Edison Schools, Inc. is the nation’s largest private manager of public schools. During the 2004–2005 school year, approximately 65,000 students were enrolled in over 100 Edison schools in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Most of Edison’s schools are operated under contract with local districts that have sought new management of schools, often because the schools have a long history of academic failure. Other Edison schools are brand-new start-ups, typically charter schools that Edison operates under contract with a local organization holding the charter. And Edison manages a few schools under contracts with states that have instituted takeovers...

This chapter presents background information that provides context for the analyses and findings discussed in subsequent chapters. First we describe the history and growth of Edison as an organization, and then we review the small body of existing research literature that has examined Edison schools.

Private firms, both for-profit and nonprofit, have long maintained contractual relationships with public schools in the United States. Historically, such contractual relationships were often limited to the provision of materials, such as textbooks and testing materials, or support services, such as transportation and food services (Hentschke, Oschman, and Snell, 2003). Although some firms provided educational...

The stated educational aim of Edison’s school-management business is the provision of “world-class education” to all of its students. Edison has defined a “world-class” education as one that “cultivates the mind to be ready for opportunities of every kind” in a rapidly changing world (Edison Schools, undated Web page [e]). In Edison’s view, this means that its students should have access to the breadth of content—including art, music, and foreign languages beginning in the primary grades of elementary school—that is available to students of elite independent private schools. Edison also defines the critical primary measure of “world-class” education,...

The ground-level implementation of Edison’s strategies—including both resources and accountability systems—is the issue of interest in this chapter. Even if Edison’s strategies appear comprehensive and coherent in theory, their success in improving school performance and student achievement is ultimately determined by their implementation in schools. This chapter examines how Edison’s accountability systems and resources are implemented in a sample of Edison elementary schools. The discussion reverses the order from the preceding chapter—here discussing accountability systems first, followed by resources—because this structure provides the opportunity to explore the extent to which differences in the implementation of the...

Chapters Five through Seven describe our analyses of students’ academic achievement in Edison schools. In this chapter, we describe the statistical methodology we use to examine students’ academic achievement in Edison schools. We begin with a discussion of the research questions that this study addresses. We then describe our methodological approach, which was designed to address the research questions within the constraints of the available data. The subsequent two chapters present the results and discuss their interpretation.

Before turning to the specific features of our analysis, it is important to understand the questions that the study was designed to address...

In this chapter, we present the results of the analyses that are designed to examine average academic achievement effects in Edison schools. We report analyses addressing three different questions about Edison schools’ performance:

1. What are the recent trends in rates of student proficiency in reading and math in currently operating Edison schools? How do those trends compare to those of schools serving similar populations?

2. How do achievement trends from the beginning of Edison management (Y1) in each school compare to achievement trends in non-Edison schools serving similar populations?

3. For schools existing prior to the initiation of Edison management, how do...

The results presented in Chapter Six focus on the average performance of all Edison schools across Edison’s ten-year history of managing schools. Those results also reveal, however, that regardless of which comparison group, baseline score, and operation year is examined, some Edison schools achieve larger gains than comparison schools, whereas others post smaller gains. In this chapter, we present results of analyses that are designed to identify factors related to the different levels of success across Edison schools.

Some of the variation in performance among Edison schools was discussed in Chapter Six, where we presented the percentages of schools whose...

Edison-managed schools served approximately 65,000 students in the 2004–2005 school year, more than most school systems in the United States. Edison students, their parents, educators, and policymakers have a clear stake in how well Edison achieves its goals. Moreover, there is growing interest in the broader topic of school privatization, in part as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which includes provisions to turn unsuccessful schools over to outside management companies. As the nation’s largest private operator of public schools, Edison’s experiences are relevant to this broader debate about private management.

The objectives of this...