Investors are beginning to take a keen interest in school privatization. In the spring of 1996, Lehman Brothers, and investment house, held their first annual education industry conference to introduce clients to companies that deal with education (Education weekly website).
How does privatization work?
Many people wonder how these privately operated schools can still be considered public schools. Privatization involves the school districtÕs board of education creating a partnership with a private corporation. The private corporation and the school board agree on a financial and educational performance objective. Then, a contract is designed to make the partnership work.
The school board maintains the authority to oversee the school's management, hiring, and firing of personal. The board audits the school's finances through and independent auditing firm of its choosing. The superintendent is still the supervisor and deals with the private firm, in order to meet the goals set forth by the board.
In many cases the private corporation gets assistance from other private vendors in order to provide efficiency. For example, E.A.I. has alliances with three other companies, which include KPMG Peat Marwick, Johnson Controls World Services Inc., and Computers Curriculum Corporation. The separate vendors provide the school with the most updated equipment and technology, while handling specific areas or departments. "Alliance will enhance educational programming, financial accountability, physical plant operation, food services, and custodial fares" (Golle, 1994).
What are the arguments for Privatization?
The privatization theory claims that the private companies will use their skill in efficiency to run the schools. This would one day provide a competitive market, which will leave families with many options for school choice. According to David Osborne, in Reinventing Government, "the private sector does well when tasks are economic in nature, or when they require investment orientation" (Osborne, 1992, p 348). Private corporations believe that the public school system fits this category. Competition forces private schools to produce. People will buy the product, if student test scores and the schools facilities improve, and with these improvements the private sector can make economic profits. Privatization contracts will provide an escape route for the school board.
What do the critics say?
Critics of privatization are suspicious about the private corporations incentives. They claim that private corporations are in it for the money, and do not care about the students. Critics also wonder what happens to the students if the private corporation fails to improve the schools, and the contract is terminated? When schools under go a transition like this the students will be affected, leaving many of the students behind. E.A.I.'s contract with the Baltimore School District was terminated, and parents claim that their children were subjected to a transition that left many students behind.
The two main private corporations that are presently involved in privatizing school projects are the Edison Project, and Education Alternatives Inc. What follows is an explanation of both of the projects, their advantages, disadvantages, set backs, successes, and outside criticism.
The Edison Project
A Brief History and Background to the Edison Project
Christopher Whittle founded the Edison Project in 1991. Whittle's original plan was to build a chain of private for-profit schools with anticipated revenues of $10 billion by the year 2010 (Pipho, 1992). Whittle's goal was to open fifty campuses with up to four schools in each campus by 1996. Whittle Communications, the parent company of the Edison project, invested up to $60 million in the project. The $2.5 billion it cost to build the schools was to be raised from investors. The project originally managed schools in Boston, MA, Mount Clemens, MI, Sherman, TX, and Wichita, KA. It then increased its control to twelve different schools.
Edison became well known when Benno Schmidt, who at the time was the President of Yale University, announced he was leaving to become chief executive officer of the Edison chain. Schmidt is currently the CEO of the Edison Project.
The Edison Project is a privately sponsored, national effort to create innovative public schools that operate at current public school spending levels. The project provides all students, regardless of economic or social circumstances, with an academically excellent education that prepares them for productive lives (Edison Project Web Site). The project announced that it has completed a $30.5 million equity finance for new school growth in 1997 and 1998. This past August and September the project opened eight new schools, and has tripled the enrollment to more then seven thousand students in eight cities and six states.
What are the differences between a Privatized School and a Charter School?
Today, most of the Edison schools are not completely controlled by the private corporation. Many of the schools are Charter Schools, or partnership schools. Partnership schools are a combination where the private corporation, parents, administrators, and teachers all have a say in how the school is run. Edison's goal in the near future is to fully manage their schools.
There are some differences between the charter school concept and the idea of hiring private companies to run public schools. In a Charter School, classroom teachers, administrators, and parents are empowered with the opportunity to create the schools they believe will help the students. In privatization, the corporation is empowered with the opportunity to provide what they feel the students need. The Charter schools that the Edison Project controls are a cross between the two. The King Academy is one of their more successfully operated schools, and it is a good example of a Charter School that operates, in partnership with a private corporation.
The Edison Project proposes to form partnerships with Superintendents and boards of public schools across the country. Their schools will remain as public schools, which are open to all students, and are funded with tax dollars. Edison is compensated with only what the community now spends from federal, state, and local sources (Edison Project Website). The real question is, how have they performed thus far?
How successful is the Edison Project?
