COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE THE COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, 11/21/01 2:30 p.m. - - - RESOLUTION 101642 - Joint hearings of City Council and Board of Education of School District of Philadelphia to examine findings and recommendations set fort in report of Edison Schools, Inc. concerning the future of the Philadelphia School District. CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Donna Reed Miller, Chair Jeannie Blackwell, Vice Chair Blondell Reynolds Brown Michael A. Nutter SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Pedro Ramos, President Sondra Dungee Glenn Michael Masch LEGISLATIVE BLACK CAUCUS MEMBERS PRESENT: Representative Michael Horsey Representative Leanna Washington Representative Rosita Youngblood - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 11/20/01 EDUCATION COMM. - CONT'D EDISON HEARING INDEX WITNESSES: Edison Schools, Inc. Eugene Wade, Executive Vice President .......... Dr. Thomas Stewart, Senior Vice President ...... 26 for Development Tung Le, Vice President, Education Assessment 53 Daniel Pianco, Director of Finance - - - Tom Doyle, President, Local 1201 ............... 89 3 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
The hearing is getting ready to start. We're getting ready to start. Good afternoon. This is the continued hearing on Resolution No. 010642. In attendance today -- this is a joint hearing of Council, the School District, and the Pennsylvania the Legislative Black Caucus. Councilmembers in attendance are: myself, Donna Reed Miller, Chair, Committee on Education; Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown; Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell; State Representative Leanna Washington; School Board President Pedro Ramos; and we do expect other representatives. We have Representative Rosita Youngblood and Councilman Michael Nutter. And at the moment, that is it. We want to begin our hearings. State Representative Michael Horsey has also joined us, and we want to bring our hearings and call Edison Schools, Inc. to the witness table. (Witnesses come forward.)
Mr. Wade, would you please identify yourself for the record and the members representing Edison Inc. 4 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
Good afternoon. I'm Eugene Wade, and I'm executive vice president for Edison Schools. To my right is Daniel Pianko; Dan is one of our directors of finance. To my left, my direct left, is Tung Le, who is a vice president of education assessment. And to his left is Dr. Tom Stewart, who is a vice president for development.
As stated previously, this is a continued hearing on City Council Resolution No. 010642. We'll just go on and begin. There are no opening statements; it's simply a continuation. And I don't have the computer here for Councilmembers that are in their seats, but I'll try and monitor who wants to ask a question. And at this time, I'd like to recognize Councilman Michael Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You're very kind. Good afternoon. PANEL MEMBERS: Good afternoon.
(Addressing panel 5 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 member whose computer monitor is obscuring the Councilman's view of panelists.) Are you trying to monitor something on your laptop there? For the moment, can you put your screen down? I can't see Mr. Wade, and I like to have visual contact of people when I'm asking questions.
Excuse me, Councilman Nutter. I would like to make one statement before starting.
The transcripts from our hearing on November 8th are not ready, and I do know that some Councilmembers asked Edison to bring back information. And what we're going to do today is combine those requests with any requests that come today out of the hearing, put it in writing, and send them an official letter so that we can get the responses that we need. Thank you.
In that regard, I did 6 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 make at least one information request at the last hearing. And, Mr. Wade, I did want to follow up with you. That request had to do with providing a budget for the report that you provided to, I think, as has been indicated, your client, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the $2.7 million. At the last hearing, one of my questions was, could you provide a detailed budget for the expenditure of those dollars? It was agreed that you would do that and so today I'm asking, do you have that information available?
Could you tell us what they are? (No immediate response.)
Okay. Does that mean that -- 7 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
It's a backup P&L, a profit-and-loss statement to the financials that are in the report.
Oh, I'm sorry. You wanted the budget for the $2.7 million; is that correct?
Okay, I apologize. I don't have that with me today, and we were -- we were actually collecting up -- we had coordinated with the Chairwoman to collect up all of the requests because in the course of the hearing last week, I wasn't taking notes, that we would get the transcript and comply with all of the requests. We haven't gotten the transcript so I actually did not remember to do that. The idea was for us to get that transcript and literally comply with all of the requests at one time. So I apologize for that.
That's when I made reference to, Councilman Nutter, the lack of the transcript from our last hearing.
I understand that, and 8 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 I appreciate, Madam Chair, the way you're trying to handle this. I guess until your statement -- I mean, there were, at least by my count, there were people here 6
Okay, maybe I lost 9 track of a couple of 'em, but I mean, between the 10 number of people who were here and, quite frankly, 11 the straightforwardness of the request, I am slightly perplexed at the inability to produce the information, but if we're going to wait until the full transcript is reviewed and every question analyzed, is there a way to put an end-date on when we might get answers to these questions? I mean, I didn't -- I mean, do you have to do a lot of work to figure out how the $2.7 million was spent?
No, we don't. It's a process issue. We had coordinated with the Chair, just thinking it appropriate that we get -- we were told that there were a lot of questions. We were getting questions informally on the way out the door. So what we said is, you know, if it made sense, that we would actually get a transcript, we 9 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 would get all the questions from City Council, and we would respond to those questions appropriately so we didn't miss any person. And we were just trying to be thorough. We'll certainly get those to you forthwith and apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused.
