For-profit company stays as district’s partner despite subpar record

Despite lackluster student performance at the Clark County School District campuses it oversees, EdisonLearning will continue its local partnership at a cost of $3.8 million per year to taxpayers.

The New York-based for-profit management company has spent more per student than the district average while delivering subpar test results.

At the urging of more than 100 passionate EdisonLearning teachers and parents and after two hours of deliberation, the School Board on Thursday approved a two-year contract for the company with a 5-1 vote. Board member Carolyn Edwards was the dissenting vote.

Other board members argued that the company needs a chance to improve.

But EdisonLearning has been running six district schools for 11 years without bringing student performance at the campuses up to the district's level, Edwards said. She also objected to School Board President Linda Young telling board members that they should vote to continue the contract.

"I'm not sure why we would continue," said Edwards, who contended that the company's intent seems to be to run the schools forever.

EdisonLearning receives between $8,398 to $9,962 per student compared with an average of $8,355 at the schools the district runs.

EdisonLearning usually operates schools for three to four years before returning operations back to school districts after showing improvement, its chief operating officer, Thom Jackson, said. But the company has been running six Clark County elementary schools - Cahlan, Crestwood, Lincoln, Lynch, Park and Ronnow - for three times that length of time with limited improvement.

A seventh EdisonLearning school, Elizondo Elementary School, is under a separate contract that expires in 2014.

At the district's seven EdisonLearning schools, about half of the students on average are at grade level in English, according to the Nevada Department of Education. Proficiency rates hover between 44 percent to 76 percent for mathematics but fall to 18 percent to 44 percent in writing. None of the schools operating under the EdisonLearning model met federal No Child Left Behind's standards last year.

Ronnow Elementary School hasn't met the federal program's standards for eight years. In comparison, five out of seven district-operated schools with similar student populations met No Child Left Behind's bar last year.

Superintendent Dwight Jones said he didn't have a set time to take back the schools' operations and hasn't discussed it with EdisonLearning officials.

But the company will be running the schools for at least two more years.

The district has set specific academic requirements in the contract, however. If not met, the contract could be terminated, which is why board members said they approved it.

Each school must show above-average growth among students in math and reading, as reported on the district's School Performance Framework.

The percentage of students classified as below grade level must be annually reduced by 10 percent, a benchmark EdisonLearning officials assert they can meet.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.