According to the project's own statistics, the first four schools, after their second year, are beginning to provide indicators of academic progress. They claim that the first four partnership schools serve students who are economically disadvantaged, ethnically diverse, and began the 1995 school year below grade level academically. One year after enrolling, the primary students have out-performed similar students, locally, by significant margins in all areas, and they are achieving on or above grade level. Although the final data are not yet available, the project claims that the students are exceeding the performance of comparable students in all measured subject areas, thus, making truly impressive academic gains.
Edison has developed its own performance measures for student progress, through a test known as the Quarterly Learning contract (QLC). This is an anecdotal report drawn up for each student and it formally expresses expectations and objectives agreed on by the school, the student, and his/her family (Edison Project Website). The QLC is written by the student advisor and teachers, telling how successfully the contracts are fulfilled. Each student receives an advisor who follows their progress and guides them through their learning experience. Students are also required to take the same standardized tests that are required of all public school students in the state and districts.
Recent results of standardized tests for Edison students are promising. As of October 31, 1996, the Durrell Oral Reading Test and three subtests of the Woodlock Reading Mastery Test show improved results. These test were given to all of the students in the four original Edison schools in Mount Clemens, MI, Sherman, TX, Boston, MA, and Wichita, KA. The Dodge Edison Elementary School results show that students were substantially and significantly ahead of the control groups in Kindergarten, and first grade. The test and data are conducted by Dr. Robert Mislevy, a research scientist at the Education Testing Service(ETS). The test scores have shown that the Edison program has had greater impact in the younger grades.
In April, 1996, all the fourth graders in Massachusetts were given a comprehensive battery of achievement test, by the Massachusetts Assessment of Educational Progress (MEAP). The test covered reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Students at the Boston Renaissance Charter School (BRCS) scored about the state average in every field. The MEAP report stated that BRCS students exceed the norms for comparable students by a wide margin in reading and science, and by a smaller margin in mathematics and social science (Edison Project Website).
The Edison Schools
Some examples of Edison schools include the Boston Renaissance Charter School, the Dodge Edison Elementary School, in Wichita, the Henry S. Reeves Elementary School, in Miami, FL, the Roosevelt Edison Charter School, in Colorado Springs, and finally, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy.
The King Academy School
An important question about the Edison schools, is "what makes these schools different from any ordinary public school? What are the improvements and set backs?" The King Academy provides a clear picture of how an Edison Project school is operated. The King Academy is a partnership school. A partnership school is when the private contractor runs the school in partnership with the local school board.
The King Academy school year is 205 days a year. It is separated into two different academies, a primary and a secondary. The primary academy contains grades k-2, with students receiving up to seven hour instructional days. The elementary academy includes grades 3-5, with students receiving up to eight hour instructional day (King Academy Website). Each one of the academies is divided into two houses, each one containing all three grades. The students remain in the same house through out their academy, as they all work together in both same age and multi-age groups.
The school's curriculum is quite rigorous. Each student receives Spanish, Art, Gym, and Music, at a minimum two times per week, thus following Edison's philosophy of educating the whole child.(King Academy Website) Technology is considered to be a second language in this school. Therefore, each family is provided with a computer, in their house, thus dealing with the problem of computer illiteracy (Edison Project Website). Homework and communication with parents is conducted through electronic mail, and each student is taught how to use word processing, databases, and spread sheets. Finally, both students and teachers are taught how to use digital cameras, camcorders, and scanners, in order to create multi-media projects (King Academy website). The Edison Project plans to implement all these programs in all of their schools.
Critics of the Edison Project
The Edison Project appears to have a very sturdy program and their test scores show that they have been somewhat successful. Nevertheless, people still have a problem with private companies running schools. As of now, most of their schools are Charter Schools. We have yet to see them take over a real public school. The New York Times (Oct. 30, 1994) cites some critics who claim that "Edison is an "oversold fantasy that would use America's school children as bait for investors." This is a very popular critique of privatizing schools. Another criticism is that Edison promotes only their successful test scores, and the inadequate scores have not been released. Some people believe that some of the scores might have been tampered with (Geiger, Keith).
Conclusion
It is quite difficult to speculate how successful the Edison Project is in school privatization. The project has yet to operate a public school. Therefore, we have not seen the Edison project experiment in true privatization.
On the other hand, the charter schools that are operated by Edison are quite impressive. Test scores are increasing and the school is educating the students with updated equipment and technology. The school facilities and equipment are improved and the faculty keeps a close relationship with the students and their families. These successes take place in Charter Schools, and this might support the Charter School movement, not necessarily school privatization.
Education Alternatives Inc., is a corporation that operated actual public schools in Hartford and Baltimore and is a better example of school privatization.
Education Alternatives Inc.