Okay. Given the events of the past hours, why don't you explain 10 to us from your perspective the difference between 11 the structure and the engagement you anticipated 12 prior to yesterday and as detailed, I assume, in 13 the report either that you sent to the Governor or 14 the Governor has presented as his plan versus any 15 of our best understanding of what changes took 16 place last night. 17 And so what is your present role, or your 18 proposed role, as compared to your previously 19 anticipated role as it relates to your relationship 20 with the School District? 21
Okay. I think prior to this, 22 it was a pretty clear role, which was that Edison 23 would potentially employ 55 of the top District 24 administrators and be responsible for the overall administration of the District. 10 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 What's being proposed now -- it was agreed upon yesterday between the Governor and the Mayor was a -- Edison, as a -- I call it a consultant, advisor, and systems support provider for the District. Think about it this way: The District has to go through a turnaround on a number of different front, one academic and the second, operational. And given the current turnover in the leadership, you've got to do a few things with essentially new people coming in. Our job is going to be to help that team: The CEO, the administrators that are there, the school reform commission that might be in place, implement that plan. And it involves a couple things. One is, it involves Edison making available its intellectual property, management practices, any systems that we might have. For example, one of the proposals was that all of the teachers go through intensive training over the summer. Well, you can spend six months just building the training tools. We have a pretty comprehensive, well tied together, aligned training system that is tied to the curriculum. That could 11 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 be modified by District administrators, and Edison would help them deploy it. That's one area, for example. So in each of the functional areas, as the team comes into place, Edison is prepared to make available its people, its resources. And then in addition to that, a team of dedicated executives that would help the new team achieve its goals, whatever those goals might be once they're negotiated by the Governor and the Mayor.
Who are these -- I mean, we've heard -- this number seems to be a significant number. Who are these top 55 people? What do they do, where do they work? And your testimony leaves me with the impression that out of that universe, there's going to be some significant amount of turnover. Did I understand you to say that?
Well, I think right now, our understanding is you've got an interim CEO and at least an interim chief financial officer that's turning over. You've got interim chief technology officers. So some of those 55 are included there. So what I was saying is a lot of the District 12 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 leadership that might craft a plan have to implement it on a short time frame would be in those 55. But the 55 number was derived by taking a look at proposing an operational structure for the District. If you look in the report, we said, Here's a couple of different ways you could organize the District leadership. And then the 55 is literally count down the two layers on the org. chart and you get the 55 people. So it's every functional area in the District. Now, I don't think the plan is for the SRC to come in and fire 55 people. I think the plan is for the SRC and the Mayor -- the Governor and the Mayor to agree on what the objectives are going to be and then to begin to evaluate the current players in the system against the objectives. So for example, if you're going to move a particular area like a particular area from a paper-based system to a technology-based system as a part of the plan, you've got to evaluate whether you have the skill set, people with the skills set to do that.
Who's going to do 13 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 that?
I think we could help in that and I think the SRC would have to, you know, have its own CEO and leadership team in place to really take the lead on that, but Edison's willing to help in that effort.
These 55 people, do they work at 21st and the Parkway or do they work at the schools?
The 55, I think, is the senior leadership, so 21st and the Parkway or wherever the headquarters might be.
And for whatever the turnover is, you're going to help either recruit or train or work with those people?
That was -- some of the substance of the discussion was what kind of roles would Edison be willing to play, and we told the Governor that we'd be willing to play, you know, any role in terms of consulting, supporting, helping to recruit and build plans for the new 14 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 players that would come in, and leverage our own intellectual property. So yeah, the answer is yes.
I don't have an answer for that 'cause we haven't negotiated that. I think it will be something that we'll be negotiating with the School Reform Commission. We've invested $500 million into Edison over the seven years in building out systems to manage a school system across the country, but what that's going to cost Philadelphia will be determined in the negotiations (inaudible), so it's probably not appropriate for me to give you that answer.
Okay. Well, from your perspective, it may not be appropriate. I take a different position The SRC, to the best of my knowledge, won't have any of its own money; is that correct?
It will be -- it will have whatever resources the District has. Assuming that Act 46 is the vehicle that's used for a partnership 15 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 or that a distress is declared, the School Reform Commission would take the place of the School Board, so to speak. So whatever resources are available to the School Board would be available to the School Reform Commission.
The School Board does not have its own independent resources; the School District is funded by the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the federal government of the United States of America.
So you're saying that you're going to negotiate a price for your intellectual property with the School Reform Commission that has no independent dollars of its own. So I'm trying to get a sense of or even a range within which we may be operating --
-- so that the citizens and taxpayers of Philadelphia know what it is that they're paying for.
You can't answer it 16 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 because you don't know the answer, or is it that you can't answer it because you refuse to answer it or because you don't want to answer?
Because we haven't even begun to get into the proposal phase. I mean, the reason we're negotiating with the School Reform Committee is because they have the legal right to contract with us. So they're going to come to us and say, Here's what we need you to do, Edison, and here's what we're proposing as a price. And then we'll enter into some negotiation around that. It could be the case that they say, you know, we don't want you to do these things. So it's not -- so what the answer is is going to be determined in part by the negotiations that have to happen. And it's inappropriate for me certainly at this level to get -- at this juncture to get into that discussion right now.
Okay. Who's going to implement the elements of your intellectual property product?
At the end of the day, the implementation of anything in the District will reside with the CEO and the School Reform 17 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 Commission. And so it's theirs to implement or not implement and it's ours to support them on if they decide to use it.
