Also this issue: Massive Masquerade -Bruce Schimmel Judgment Day Common Pleas Court Judge William Mazzola's now-famous courtroom scolding of convicted murderer Ira Einhorn. -William Mazzola Letters to the Editor Saddam It All -Howard Altman

October 24-30, 2002

slant

Whittle Me This

How does Edison Schools expect to get away with it all?

by Jonathan M. Stein

We always knew that Edison Schools and its captain at the helm, Chris Whittle, had the Elmer Gantry delivery down smooth and convincing. Politicians, businessmen and parents swooned at the message: Instead of a chicken in every pot, it was to be a computer in every lap; instead of failing schools, it was reports, at least in press releases, of glowing test results; instead of a bleak, depressing past it was a new way through the private marketplace to the promised land of education reform.

But when the computers did not appear, when the actual mixed or negative test results caught up with the press releases issued months earlier, and when even the marketplace began turning its back on the business model and its results, lots of people began wondering whether they had been taken in as suckers.

Those candid enough to acknowledge that maybe they had been snookered have been those who are most accountable for Edison's results: local school boards. Thus school boards in Texas, Massachusetts, Kansas and Michigan, have been terminating their contracts with Edison. Edison's Boston Renaissance Charter School, one of its first four schools opened in 1995, was dropped after a track record that included 69 percent of its eighth graders failing the statewide math test. These contract terminations have come just as the Philadelphia School Reform Commission has been virtually forced into beginning theirs with Edison.

Before running 20 Philadelphia schools, the largest number Edison ever ran in one area have been the nine in nearby Chester Upland. Now with the latest Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) scores showing declines in all the Chester schools run by Edison, and Edison failing to abide by its agreement in providing promised supplies, technology and teacher training, the state-appointed Board of Control is about ready to dump Edison. "There comes a time when you say, ŒEnough is enough'," Board Chairman Thomas Persing told The Inquirer.

As Edison stock was tumbling to a 15-cents-a-share level from a past high of $38 a share, Newsweek was running with a major story on Edison in Philadelphia: "A radical experiment in educating the poorest kids becomes a soap opera." Newsweek detailed Edison sending two trailer trucks to its newly assigned Barratt Middle School in September to pull out new books, computers, art and lab supplies that had helped, for a few fleeting months, to raise some hope at Barratt for this school year.

A gutsy Philadelphia schools CEO, Paul G. Vallas, is holding up a first payment of $4 million to Edison because they have refused to give the district a financial statement, and refused to ensure that Philadelphia schools will keep supplies and books if Edison goes bankrupt.

And then comes the news that suggests that maybe there's even a screw loose at the top. Earlier this month, Chris Whittle picked up a $300,000 expense for an Edison principals and staff getaway at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs -- "five-star luxury at the foot of the Rockies," the hotel boasts. There, behind closed doors that nevertheless permitted a curious fly on the wall, he was reported to have told the gathering that "we could have less adult staff" by having students run "big" parts of school offices and "huge" parts of school technology systems. To evince his business acumen, he added that 600 students working an hour a day would be the equivalent of "75 adults."

We know from Whittle's past in making his first fortune from running closed-circuit education TV in schools -- with commercial advertising tossed in -- that he is a creative private marketeer. But could we guess that he would reach back to the Golden Days of capitalism before child labor laws were written to wring a profit out of his schools? Had Chris succumbed to a dream of an Edison East empire of his schools in China, where all the labor was supplied by children? Or had the guy stayed in the hot tub too long staring at the sunset over the Rockies?

Elmer Gantry hype? Bad business plan? Screw loose? Or, in the words of Ramon Cortines, a former New York City and Los Angeles schools superintendent and former Edison board member and consultant, "I believe integrity is extremely important. I began to find that lacking."

When Edison finally leaves our town, our school problems will continue and hard work -- school financing reform included -- will be needed. But at least we won't have to expend our energies fending off this slick privateer.

Jonathan M. Stein is a public interest lawyer in Philadelphia. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.