Background Information
Education Alternative Inc., also known as E.A.I., is a leader in the school privatization movement. In the early 1990's the Minneapolis-based corporation started operating three schools in three different states. When the corporation first began to operate, it promoted a program known as "Tesseract". Tesseract required teachers to analyze students learning style, and then devise an individualized plan and goals. E.A.I., like the Edison Project, emphasizes parental involvement, the use of computers and continual encouragement. Two very poor inner city school systems were attracted to E.A.I.'s program, Hartford and Baltimore.
Education Alternatives Inc. Contract with the Baltimore and Hartford Public Schools:
In 1992, Baltimore's superintendent, Walter Amprey proposed an E.A.I. contract for $125 million to the district school board. Baltimore gave E.A.I. control of the Harlem Park schools, and eight other city schools.
Norman Handy, a critic of Amprey's plan originally stated, "I saw it as a subterfuge to subvert the educational process and to experiment with African-American children." E.A.I. invested $1.1 million in material improvements, computers, and supplies. They cleaned the schools, repaired them, and took care of security, maintenance, and financial management. After E.A.I.'s early performance, Handy happened to change his opinion. Handy now claims, that "the E.A.I. schools are an oasis in a desert of poverty, drug addiction and violence" (Golle, 1994). There have been some visual improvements with the Baltimore schools, which caught the interest of the inner city schools, in Hartford, CT. Hartford was persuaded to sign a $200 million contract with E.A.I. The contract stated that E.A.I. would manage thirty-two schools and twenty-six thousand students.
Critics of Education Alternatives Inc.
The chief critics of the E.A.I. plan, were the Baltimore and Hartford teacher's unions. The teacher's unions were extremely agitated when E.A.I. dismissed classroom aides, and replaced them with recent college graduates. The replacement would enable them to hire cheap labor. E.A.I., it was argued, was too interested in earning a profit and not interested in the students education.
Opponents were dissatisfied when E.A.I. took on the policy of mainstreaming nearly all special-education students into regular classes. Mainstreaming would reduce costs. Mainstreaming all the students is one example of E.A.I.'s profit making policies. Other profit-making policies included increasing class size, eliminating "non-essential" teachers of art, music, and other specialized subjects (Geiger, 1995).
Their profit making tactics were just the beginning of E.A.I.'s troubles. E.A.I.'s students were not making the vast improvement the firm originally promised, and there were allegations of faulty and tampered test scores. Originally, E.A.I. promised to raise student achievements for the same per pupil cost as other schools in the district. On the contrary, records show that E.A.I. spent $500 more per pupil then public schools (Shanker, 1994). Standardized test scores have not improved. E.A.I. claimed that when these test were taken, they were not fully in control of the schools. Parents were also quite agitated, because E.A.I. subjected their children to a transition period that left many students behind. Student test scores were not rising, but E.A.I. claimed that it was too early to notice any significant changes.
E.A.I.'s Downfall:
E.A.I. believes that they have done their job to the best of their ability. Their statistics show that their test scores in reading and math have dropped slightly in the eight elementary schools, but they have increased in the rest of the system. E.A.I. claims that attendance has increased. Furthermore, the corporation argues that it was given control of the cities poorest schools. E.A.I. test takers contained more special-education students then any other school in the Baltimore district (Golle, 1994). Despite what E.A.I. claims, in January, 1996, E.A.I. was released from running the Hartford schools. Hartford claims that E.A.I. did a poor job in running the schools.
Baltimore also dropped their contracts, but the Baltimore controversy was not totally the fault of E.A.I. The Baltimore contract was canceled after E.A.I. rejected a city demand, that it except $7 million less a year from its original $44 million per year arrangement. Baltimore had to meet a shortfall in its budget and could not pay the full amount. (Shanker, 1994) E.A.I. blames this on Baltimore's mismanagement of other city-budgets. John Golle, E.A.I president stated, "we are not going to put millions of dollars into a school and have them take the position, 'we may or may not pay you'".(Shanker, 1994)
Conclusion:
E.A.I.'s contracts were ended because the public and private sector could not work together. Baltimore claims that E.A.I. did not deserve the money they requested. E.A.I. claims that they had done a fantastic job cleaning up the schools, but Baltimore said they cleaned it in the wrong way. The city says they dismantled all special education programs, cut remedial education services, increased class size, and cut funds spent on classroom instruction. This problem supports the critics view of private education, stating that they are in it for the money.
E.A.I.'s operation was not as successful as John Golle had hoped, but it was not a complete failure either. The schools that E.A.I. operated were the poorest inner-city schools. E.A.I. gave these schools newly, updated facilities, and new technological advances. This is a step in the right direction. Maybe it would have been better for E.A.I. if they had operated schools that were not the poorest, inner-city schools. One problem that needs to be addressed is how the public and private sector need to work together. It seems that with Baltimore and Hartford, the public and private sector were adversaries. Both were looking to blame one another. Instead they need to work as one and give it some time.
Government 375: Educational Reform and Ideology