-- to the SRC. The SRC is going to be responsible for CEO and the much-heralded 55 people, and that group is going to be in charge of all of the schools, 264 schools. Is that the way it works?
Okay. And what are the funding streams that out of this arrangement come to Edison? 'cause I'm left with the impression that there's going to be a price for the intellectual property product, then you have potentially implementation and training and all of that.
There's other consulting services, you may help with the hiring of administrators. What would you anticipate the total price or the cost to the School District or 18 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 to the SRC for Edison services?
I think it will be less than the $40 million that I think -- there's a number that's floated out there of that $40 or thereabouts is what the budget says. I would imagine it's less than that because that number was considering us running the District, and we're not going do run the District. So that's kind of -- if you want to think about it and get a range, that's the ceiling. It's certainly going to be something less that, and I think what it ends up being will be driven by what we're asked to do. And at that point -- we just haven't gotten to that level of detail yet. So I don't have an answer, a direct answer for you on that.
But another question -- I think you said, what revenue streams will come to Edison?
You know, the other piece of business that we're going to -- and role that we love to play is that we would love to be a part of the partnership schools. So that's another area 19 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 where we would love to participate in the transformation of the District.
That's a different stream and a different -- that's much more similar to our current model, and I can certainly talk to you about that.
Okay, I'll get to that in a second. The proposed relationship as you've laid out, a consultant to the SRC, helping with the CEO, possibly the search, the administrators; now, have you performed this role --
We have in other districts, we're brought in to run schools. We have in our own company all across the United States. We haven't done this and we haven't consulted. In other words, no District has said to us -- Well that's not true. Some districts have asked us, Can we take components of your intellectual property and your design and implement it? And we actually have a business that we're starting to do that called "Affiliates." But this is slightly 20 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 different than that. We haven't done large-scale consulting in this way as a business. We are prepared, though, to make available what we have developed to the District to the extent that the District is interested in implementing any of it.
Last question for the moment. With regard to the partnership schools, whether as you propose them here or in other places, tell me what happens with the role and involvement of parents at the individual schools and what is their say as it relates to whether their school for their children becomes a partnership school, a taken-over school, a privatized school. Whatever the language is going to be, tell me what is in place, either today or what you anticipate going forward, that engages parents in that process.
There is -- right now, honestly there is no formal -- the way the Governor has proposed it, there isn't a formal role for parents in the process of determining whether or not a school becomes a partnership school. The driving consideration -- 21 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
I didn't make the decision, so I -- I mean, I don't want to comment on that.
Oh, I think there ought to be a role for parents in this process for sure. And I think there will be. At this point --
Parents should be involved in organizing their schools, they should be involved in the wraparound services. Parents can be involved in the decision. I think the driver, though -- to be honest, I think what the driving consideration ought to be is the performance of the children in the schools and whether or not the District has the capacity to serve those children right now. And in some of the communities that we're going into, you 22 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 know, parents are saying that we've reached out to -- we'd like to see something different happen in our schools.
Okay. And what happens in those schools where the parents say, We like the way things are and we don't necessarily want to have the benefit of your services; what do you do there?
In the schools where parents are saying that things are doing well, those are the schools that tend to perform well. So we -- under the plan, the schools are divided into three groups: The schools that are performing well and the schools that are doing okay, and some schools that are seriously failing children. And those schools, the SRC will have to make a decision about whether or not it wants -- how its plan to deliver the services that it's responsible for the children.
Who determines what category -- is this the -- I think there are 60, 174 and 30?
I think the SRC would make that determination. We've made a proposal and we said, 23 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 Here's our view to the Governor. I think the SRC has to take this and work with it and decide what it wants to do.
I understand that. When you made the decision to create the three categories, what was the basis of which schools will be in what category?
It was the overall performance of clusters, so we looked at performance primarily. We looked at how these schools -- where these schools were on State rankings and how these clusters had performed historically. And we didn't just look at individual schools. So if you notice from the report, it's not take the 60 worst schools, you know, 264 down to 204; it's take the underperforming clusters because from a practical management standpoint, you want to keep feeder patterns consistent, and neighborhoods tend to be underserved, not just schools. And so that's --
I don't know. I don't have the list in front of me. 24 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
There isn't a list right now. It's a proposal that it be done. There isn't actually 60 schools that have been picked out anywhere. I think the SRC, we've given them some ways to think about the process. They'll have to make that decision.
Okay. Madam Chairwoman, my last question is, in the report, or by way of your practice, tell me what in the larger scale, after you get beyond whether the parents are involved or not involved and whether their school is going to be privatized or not, based on your system, what is the role of parents, and what either responsibility or level of accountability do you place on parents for the future performance of their children?
I would imagine in the schools that we would be involved in, if any, that parents would have a role in governance, which is something I'm not sure they have now. There would be a -- I would imagine that there would be parents who would actually be involved in both the formation and the governance of those schools, parents whose kids are 25 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 in those schools. I would imagine that parents would be involved in the wraparound services. I would imagine that some parents might work at the schools in providing support. One of the things that we do at Edison, for example, to involve parents in our schools is a tremendous amount of outreach and to get the parents directly involved in the instruction of their children. We have, you know, the (unintelligible) division, we have book 12 campaigns. Parents are involved in organizing 13 that, parents are involved in overseeing that. We 14 also have outreach programs. 15 Every kid in an Edison school 3rd grade up 16 gets a home computer, every family has a home 17 computer available to them. The parents come in 18 and get six hours of training just to be able to 19 pick the computer up. And that's a way for us to 20 have a direct link into the home. So we would have serious mechanisms built in for parent involvement from governance right on down to the day-to-day operations at school. But that's Edison's model; that's not necessarily, you know, what's going to be mandated. 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 That's how we do business. And Tom wants to add one other part to the answer.
