in 1998. The school had struggled for years under the district’s control, despite several attempts at reform. It was shunned by all parents who could manage to avoid it.

Under Edison, the school has enjoyed strong parent support. A year ago, the school district made clear that it intended to revoke the school’s charter, which had given it greater freedom and independence. The board contended that Edison had forced out difficult students and recruited higher-performing children--assertions that Edison roundly denied.

Last spring, the school board voted to end Edison’s contract. But by that point, saving the academy had become a cause celebre for those who advocate giving parents more school choices.

With the help of several think tanks and some influential lobbyists, the parents persuaded the State Board of Education to grant the school a new charter and independence from the San Francisco district. Ebullient with their triumph, 400 parents attended the school’s back-to-school night. Then came the sour test score news.

Principal Vows Test Scores Will Improve

Vincent Matthews, the school’s principal, acknowledged the scores look bad and vowed they would improve. But, he said, the number of students scoring above the 50th percentile is on the rise and students’ scores get better the longer they’ve been at Edison. Other indicators--such as teacher turnover and parent satisfaction--remain positive as well.

John Mockler, the state board’s executive director, will meet with the school’s leaders next month to express his concerns. One year of bad test scores may be an aberration, he said.

“This year they probably deserve a pass because of all the stuff that was going on with the district,” he said. “But if that happened two years or three years in a row, you’d have to say adios, and we will.”

Linda Gausman, one of the parents who battled the district last year, is overjoyed that the school continues to be run by Edison. Her daughter, Monique, is in the fourth grade there. Before Edison, Monique attended a regular district school that was “low-performing, dirty and rough. She didn’t like it and she wasn’t doing well.” But the district didn’t offer Gausman or her daughter any alternatives.

At Edison, she said, Monique has art classes, music and a safe learning environment. “I feel lucky every day she walks into that school,” Gausman said.