With kindergarten applications rising, SFUSD is talking about reopening one of the school sites it has closed over the years when enrollment was dropping and dropping. Superintendent Carlos Garcia mentioned the De Avila campus, at 1351 Haight St between Central and Masonic, as a likely possibility. (De Avila is currently rented to San Francisco City College.)
That’s a great location, close to lots of the resourced and well-educated young parents looking at kindergarten in the next couple of years.
A poster on TheSFKfiles blog brought up another property in a prime location for multitudes of kindergarten-bound families – the site at Dolores and 22nd streets currently occupied by Edison Charter Academy, a non-SFUSD school whose parent company, New York for-profit Edison Schools Inc., rents the property.
Good eye, whoever brought that up. There probably is no more desirable site anywhere in San Francisco right now for a resurgent elementary school. The school is located on the border between now-prime Noe Valley and the edgy, gentrifying Mission District -- but accessible to low-income, largely Latino families in the Bernal projects and other less-pricey housing in the Mission.
Meanwhile, the once-hailed Edison brand continues to slide into mediocrity and obscurity. I used to follow Edison’s fortunes closely back when it was hailed as the miracle solution for education, including keeping count of the dissatisfied client school districts that were getting rid of it. Now that’s so routine that nobody pays attention – I’m told that the Napa and Ravenswood (East Palo Alto) school districts have kicked Edison out recently, with nobody taking note at all.
There was a proposal a couple of years ago to move the Edison school out of the 22nd/Dolores site (a school coincidentally named Thomas Edison Elementary back in its pre-privatized days) for a district use. Reportedly, the remnants of Edison Schools Inc. threatened lawsuits and SFUSD backed down.
But with Edison on the rocks and SFUSD on the rise, maybe it’s time now. This could be the next reopened, revitalized "back to the future" SFUSD school. The fizzled for-profit could quietly skulk out, and SFUSD could accept its remaining students. Back when Edison Schools Inc. was the big name in school reform and in a legal joust with SFUSD, the New York Times covered the brouhaha in a March 2001 Page 1 story that very openly took Edison’s side. I doubt if we’d see a follow-up as the chapter closed.
Comments
Don't forget that SFUSD failed there first or the privatized group would never
have had the chance to move in.
I talked to a teacher who worked there as a special ed teacher in the current
configuration. I was horrified about how SFUSD did everything they could to
insure that it would fail. They sent them the children who were expelled or
about to be expelled. It was basically an SFUSD elementary dumping ground. (They
do this with June Jordan high school too) SFUSD would consistently "forget" to
send them text books and important neccesities to teach.
Every morning this teacher would call parents to wake them up to remind them to
remember to send their children to school.
If is not really fair to judge them so harshly when they have been handed
SFUSD's student population failures.
School districts cannot by law "sen(d) them the children who were expelled or
about to be expelled"; entrance to a charter school is by law limited to those families who apply directly to the charter. The school district has no control whatsoever over charter school enrollment.
I am amazed that Chester Finn and his bizarre cronies like Bill Bennett haven't been locked up yet. Edison is a failed experiment, run by greedy lovers of money and racial separatism. Disgusting.
Robin is correct that PRE-privatized, non-charter Edison Elementary (it coincidentally had the same name) was a mess and was indeed a dumping ground, if probably by default. It needed renovation and rehabilitation. Parent, Robin is referring to that pre-charter period in Edison's history.
However, turning the school over to predatory for-profit Edison Schools Inc. was not the answer, and privatized Edison did NOT serve those same students. Edison Schools Inc. was/is notorious nationwide -- as in San Francisco -- for dumping/rejecting challenging students, which is a key reason most of its former client school districts across the country have kicked it out. So, Edison Schools Inc. wasn't handed SFUSD's student population failures.
The observations of a teacher at pre-privatized Edison are valuable, but the assumption that privatized Edison took on those same students is inaccurate.
I would disagree about June Jordan, too. Small Schools by Design, like June Jordan, have some significant advantages, including being allowed to require applicants to submit an essay (which, obviously, screens out unmotivated applicants). However, June Jordan DOES get default assignments, because it doesn't get enough applicants to fill by request. That inherently gives it some challenging students, but that's because it doesn't get that many requests, not because of a grand plot against it.
During the application period when my now-9th-grader was in 8th grade, every 8th-grader in SFUSD got an enticing-sounding marketing letter from June Jordan urging them to check it out. (I do not know if this has happened other years, but it did that year, fall 2007.) The only other schools that did that were the Envision charter schools (CAT and Metro). That should have given JJ a boost in attracting more applicants, but its low (last in the district) test scores and poor reputation are presumably a barrier.
Maybe Edison should share the SOTA campus, which has a lot of unused space.
Gosh, why do I suspect that was intended to be a little snarky, "Mama"?