Thomas Stewart, Senior Vice President for Development. My role in the organization is essentially to do what you just described. When we identify communities across the country that we want to work in, it often begins with parents. There are two sets of schools that Edison managers. One is charter schools, the others are contract schools. The schools that we're discussing in Philadelphia would be contract schools in which we'd be working directly with whatever the ultimate authority is in this district, whether it's the SRC, the Board of Ed or the superintendent. In charter schools, charters, as you all know, in Philadelphia are often designed and founded by parents and educators and others at the grassroots level, so they play a direct role in 27 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 governance. The same would be true probably to a limited extent, but that would determined by the SRC. Gene mentioned that it's important to us to not only improve achievement but to bridge the digital divide, so Edison makes a commitment to giving every family with a child in the 3rd grade and above computers. In addition to that, parents have to receive six hours of training. Every classroom in an Edison school has a telephone, which we found is critically important in terms of keeping the teachers and the parents linked. The last thing I would say is, at the end of every year, Edison conducts a parent survey that's done by Harris. Eight to roughly eight and a half out percent -- excuse me. Eight to roughly eight and a half out of every ten parents in an Edison school said that they would recommend an Edison school to a family member or a friend. But it's not so much the outcome of the survey, but surveys and other ways of gleaning information from parents is critical to how we stay abreast of their experience in our schools.
What happens if the parent doesn't come in for computer training; what happens to the computers?
We would do outreach. There are times when parents come. We look for a parent or a surrogate or a guardian. Most parents actually do because the computer training is designed for folks who, you know, from literally, Here's how you turn it on to get it started. So most folks are interested. We've had some neighborhoods in some communities -- and I really mean a small number. Our experience has been that most people, the vast majority, come in for training. And, you know, I think we've heard a lot about, Well, do the computers disappear or don't they work? Our replacement rate is no greater than in any corporation. So in other words, our kids are taking and our families are taking care of the equipment and the investment. They're viewing it as their part of the investment and so they're 29 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 serious about it. And our experience has been that most parents come in. And if there isn't a parent, there's someone in that family that we can bring in for the training and that is there to take responsibility for the child.
Can I add one thing to Gene's comments? There are in the minority, I think, two categories of parents. There are some parents, though we have done a very sensitive outreach in an attempt to bring them into the schools, particularly to do the training, they still don't come in, and we've worked really hard to try to improve the approaches that we use to get the parents to come in for the training, because the training for the computer is much bigger than training for the computer; it's a way to get parents into the fold of public education. And we're talking about 70 percent of the children in Edison schools. Out of 75,000 students in Edison schools, 70 percent of them receive free or reduced lunch. So we're working with under-resourced parents and under-resourced communities. 30 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 The second category in the minority -- I mean, you know, it's a phenomenon that to some extent I guess we're happy about, but in about the last two years, we've noticed that parents are coming in less for the computers because they already have computers at home. So the digital divide that existed four or five years ago to some extent is being resolved by low-income families; and, therefore, they are not interested in free Edison computers.
Isn't that one of the issues that Wayne County in Goldsboro, North Carolina had with Edison, that there were boxes of computers just sitting around because parents would not come in and receive training?
Yeah. I mean, there are two ways you can look at that. I mean, one criticism that could possibly be made is that Edison promised computers and they never delivered. The fact that in Goldsboro, the computers were there. We've satisfied one half of our commitment. The other half, particularly in Goldsboro, the challenge was in fact getting parents in to receive the training and, therefore, take the computers home. 31 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 We do stipulate under every condition that they have to complete the training, and if they don't, we think it's a futile effort to send computers home and which parents don't understand them and, therefore, can't appreciate them. In Goldsboro, the school in question was one of the lowest-performing schools in the district, and that was a contractual arrangement we entered into with that particular school district. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that that school came with some challenges, and getting computers into the home was just one of several.
Representative Washington. I do have some follow-ups to that issue. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: I'd like to know where Mr. Whittle is today. I was told he was going to be here.
No, he was -- I think I made clear, or at least we tried to with the Chair, to say that Mr. Whittle wouldn't be here. We were advised that the questions today were going to be about the substance of the report primarily and that we would spend a lot of time on that. So I 32 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 brought folks who know a lot about the report and about Edison's record as it relates to, you know, its academic program, which is another line of questions we thought were here. Mr. Whittle was here, I think, at the last hearing, and we were here, you know, for a fair bit of time, and we thought we would be more specific in relating primarily to the -- and addressing primarily the issues related to the report. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Well, I just want you to -- you could let Mr. Whittle know that we expected him to be here since he is the person that inadvertently is Edison, who is the -- is he not the president of the organization?
