The Edison Project Founder's Musings on American schooling - public school management programme

School Administrator, Jan, 1997 by Christopher Whittle

Editor's Note: In May 1991, entrepreneur Christopher Whittle boldly proclaimed at a Washington, D.C., news conference that he would reinvent schooling in America by creating a national network of for-profit schools.

Two years later, Whittle's Edison Project backed away from its original claim and turned instead to managing public schools. The first four Edison Schools opened in fall 1995, and this past fall another eight began operations. Whittle expects to open several hundred more before the end of the decade.

When he first started planning for Edison Schools, Whittle hired away some of the nation's most prominent educators--including Deborah McGriff, then superintendent in Detroit--to help in the undertaking.

Edison schools, which typically operate under contract to local school boards, benefit from the company's infusion of nearly $3,000 per pupil--about half of it to cover technology. The curriculum places a computer in the home of each student and a laptop in the hands of each teacher. The Common, its online computer network, links educators, students, and parents to each other and to other Edison schools.

Whittle's novel ideas for private-sector investment in public education date back to Whittle Communications' launch in 1989 of a technology initiative known as Channel One. The company agreed to outfit schools with free state-of-the-art telecommunications equipment provided that each classroom air a 12-minute daily news program laced with two minutes of commercial advertising.

Channel One, which now is shown in 12,000 schools nationwide, was sold in 1994 for $240 million to K-III Communications Corp., owners of the Weekly Reader.

The School Administrator asked Christopher Whittle, who visits the Edison Schools on a regular basis, to share how his perspective on public schooling and its leadership may have changed during the past several years.

Late one evening from my Seattle hotel room, I logged on to The Common, the intranet of The Edison Project, to collect the day's mail. From four just-opened schools in Mount Clemens, Mich., Sherman, Texas, Wichita, Kan., and Boston, there were the usual reports and requests from parents, students, teachers, and central-office staff.

For a moment, I marveled at the technology that makes such connections possible. Like people born in the horse-and-buggy days who never quite believed cars were real, someone raised in the pre-computer age always finds the digital world slightly magical.

After finishing the day's correspondence, I checked The Common to see if anyone else was still awake and online. Since it was nearly 3 a.m. on the East Coast, where Edison's headquarters are situated, I didn't expect much. A single name flashed on the screen. I sent my colleague a quick electronic hello and asked what he was doing this time of night. He, too, was in a hotel room, working in Miami to help start a new Edison School in partnership with Dade County.

After e-mailing him good night, I went off to sleep thinking how different and alike Miami and Seattle are, how diverse and vast America is, and how lucky I am to be a part of building its first national system of schools.

It has been seven years since the idea of Edison Schools took me captive and changed my life. Edison has changed over that time as well. What remains constant is its ability to challenge, to move, and to surprise. This is a brief collection of some unexpected experiences and reflections since Edison's early times.

I've been surprised by how much Edison draws the best out of people.

For 20 years prior to my Edison days, I was involved with an inventive and exciting media company that was noted particularly for its ability to attract talented people. Born of that heady environment, Edison has an even stronger gravity field. It pulls in virtually everyone who comes in contact with it. It is an idea that dwarfs individual participants and compels them to unusual actions.

This phenomenon was captured most vividly several years ago when newspapers across the country flashed headlines such as "Yale President Leaves Post to Start Elementary Schools" to report Benno Schmidt's decision to join Edison as its chief executive.

Less-publicized variations on this theme of personal courage happen constantly at Edison. Superintendents, principals, and teachers leave more secure posts to join up. Bold union leaders buck skeptical colleagues. Corporate executives leave comfort behind, looking to complete their careers in important ways. Parents sign up their children, before an Edison school even opens its doors. Political leaders push the legislative envelope. Time and again, investors provide Edison the capital it requires. And innovative school districts find creative ways to make Edison partnerships work.

These are not random, disconnected acts of daring. Virtually everyone involved in Edison intuits the overarching importance of this endeavor. They grasp the fact that Edison is more than what happens within the walls of its own schools. They understand that it is just the first colony in a new academic world and that its success will have national consequences. They know that Edison is about important new linkages--the merging of public education and entrepreneurism, the convergence of caring and capital, and the coming together of local control and national resources.