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 RAISING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

SCHOOLS MANAGED BY PRIVATE PROVIDERS LIFT STUDENT TEST SCORES IN PHILADELPHIA
According to a new Harvard study, students who attended privately-managed Philadelphia schools made larger test-score gains on the Pennsylvania State System of Assessment (PSSA) between 5th and 8th grade than did other students in these grades in the Philadelphia school district as a whole.

A 2006 report from the Hoover Press (Charter Schools against the Odds: An Assessment of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education) offers the most extensive research to date on the impact of education management organizations (EMOs) on student performance. The results are encouraging. Excerpts follow:

 “With only a few exceptions, managers [of for-profit education management organizations] are posting one-, two-, and three-year gains greater than state averages. Since the positive findings are not only evident in one-year data, it is clear that the relative gains are not short-term flukes. The long-term data are pretty clear evidence that management organizations can help charter schools perform better than state norms.”

“Fears that large size or profits would get in the way of the best interests of students appear unfounded. While schools working with management organizations do not always succeed, and all management organizations do not succeed on average every year, the general tendencies are positive.”

“Generally speaking, the academic track records of for-profits and not-for-profits are similar and are superior to state averages over the short and longer term. The concern that for-profit managers would trade short-term profits for achievement gains is not supported by the data. The idea that not-for-profits will be academically superior scale operators is also not supported. Both types of scale operators are making gains in excess of state averages. Scale seems to benefit student achievement.”