Sure. I -- my job has been to oversee this effort in Philadelphia. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: No, I'm talking about Mr. Whittle; I think he should have been here. You know, I heard you talk about family involvement, and I know that the 60 schools that are picked are the lowest score schools, and most of those schools are in areas of North Philadelphia and Logan and areas like that where there's a lot 33 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 of dysfunctional activity and family environment. What are you going to do about that, how are you going to deal with those kids?
The report recommends that the District consider, whether it's the SRC or whatever the ultimate authority is, that they consider an approach to addressing that issue. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: What is their approach?
That seeks the support of organizations that have ties to those communities to work very closely with whatever service-providers that are coming in. The report recommends that multiple service-providers be pre-screened and pre-qualified to -- REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Is that what you call wraparound services?
No, that's not. I'm referring now to management companies, of which Edison's one of. Those management companies would work with organizations that are based in those communities and collaborate to provide comprehensive services that extend not only into the school but into after-school and weekend 34 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 programs and tutoring and mentoring programs. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Mm-hmm.
The goal is to bring a more thorough and comprehensive approach to education in those communities.
And if I might just add on that. I think that -- the theory here is that there are a lot of providers who are doing wraparound services, what we're calling wraparound, which are some of the social support services that kids and families need. Those tend to be groups that, when we do our research and are talking to those groups, they tend to be groups that have had not a very close tie to the current school district, so they tend to operate on the margins. And what this is designed to -- the partnership theory at least is designed to bring them into the mainstream governance of schools, and really, it's a strategic alliance mechanism. It's a way to take serious community organizations that have been doing wraparound services and embed them into the schools so you've got a continuum of services that are being provided to kids. That's one big part of the strategy. 35 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Well, I think it takes a little bit more than that. Do you live in Philadelphia?
Excuse me? REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Do you live in Philadelphia?
No, I don't REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: You need to have some -- I mean, what happens in Philadelphia is a lot different from where you guys come from. When you talk about the families that have needs, I have not heard you yet address any of the needs that those kids really have or those families really have. And when I heard you talk about giving them a half -- a discount lunch, I didn't hear you talk about giving kids breakfast. You said that -- didn't you say you provide them --
No, I didn't say anything about food, ma'am. I just said that 70 percent of our students receive free and reduced lunches, which is one indication of poverty. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: But one of the things that you need to look at when you talk about 36 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 the schools, these 60 schools that you're talking about, these kids need breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I mean, that's how a kid learns, with a full stomach, and I guarantee you, if you give them three meals a day, they'll come back the next day for three more meals.
That's right. And you know what, right now the way the school system is set up, most of our kids will get the two meals paid for, and then what happens is, if we're doing after-school programs with our providers in their extended-day programs, there's your third meal, if that's a part of the plan. So the whole idea is to be able to do that kind of outreach. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: In the other cities that you were in, did you union-bust there; did you come in and just let the unions go through their latest contract, and then after that, you dismissed them and just brought people in at a lower pay scale to do the same jobs that union people did?
We have 45 contract -- well, let's talk about what you mean by "union-bust." What we -- 37 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: If you break those contracts that the union company have, once those contracts are due to be renewed or to be voted on again, if you don't bring those same people back and let those people that live in Philadelphia have those jobs that sustain their families, that's what I'm talking about.
No, we haven't -- REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: I understand that you agreed to let the PFT keep their contract until it's finished. And then what happens after that?
Well, let me actually -- 'cause I think we're -- I want to actually frame this and at least answer the question by first stating something first about how we think about unions. This is an important question that you're getting -- you're getting at the heart of one of the really important issues on the tables here, which was, what was our recommendations about how you treat unions in this process generally speaking. And a couple of the fundamental decisions were made by the administration and certainly in the way in our report that we proposed to the 38 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 Governor, one is that, you know, there not be layoffs of people, other than in senior-management roles where you might not have a position for somebody 'cause they don't have the skill set. You really do need talented people at the top, that's really an exception. And even there, the goal is, a lot of folks who work at the top, you know, and I think you saw the administration do that this year rather than lay off people. They took teachers who were in administrative posts where they may or may not have been qualified or may or not have been needed and moved them back to the classroom. So that's one group folks. Let's talk about teachers. Any -- the sort of main theory with respect to teachers, the idea here is that to get the instructional personnel into instructional roles, not administrative roles, not outside-of-the-classroom roles, but to get teachers into the classroom and support them. And so what that means is that a lot of the jobs that are -- when we talk about teachers and the teacher size -- the ratios, a lot of that is instructional jobs that are not instructional in 39 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 their day-to-day activity. And the goal here is to get those jobs and those folks back and then to reduce the non-instructional folks; in other words, the administrative instructional. Then let me -- so we're not saying go in and bust unions and undo contracts. Now, having said that, the State -- that's teachers. And under Act 46, you wouldn't be able to touch the teachers' contract anyway. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: But what about the bus drivers and the custodians and those people?
Yeah, I'm going to get there. Under those jobs as well, what we've said is, let's streamline and make more efficient the operations of those areas. Those tend to be some of the jobs where you have the highest levels of turnover, meaning that people -- percent of the -- in many 20 of those functions, 20 percent of the folks in those jobs leave every year. So you've got hundreds of people -- REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: And where did you get those numbers from?
