Fw: Edison School in San Francisco

[gerald bracey <gbracey@EROLS.COM>]

Since someone sent ARN Wyatt's NYT piece on Edison, I thought you might like to see my letter to the editor about it.

Edison is topical in NYC these days because it is trying to obtain a lucrative contract to manage 5 schools.  The contract required the consent of 60% of the parents involved.  At one point, Edison had permission to conduct the parent vote itself.  And we thought FLorida was bad.  Happily, opponents of Edison fought that and got rights to notify parents with ani-Whittle materials.

As of now, it is not clear that any one can get a contract in time to start in the fall, which is when the takeovers are supposed to be in place.


JB

  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: gerald bracey 
To: letters@nytimes.com ; bronnere@nytimes.com ; ewyatt@nytimes.com 
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 12:39 PM
Subject: Edison School in San Francisco


I am rather amazed that Edward Wyatt could write a long article about the Edison school in San Francisco without mention that Edison Schools, Inc., could not even operate in California if it hadn't been given $25,000,000 by the D2F2 Foundation.  D2F2 was established by Donald and Doris Fisher, founders of The Gap and their largess is tax deductible.

More interesting--sinister?--is that in return for its donation, D2F2 acquired an option to buy 1,700,000 shares of Edison stock at $7.96 a share.  In August 2000, D2F2 unloaded 600,000 shares at $22 a share.  

This is a sweet deal however you look at it.  But some eyebrows have been raised over the fact that D2F2 is making a profit with tax-deductible dollars.

For all their alleged bureaucracy, public schools do not view children as profit centers. In education, when profit-making comes in the door, the primacy of quality education flies out the window.

Sincerely,


Gerald W. Bracey
1797 Duffield Lane
Alexandria, VA 22307
703-317-1715


Gerald W. Bracey is an independent researcher and writer living in Alexandria, Virginia.  His forthcoming book, The War Against America's Public Schools (Allyn Bacon Longman, Septembert), discusses Edison Schools, Inc. and other adventures in privatization of public education.