Climbing on school innovation

By John Chubb

This spring, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission is poised to decide the future of what has been called one of America's greatest public-education success stories.

Gov. Rendell has called the additional 39,000 students who are now proficient in reading and math "an extraordinary achievement." Yet much sentiment in the city continues to rely on "studies" that imply that private education providers - who are partners in some district schools - are not improving test scores. We challenge this misinformation with facts.

Edison Schools, which I founded, began its partnership with Philadelphia in 2002. At that time, in the 20 schools we were assigned, there were 860 students out of roughly 13,000 who were performing at grade level in math. Today, there are nearly 3,500 performing at grade level and above.

In reading, there were 1,400 students at grade level; today, nearly 3,000.

Yet, while these numbers portray upward growth, more startling is how many children have been lifted from the below-basic-level in these 20 schools - or to put it another way, how many children have been lifted up nearly two grade levels.

In 2002, more than 10,000 students out of 13,000 were "below basic" in math in our partnership schools. Now, that number has been reduced by more than half to 4,800. In 2002, nearly 9,000 students were below basic in reading; that number has been reduced to 5,800.

We have made a commitment to lift the children up. We are proud of all our schools and their gains, and are greatly encouraged to see the efforts of principals at our elementary and middle schools, such as Franklin Gantz at Comegys, Aaron Starke at Huey, Michelle Burns at Tilden, and Donald Bandel at Anderson, who have achieved Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) at their schools. Some schools have made AYP for more than one year.

In addition, Judy McGonagle at Hartranft, Sharif El-Mekki at Shaw, Robin Wilkins at Kenderton, Don Anticoli at Penn Treaty, and Carol Martin at Waring have all brought about dramatic gains in student performance. Some of these schools have also achieved AYP in the last five years, barely missing the goal this year.

Yet, whatever the reason, there seems to be an ongoing preference on the part of some to minimize the successes achieved by these schools and others throughout the Philadelphia School District. Lost is recognition of what is working in Philadelphia in schools that have historically been underserved. That the partnership schools and the district as a whole have seen dramatically improved rates of academic performance is clear.

In its white paper, "The Philadelphia Story of 2007: Education Progress in the City of Brotherly Love," the Maryland-based Center for Education Reform stated: "All of Philadelphia's public schools have clearly progressed. . . . For the first time in [Philadelphia's] modern history, educational achievement is on the rise in a meaningful way. Such progress is attributable to the introduction of new and varied providers of education, something few traditional education researchers and observers are able to fully acknowledge."

Over the last three months, Edison Schools has held community meetings to engage local citizens, and discuss what is working in all the schools entrusted to us and how we can improve them. We are gratified and honored that nearly 1,500 parents, community partners, faith-based partners and neighbors have attended these gatherings on behalf of the children.

We have made sure to share with those attending the meetings actual test-score data that clearly and accurately reflect their school performance and individual student achievement.

Studies may slice and dice the data. But there is no denying the facts.