After receiving complaints from other parents that Edison was weeding out poor performers in order to boost test scores, the San Francisco Board of Education launched an investigation last year. The board found that 14 of 15 pupils suspended or “counseled out,” like Andre Hines, were African-American boys. While the school board stopped short of accusing Edison of racism–and a large number of Edison’s minority parents testified that they loved the new program–the board did find evidence that Edison was in violation of its charter to educate all students “without regard” to “behavior… or academic achievement.” Edison strongly denies that race played any role in discipline practices at the school, where, in 1998, almost half the 350 students were black. The board also discovered unacceptably high teacher turnover–21 out of 26 left in 1999 and 18 of 25 quit last year, dissatisfied with Edison’s longer workdays, rigid curriculum and relentless pressure to improve test scores. “There were two minutes to say this and two minutes for the kids to respond, whether or not they finished or understood,” says teacher Dina Deligiorgis, who left Edison after two years. “You just move on.” John Chubb, Edison’s chief education officer, says Edison’s curriculum does work for kids but admits that Edison didn’t “communicate sufficiently” with teachers about how to implement it. In March the board gave Edison 90 days to fix the shortcomings or risk having its charter revoked.
While Whittle dismisses Edison’s problems in San Francisco as “nothing more than ideological interference,” the conflict raises fundamental questions about the company, which Whittle launched in 1992, promising to “revolutionize public education in America.” Can Edison fulfill its academic promise while providing equal access to all students, no matter how costly or time-consuming their needs? And what happens when the expectations of investors collide with the needs of children like Andre Hines?
Whittle has been the man the education establishment loves to hate for years. Many of Edison’s current critics first took up arms against him in the late 1980s, when Whittle launched Channel One, a classroom news program complete with commercials aimed at teenagers. As a result, perhaps, Whittle still tends to dismiss his critics as “leftist” bureaucrats blinded by a hatred of his bottom-line approach. There may be an element of truth to that in liberal bastions like San Francisco or New York, where parents recently blocked Edison’s attempt to take over five schools. But it doesn’t play as well in Sherman, Texas, where the school board decided last year not to renew Edison’s contract, citing poor student performance and hidden costs. Districts in Goldsboro, N.C., Dallas and San Antonio, Texas, and Pontiac, Mich., have also raised concerns about higher-than-expected costs. A study last year of 10 Edison-operated schools around the country by researchers at Western Michigan University concluded that “these schools are not better than other schools.”
Whittle bats down the Western Michigan study as the work of his enemies at the National Education Association, one of the study’s underwriters. “We have problem sites,” Whittle concedes. “But we are doing an excellent job overall.” Evaluating who’s right is complicated by the lack of reliable comparison data. Edison manages 113 of the worst-performing schools in the country, serving 57,000 mostly low-income, mostly nonwhite students. Measured against other schools in their own districts, Edison schools often rank at or near the bottom. Edison prefers test results showing the performance of its individual schools over time. By that standard, most Edison schools, including San Francisco’s, do show improvement. But critics say those gains come at a much higher financial cost than Edison admits.
Wall Street has so far showed remarkable patience with Edison’s inability to make a profit. (Since opening its first four schools in 1996, Edison has accumulated deficits of nearly $145 million.) At a meeting for investors in New York last week, Whittle rolled out reams of encouraging data. Edison’s revenue is currently growing by about 40 percent annually, and Whittle expects it by the fall of 2002 to become the 20th largest school system in the United States.
Late last week Edison was working on an eleventh-hour deal with the board to allow it to remain in San Francisco. The company is seeking a new charter from the California State Board of Education, whose members are more ideologically in tune with its philosophy. (One member, Gap founder Don Fisher, is a major Edison investor.)
For Whittle, the essential tension is between test scores and stock price. “If we don’t run great schools, we’re out of business,” he says. “We have souls onboard, just like airlines have souls onboard.” But as some of the children at the Edison Charter Academy and their parents have discovered, the ride can be awfully bumpy.