The District. Those are 40 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 numbers that we know. By the way, there's something I would like to say. A lot of the numbers that we cited that people say, Where did you get those numbers from? We got them from the District, a fair number of the numbers. The thing is, when you look in the report and you talk about the turnover rates, we didn't make those up. We don't have the data; we got that data from the District. So if it's wrong, we should go back and talk to them, but we didn't make up the data.
Mr. Wade, could I just ask you to clarify. Specifically, when the report discusses the student-teacher ratio before pre-right-sizing, as in the original proposal, did you count in that ratio teachers in preschool programs?
It isn't. Let me explain. I need to explain and answer at the same time. The answer is yes, we probably did do that 41 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
Because what we did was, we took instructional jobs. It was instructional -- (Unintelligible; parties talking over each other.)
So a ratio is, you know, a numerator over a denominator. The numerator is the number of teachers and the denominator is the number of students. You said the numerator is teachers, including preschool teachers. Does the denominator include or exclude preschool students?
Would you agree that a fair ratio would -- that if it's going to include preschool teachers in the numerator that it would include preschool children in the denominator; wouldn't that be fair ration?
And I would also agree that the number that you're talking about probably would have less than a 2 percent impact on our number. 42 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 So you're talking about a minor discrepancy.
But I'd like to talk about fair representation, and I'd like, you know, to --
Sir, I don't know that that's the case. I'm going to have one of the guys who put this together look in the report, and we can talk to it together. I'm not sure if that's the case.
I think the report makes reference to a -- a ratio of 1 teacher per 13 16 children, and we just need a better breakout. 14 You know, I have -- many of us have children in 15 public schools. When you read that figure, you 16 think it's 16 children in the classroom.
I know, I know what you said, and that's why we need a clarified answer to that question.
It's misleading when you -- (Unintelligible; parties 43 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 talking over each other.)
What I'm going to do is -- we took District data, ma'am, and our classroom -- your advertised classroom-to-student ratio, the classroom teacher to students is 28.6 right? But that's not counting all of your teachers. Our point here is that a lot of your teachers -- this is the point, this is actually the point. Your teachers -- some of the people classified as instructional are not in the classroom. That's the point. They're being called instructional. But they're not doing instructional jobs. So the idea here behind this report and what we're trying to get at is, let's take instructional jobs and move them into instructional roles. Let's not have a 28.6 class size but have a whole lot of people classified as instructors who aren't doing instruction. And I'm not saying that that's the case, but the idea was what to move the teachers to I call personally to the point of production. The real action in learning is in the classroom. Let's get the resources to the classroom. 44 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 So that explains a lot of discrepancy.
You know, I don't know whether substantively it was a part of the Edison report but it certainly got a lot of sizzle, which was the 16-1 ratio. So are you ready to answer the -- I saw you just got a note. Are you prepared to answer whether the denominator includes or excludes preschool students? I mean, I'd like to ask a couple --
If we could come back to that because I don't know the answer to that directly. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: My next question is, what -- there were several cities where Edison failed. Could you tell me why.
There were two cities -- well, We can talk about this. There were 3 cities out of the 65 contracts that we have, and I think we did go over this last time and I'll go over it again. There were 65 contracts that we have, 3 of them that we lost. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Why, why did you lose them?
They were not renewed. And one of them, we didn't renew the contract. 45 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: But --
Let me -- let me -- I'm going to answer. One of them we didn't renew the contract. (Addressing colleague.) In which city was that in? Was that in Sherman, Texas? In Sherman, Texas, Edison decided not to renew the contract. It was one of our first contracts. And the other two -- Lancing, Michigan, we didn't do -- they didn't renew our contract, they terminated us. And like I said before, you know, 3 out of 65. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: But you say 3 out of 65, but there were also cities where your test were scores low, I mean, where there was no 19 improvement in your test scores. So what happened there?
In 15 out of 16, 15 percent of our schools out of the 100 percent of the 136 schools that we operate -- and I think said this the last time and we'll say it again. Fifteen of our schools, 15 percent of our schools, our test 46 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 scores are either flat or down. In 85 percent, they're up. We're not making those tests up; those are state tests, they're not our tests. Tung can actually answer this a lot better. You may want to --
Could I ask a follow-up question to a point that you raised. That was one of the questions that I raised at the previous hearing. There were a list of school districts that I had been reading about and I went through them name by name and that was some information that was requested to -- that said would be delivered to me after that hearing. There were a number of others in addition to those three where you had formally lost the contracts. There were a number of other school districts that at least on the public record and in articles it said that you had troubled relationships, and that was kind of how they were termed, and I listed some of them. They included Pontiac, Michigan; they included Dallas, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; of course, San Francisco; Wichita, Kansas; York, Pennsylvania. Those are the ones that I remember. 47 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 And we asked if you could clarify what your relationship was. Was the school district considering terminating their relationship with Edison? was there a process that was under review? I was told that you would clarify your relationship in those additional school districts, and I think that may begin to get some of what the chairperson may be asking, that in addition to those three districts that were formally terminated, there were a number of other districts. Whereas we understood it, there was that consideration was on the table and the districts were less than satisfied with Edison's performance.
I may have a simpler way of stating the question. I mean, maybe if you just worked from backwards from the number, maybe you could just tell us how many schools you were in last year and how many of those schools you're schools you're certain to be in next year of the original. If we can have those numbers, I think we can move a little further rather than trying to remember school districts.