Actually, the SOTA campus does NOT have unused space. Our principal (I'm a SOTA parent) recently gave his SFUSD bosses a tour of the campus, and they were shocked at the lack of legitimate space for the various purposes needed by the arts programs. Even the jazz band rehearsing the cafeteria took them aback, let alone the chamber ensemble and string bass sectionals going on in the quad -- and that was before they got to the percussion sectionals happening in the unused shower area of the boys' locker room. And that's only the instrumental music uses, the ones that are on my radar as that's both my kids' artistic discipline.
I hear there is space out by Malcolm X Academy; why not move Edison out there?
It would be amazing if journalist actually studied the facts before writing an article filled with accusations with little truth. Yes indeed Edison Schools Inc. is a for-profit company, but this is the only truth you seemed to write about.
When Edison first took over Edison Charter Academy, it was in partnership with SFUSD. SFUSD charged Edison to operate in the district. Edison still had to pay for Management, HR, Health Benefits, and weekly Professional Development, and may other services. They also provide a narrow framework to run a school, based on years of study and research. Many of the same principles, that some of the city schools are just starting to talk about. It is wide public knowledge that Edison Schools Inc. looses money in California, because of the low ADA compared to other states. The financials actually show Edison Schools in California reporting a loss. They are able to balance the budget by sharing costs with schools around the nation.
Unfortunately, it was difficult to get services through SFUSD. It was nearly impossible to get Special Education services, district support, or maintenance. Edison decided to leave the district and apply for a charter directly with the California State Board of Education.
Yes, SFUSD tried to move the site a few years ago, but it was the community of parents, staff, and students that protested to keep the site. And this is why SFUSD backed down. It was out of community participation.
You will be sad to know that Edison is NOT on the rocks but becoming stronger and stronger each year. In fact many parents believe that Edison is the best-kept secret in San Francisco. Parents apply to this public school knowing that this is the school their child will attend. They don’t have to pick up to five choices. We are it. The collection of teachers on site is a team of dedicated professionals that put each student’s best interest first. The amount of teamwork, collaboration, and respect that one feels on campus is a rare find.
The parents and student love their school and it shows. There are increasing parent community nights and student, 80% of which are locals. They love being part of the Edison community. When other schools are cutting the arts. Edison invests their money in Dance, Drama, Art, and PE. Students receive 4 electives each year from Kindergarten through Eighth grade.
It would be a sad day if Edison Closed. The students have been achieving greatness. Part of this greatness is due to the community of parents, staff, and students working together. I would nice if you would think about people losing their jobs, students losing their teachers, and parents losing a great school, before you selfishly suggest closing down a school.
Do yourself a favor take a tour and get the facts. Investigate and find out what the State Board of Education says about our school. Please stop writing about hearsay and report the facts.
Sue, perhaps you're unaware of how thoroughly inaccurate your comments are.
It's bassackward to claim that Edison "decided" to leave SFUSD. The school board moved in early 2001 to investigate severing its contract with Edison Schools Inc., and Edison fought back tooth and nail with a bloody legal and media campaign. Edison tried desperately to keep SFUSD from ending its contract. This was all thoroughly covered in the local and national press, so trying to rewrite that story is a non-starter. AFTER an eventual deal allowed Edison Charter Academy to become a state-chartered school, Edison claimed this was all Edison's idea -- the same story it has told with other districts that kicked it out. When Dallas kicked Edison out, the company first threatened to sue and then changed the story to claim this was all Edison's idea. Both versions of the story were covered in the Dallas press. (The notion that this dishonest operator teaches its students "values" and "character" is mind-boggling.)
Actually, Edison client schools districts around the country had the same complaint that SFUSD did -- Edison schools cost the districts more per student (as much as $1000 more per year per student in some cases). That's one of the reasons most of Edison's former clients have kicked the company out of their districts. Sue, your entire description of how the economics operated is as inaccurate as every other aspect of your comment. Nobody except insiders knows the current financials of Edison Schools, because as a (now) privately held company it doesn't have to report them. But yes, attempting to make a profit by running schools on California's low funding (and with our locale's high costs) is likely not to work out. Edison's original claim was that it would keep the same students in the schools it took over (false, as client districts nationwide complained), that it would boost student achievement (false, even though Edison tossed out challenging and high-need kids into other district schools), and that it would make a profit too (a bust). Edison was telling the same stories about the wonderful enrichments their kids got back then. I toured the school and saw how they had closed the library; then the other benefits (such as the computers they used to provide to every family) went away. In Philadelphia, when Edison took over 20 schools there, they initially equipped the schools with all kinds of sports and music equipment, etc., and then sent in an armada of trucks to reclaim the items before the schools opened! Edison's behavior and deception have been brazen. It's amazing to see that the falsehoods are still being circulated, as in Sue's comment.
To research Edison Schools, go to www.pasasf.org and look for the Edison pages.
It's been interesting to see how some formerly respected academics and researchers who have had leadership roles in Edison Schools Inc. have destroyed their own reputations as they turned into deceivers, connivers and hucksters.
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