Edison Schools
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
Edison Schools Inc. is a for-profit company that manages public schools in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1992.
Contents |
[edit] History
Edison Schools was widely hailed at the beginning of the 21st century as the leader in what "school reformers" saw as the promising new privatization trend. Edison claimed that it could run public schools for less money than school districts could, and that it would improve student achievement while making a profit for its shareholders. Edison attracted ideological support from backers of privatization and school vouchers, and from such powerful conservative bastions as the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the Hoover Institution.[citation needed]
Edison Schools work on the principle of being partners with the school district concerned. They are divided into three sub-companies: District Partners, Charter, and Alliance. Also Edison runs after-school programmes under the Newton brand and extended school year programmes under the Tungsten brand.
Edison has also made some headway in Britain with Edison Schools UK. Colbayns High School in Essex was the first Edison School in that country, and received praise from OFSTED for its progress in the previous nine months.
Edison Schools keep in mind ten fundamentals and various core values. The fundamentals include a better use of time (which means a longer school day and a longer school year—198 days as opposed to 180 in the standard American school) and assessments that provide accountability (including benchmark assessments and a structured portfolio and a quarterly learning contract).
But Edison's results have been mixed. It rapidly stopped claiming that its schools would cost less, as client districts reported higher costs for their Edison schools. Edison's claims about academic improvement failed to live up to the company's promises. A July 2002 New York Times analysis of Edison's claims found that the troubled Cleveland, Ohio, school system achieved higher gains than Edison's schools when analyzed with the methodology Edison applied to its own schools' achievement.[1]
The notion of making a profit collapsed too. Edison Schools lost millions of dollars every year, showing a profit in just one quarter of the 10 years it made its finances public.[citation needed]
Edison's stock was publicly traded on the NASDAQ for four years. After reaching a high of close to USD$40 per share in early 2001, the share value tumbled to a low of 14 cents. In November 2003, the company was taken private in a buyout which paid only $1.75 per share. It was shortly after the buyout that Edison posted its lone profitable quarter, and then immediately ceased providing any public disclosure of its finances. The company has never indicated that it was able to maintain profitability for more than the one quarter.
After losing many contracts[2]—along with its media luster—Edison quietly began moving away from its original mission of "revolutionizing" public education, and into marketing conventional supplemental services such as testing, summer school and tutoring. Almost all of its new business involves providing such services rather than trying to manage schools.[citation needed]
[edit] Criticism
Edison's methods and processes were mentioned prominently in Alyssa Quart's Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2003), when some students started a demonstration against an Edison School being built in their area, due to the commercial takeover of their public schools.
Kenneth J. Saltman's "The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling and the Assault on Public Education" (Routledge, 2005) examines the efficacy of the company and raises questions about the broader social, political, and cultural implications of public schools being run for profit.