And the measurable performance results. 48 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
The reason I ask that is because I want to make sure that we're working with the right number. And if you can tell us where you were last year and were you expect to be, then you can explain, you know, to the extent that the second number's lower than the first, explain what the difference is and why.
We have two sets of responses, and Tung Le is going to address, I think, the more intimate details of your response. But there's two things we need to say for the record. First of all, if you go onto the Internet and if you rely on newspaper articles to track the performance of Edison, it's not a good source of data. Just here in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, regardless of what position you take on school reform, a lot of facts have been fabricated for or against, and I think the same is true in other cities. First thing we'll say The second thing that's important to know is that we have never been terminated from any of our relationships. In several situations, we've come up for renewal. And as Gene mentioned, in 3 cases out of 65 relationships over 7 years, we did 49 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 not have those contracts renewed.
The third thing Mr. Whittle said last time, on November 8th, was that you deserve to be thrown out of Lancing when he was giving the example of the three places in which you didn't do the job there and -- (Unintelligible; parties talking over each other.)
We have not been terminated. There's a difference between not having a contract renewed. In most cities that we go into, every roughly fourth or fifth year, we meet before the authority that owns the charter or the contract. Whether it be a charter school board or a superintendent or a board of education, we sit down and see whether Edison has met the stipulations or the outcomes that were a part of the contract. And in three cases, those contracts weren't renewed for the reasons Gene alluded to. Before I turn it over to Tung Le, there's just one other thing I want to say.
Three cases, yes. 50 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
Yes. And Gene just mentioned all three. We are very open and honest about -- and our copy of our Fourth Annual Report is on the Internet. We can make it available to anyone who wants a copy. We openly say that percent of our 9 36 schools are not performing at a level that we're 10 comfortable with. 11 And to the extent that some of the reports 12 that you're reading about touch on that, we think 13 that's accurate and we think that's honest, and we 14 believe that that's the way education should work. 15 And if we're not doing a good job in those cases, then there should be some discussion about our contract being renewed or in fact us being terminated. But we want to be clear that --
Okay. I'm looking at your 10K, which is an SEC filing, and I'm reading under the section and this is (indiscernible) so 51 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 you might as well hear it here and then you can respond to it because this is going around. Under the section that says five years, at least on this printout, it's on , your 10K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission says, "A management agreement covering two schools and due to expire at the end of the 2004-2005 school year was terminated early, at the end of the 2001 -- 2000-2001 school year. That's a statement from the 10K.
Yeah. I guess we -- we're mistaken, then. We apologize, but that's, you know, we're also human. Sometimes, we, you know...
But there's -- I mean, we're just trying to get a lot of what may separate, you know, some of the facts from some of the, you know, the other stuff.
Right. But we have lost three contracts (indiscernible). It's not renewed and it sounds like we have one that's terminated, but I may not be familiar with it. But that's -- one of those -- it must be one of the three that got terminated early is what it sounds like. But three of them were not renewed or we 52 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 were -- or they were no longer in existence.
And we expect to be in -- the schools that we're in now, we expect to be in them a year from now, I guess, is the other statement.
With all due respect, I was asking a slightly different question because I know that there may be very big differences in type of contracts you may have district to district and what abilities districts may have to change or terminate or end their relationship with you at various times. I was asking a very specific question on a list of districts that went beyond the three you had named about a less-than-satisfactory, I guess, relationship with the Edison Company, and I was being very specific for a reason, and I was hoping for a specific answer. Again, if you can't give that answer here today because it's just too much detail, I would like to have that answer provided soon because I assume that you -- you know, you talk about your system as a -- your schools as a system, so I assume you're pretty clear about your 53 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 relationships in the various states where you do have schools under contract.
Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's fair and we can, at a later date, get into everyone of the contracts -- of the districts that were mentioned to talk about our relationship with those --
Tong Le, I'm the head of the Assessment Department for Edison schools. I think I want to make just two points. One is that, you know, your questions are talking about total relationships based on less-than- stellar performance -- I believe that's what you had quoted. And I think we should separate operational issues that we might -- you know, problems that a district might have with us against the academic performance as well. For instance, one of the contracts that Gene mentioned that we lost in Wayne County, that was a contract that was ended by the district, but you'll note that in two of three years, including this most recent year, that we operated at that 54 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 school, that school was on the exemplary list of schools based on student performance. And then secondly, on that list of things you were mentioning, you know, you were mentioning San Antonio, and Minneapolis, I believe, is on that list. Those are -- I would also again separate that from performance, especially student performance, considering that our performance in both of those districts are actually, you know, beyond doubt. Three of our schools in San Antonio, for instance, all three of there were performing at over 85 percent on the state-mandated test and are either recognized or exemplary, so --
Out of respect to the representative, I think we're all supposed to be asking follow-up questions to the representative's questions, so I want to -- the Chair also feels that we should, you know, try to stay focused on that. So to the extent that answers are available, I mean, I think what we're trying to get to here is clarifying -- you know, the issue was clarifying what the track record is. And I thought that by just giving two hard number-type questions such as 55 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 how many last year, how many do you know you're going to be in next year that you can work. You know, rather than just being all over the place, we could work from hard numbers.
I can answer the first part of the question, which is the performance. You had, I think, a hard number.
How many schools are you going to be in? How many schools were you in last year? which is a one-word answer, it's a number. And how many schools do you know you're going to be in next year already? and that's also a number. (Panelists confer amongst themselves off the record.)
