Educational Rewards

Paul Peterson & Matthew Chingos:

For-profit management of public schools is still in its infancy, and many wonder whether it can have a positive effect on student learning. In Philadelphia, that idea has been put to the test. The results, as we report in a paper issued last Friday by the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, would not surprise Adam Smith.

The 18th-century economist explained that those who need to make a profit have strong incentives to do well by their customers. But can Smith's theory actually work when one is talking about educating students in the most challenging of urban schools -- at the very heart of a major metropolis? The answer appears to be yes.

When for-profit management of public schools was first proposed in Philadelphia six years ago, many in that city were extremely skeptical, if not aggressively hostile. So the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, the entity responsible for the innovation, gave only the 30 lowest performing schools to for-profit companies, while another 16 were given to nonprofit organizations, including two of the city's major universities (Temple and the University of Pennsylvania). Others were reorganized by the school district itself.

Impact of For-Profit and Non-Profit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Experiment 200K PDF.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 7, 2007 11:01 AM
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