Philadelphia is at the forefront of a national trend towards privatization in education, making school reform in Philadelphia a topic of national and local consequence. In December 2001, after years of conflict between city and state over educational funding, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took over the School District of Philadelphia, declaring the city’s schools to be in a state of academic and fiscal crisis.
In the months following the takeover, the newly formed School Reform Commission ushered in an unprecedented level of educational privatization by turning dozens of schools over to private (for-profit and non-profit) educational management organizations (EMOs). So far, there is little evidence that the extra money given to the companies has resulted in better test scores for students, according to a new reports from Research for Action.
“There’s been an enormous change in how the district works,” said Eva Gold, one of the authors. That change has been a “new governance model” in which for-profits, nonprofits and universities get contracts to manage schools and perform other educational services, like writing curriculum.
While test scores in city elementary grades have been going up, it is not possible to say that increased corporate involvement in school management is the reason, the study concludes.
In fact, the greatest test-score gains have been in schools run by the school district, not those run by the providers. The report also concluded that the public has largely been shut out of decisions around which companies or institutions manage which schools, and why.
Read the full report here