We understand it's approximately 113 schools that we were in last year, if that's what you're trying to get at. And we're in approximately 136 this year.
My question was -- sorry for that, Gene. My question was: Of the 113 that you were in last year, how many of those 113 will you be in next year? 56 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
And my answer is, right now, to the best of our knowledge right now, given where we are, that we're going to be in all of the schools that we're in today in September.
In other words of the 113 you were in last year, you'll be in all of those next year?
I believe one or two of the schools that we didn't renew, I believe it happened last year. So maybe there are two of them. And I'm doing this from --
I mean I think what we're trying to do is get the right answers on the record, if any of them are available. We'd rather have that than --
One of the things -- I do have a copy of the Fourth Annual Report that I'd like to present to the Council. In it, we openly talk about three categories of schools out of our roughly -- based on academic performance, whether the schools are doing positively, whether the schools are doing negatively, or whether the data is incomplete right now because they're first-year schools. 57 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642
It would also indicates which schools we have and which years. But I think, according to our records, that we were -- of the 113 from last year, 2 of them we're not in now. So if you think about it that way, we were down to 111, so we went up to 136; that means we picked up -- call it schools this year. 9
When we send you our 10 requests or the questions and answers, could you 11 note why those two are not going to be with you? 12 Is it performance, is it cost? Can you break down 13 the reasons why they're no longer -- 14
Right, okay. 15 The other thing that might be helpful -- 16 and this is a suggestion -- is, you know, we said 17 there are 15 schools that are flat or down, and 18 there's a bunch that are up. I mean, what may be 19 helpful is saying, What are the patterns we see? 20 You know, for example, what we do find is 21 that for two years in some of our schools, it takes 22 three years before you actually see gains. So 23 where are those schools in the process? Are these 24 first-year or second-year schools or are they in 25 their third year? And we can talk to you about 58 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 where those schools are in the life cycle. Some of those schools are, you know, second-year that we've had to manage those schools, and it takes three before you really say any significant gains.
Right. Well, I had a question that I was going to ask regarding the issue that you just spoke of. I'm going to call on Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Gentlemen, good afternoon. You indicated in the answers to Councilman Nutter's questions that you will at some juncture proceed into negotiations with the leadership in our city. What do you consider your strengths to be as a for-profit educational organization? I mean, is it in curriculum design? is it in teacher training? is it in wraparound services? is it teacher practices services for the special ed? What are your strengths that we should be excited about?
Yeah, I think the main strengths for us are in our management expertise 59 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 around education, so there's something that doesn't really show up in any box: It's actually how you manage a system of schools that are spread out and growing, and those are a set of practices. So I call that one area. Second is our school design. And closely related to that is our training and professional development for teachers. We do have some of what we consider to be and what a lot of folks consider to be some really good training for teachers. So how do you take training, professional development and tie it to a curriculum so that teachers walk in the door with a set of practices and tactics around classroom management, around getting kids levels of achievement. A third big area that I think this district could really -- where we might be able to help is around our infrastructure to support that, the technology that supports that. Our benchmark assessment system is unique. We can look of -- we have a running record of all of our kids on line, and know what they're learning and what they're not learning, and that data really does inform instruction. It's something that we -- and we 60 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 talked about this at meetings that we would make available and customize for Philly but it's -- it gives the district a view into the school. So for example, if you're looking at a type of math question, and all the kids on the math question in this particular class or building get it wrong. Well, maybe it's not the kids; maybe it's how it's being taught, and we need to address that in our instruction. And it gives our management, our vice presidents, our instructional managers the tools to actually know what's happening. Those systems are things that we've invested in and that are big strengths here. So a lot of what happens in education is we're changing over the last 10 or 15 years to the way we run schools in this country, but -- and the systems that support those are the things that -- you know and we've -- we have our designs. The systems to support those are something that we've invested in.
What is your response, then, to those who believe that real school reforms come with smaller classrooms and certified teachers teaching in their subject area? 61 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 I hear no mention of those tangible things that speak to real school reform. So for me, there's a disconnect.
We believe in those things, but in the absence of the tools that support teachers -- in other words, smaller class sizes but no training, where you drop new teachers into a classroom and it's small with no support and training, with little support and training, you're not going to get the same -- you know, the smallness of the class itself isn't going to help people learn how to implement, you know, success for all, for example. There's got to be an ongoing professional and development and training and support regiment. Part of a district's job is to provide support for its teachers and its students and the professionals that work with children. It's to build the system so that people can, in a small class size setting, really get improvement gains. One of the things that -- so you're not looking at just a collection of schools; it's the system.
Let's speak to the support services that you provide for 62 11/21/01 EDUCATION COMMITTEE - RES. 010642 children. Who pays for them in your scenario? Who pays for the wraparound services and related support services that are needed for students with special needs and students who come with an array of unfortunate circumstances?
Well, let's take the special-needs one first. Those dollars, you know, would come to the District. In other words, the District would have the same responsibility to --
The same thing. We would be subject to the same laws and regulations. So if we have children with special needs, you know, as a contractor for the District, we'd have to take the federal and state dollars and apply them towards those students and service them.
So you're going to expect the City of Philadelphia to enter into the arrangement with you where you provide the services and we provide the dollars to ensure that those services are implemented; is that what I'm hearing?