School privatization vote
The Baltimore school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on a contract to keep a for-profit company, Edison Schools, in charge of three city elementaries, Montebello, Gilmor and Furman Templeton. The Maryland State Department of Education contracted with the company in 2000 to run the schools, which were at the time among the lowest performing in the state. Now, because of changes in state and federal law, the state is returning control of the schools to the city school board, which must decide whether to keep Edison on. The city schools administration supports keeping the company, citing improved test scores and parental involvement at all three schools. Still, Gilmor continues to be included on a list of the state's lowest-performing schools.
Let us know your thoughts on school privatization here.
The school board meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday at 200 E. North Ave.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
BCPSS has been complaining about Edison for years and now they want to keep them? Maybe is BCPSS administrators don't know what they would do with the school or the students if they got them back. As a result, Edison schools remain an expensive failure.
Posted by: Jim | May 7, 2007 10:14 PM
I'm pro charter schools, but I don't think that replacing all public schools with charters is the answer. I'd like to give the Edison Schools the benefit of the doubt. It does not bother me so much that they are run by a for-profit charter school company so long as they are doing a good job educating a long underserved population. If they are not doing a good job educating the kids in the community then, of course, don't keep these charters around. There are other national non-profit charter chains (like KIPP) that typically do a great job and would deserve a shot at opening more charters in Baltimore. If the fate of these schools is to return to regular BCPSS schools, then I hope the city applies some of the successful models demonstrated by sharter schools in educating urban youngsters.
Posted by: Angele | May 8, 2007 8:44 AM