..."Our findings show the investment in private management of schools has not paid the expected dividends."
The private managers include New York-based Edison Schools Inc., the nation's largest for-profit operator of public schools. A five-year Rand study released in October found that Edison is producing student gains that are comparable to the public schools they replace. Edison manages 97 schools with 58,000 students.
Study Disputes Philadelphia School Changes
Bloomberg News
Friday, February 2, 2007; A02
Philadelphia students who attended public schools managed by private operators fared no better academically than other students over the past four years, an analysis by Rand Corp. and Research for Action shows.
Philadelphia began an experiment -- the largest in the United States -- with private management in 2002 after the state took over the 200,000-student district. Private managers were given about $90 million extra over four years to run 45 elementary and middle schools in the nation's fifth-biggest city.
"Schools in Philadelphia have shown strong improvement that has been reflected widely across the district," said Jolley Christman, the report's author and co-founder of Research for Action, a Philadelphia nonprofit organization. "Our findings show the investment in private management of schools has not paid the expected dividends."
The private managers include New York-based Edison Schools Inc., the nation's largest for-profit operator of public schools. A five-year Rand study released in October found that Edison is producing student gains that are comparable to the public schools they replace. Edison manages 97 schools with 58,000 students.
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Nice Of You
to bring this to hizzonah's attention, but...
this process is not about academic achievement...it's not about students...it's about fleecing the public trough, cutting services, reducing costs, and accessing a new pool of real estate in the finite spaces of American cities. 110 Livingston Street, the former headquarters of the Board of Education, is now a condominium. Once private companies begin to operate (and subsequently close) failing schools, there will be unfettered access to spaces for developers to take over those spaces. Â
Private companies DO NOT have a fundamentally different approach to education. They utilize the same textbooks and curriculum and instructional techniques that most public schools use. They even hire many of the displaced or retired public school principals and superintendents to lead their operations in order to gain entree into cities. Private education companies offer excellent case studies in the limitations of cronyism fueling the replication of limited models. Â
There will be some tremendous payoffs to these firms, but the benefits will not accrue to the students. Ask these private firms about how they do differentiated instruction (for classes with diverse learners) or how they demonstrate cultural competency in serving Black folk or how they engage parents in the process/ownership of the school or why they selected the curriculum they've selected or about independent research to validate their claims or about the experience of their instructional staff and classroom/leadership experience of their principles. After you're done laughing/crying, you might want to bust a cap in someone's ass.
Mike is as full of shit as the rest of these folks. I am NO FAN of public schools, but I've seen the anatomy of this privatization scam up close and it's some ugly shit.Â
this process is not about
So this undercuts the public reasoning. Make them come up with something closer to the truth.Â