RAND Roundup
There was lots of spin and some substance surrounding the RAND report on Edison schools in Philadelphia last week:
Edison can show gains over time, report says Philadelphia Enquirer
Rand Corp. gives Edison schools high marksPhiladelphia Daily News
Long-delayed RAND report: Edison Schools’ outcomes ‘not certain' EducationNews
Inspiration, Perspiration, and Time RAND
The RAND study makes this report from the Education Writers Association all the more timely: A Reporters' Guide to Privatization.
posted by Alexander Russo at 10/17/2005 12:07:00 AM
1 Comments:
The RAND report debunks some longtime Edison hype. One amusing point is that Edison has long exaggerated the number of schools it runs. Edison's count used to be based on a "different" way of counting schools, but now has inflated into flat-out lying.
So, RAND now definitively says Edison runs 103 schools. Edison hastily revised its own website to claim 136 schools in "101 sites." (It just lost Long Beach, CA, with one school, and perhaps there's another lost contract since the RAND report was completed.)
But Chris Whittle told BusinessWeekOnline, in an interview dated today (10/17), that Edison runs 157 schools.
Of course, that's a minor misstatement compared to the claims that Edison is working miracles (again, RAND says it cannot definitively state whether Edison can improve a takeover school more than a client district could do on its own). But it shows how credible the whole operation is.
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