dec2000

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6 A                  demonstration of the power of
                 entrepreneurs in our goal of
                 bringing about better schools
for all children, CER hosted some of
the nation’s leading innovators in a dis-
cussion with Washington business lead-
ers on their programs and the impact
they can have together. Don Shalvey CEO, Aspire Public Schools, Inc. “Neil Simon in the Goodbye Girl said there’s nothing worse than a hopeless
romantic, and that’s a hopeful one. I’m
a thirty- four year public school educa-
tor and I could not be more hopeful
about what we’re doing in this country
for public education.”       We are, too, thanks to people like
Don Shalvey. His own transition as a
public school administrator to a reform
entrepreneur came when he recognized
that educational choice is key: That’s
why he founded Aspire, a not-for-profit
charter school organization founded to
enrich students lives and reshape public
school systems by building 100 high
performing charter schools across
California.       “Schools have to fit kids,” says
Shalvey. “I asked myself a couple of
questions. ‘Do parents have a right to
choose a school for their children?’
Absolutely, yes. Where I live,
school choice is made every time parents buy a
home… That school choice isn’t neces-
sarily extended to everyone in
California. I believe it ought to be.       “Will school choice lead to school
improvement? From the first charter
school in California [which Don helped
create] we’ve just noticed in the school
district I left where all but one of the
schools has converted to charter that
the idea of providing some choice and
competition matters. I think school
choice does lead to school
improvement.       “In the public policy arena… educa-
tors and the system are great at coopera-
tion, we’re great at consensus… but
we’re really lousy at innovation and
change. It’s not something governments
do really well.       “ We need edumarkets… a place in
education where choice and accounta-
bility are the watch words. That’s what
we’re attempting to do.         “I, as a school superintendent
shouldn’t be able to say, your youngsters
should go; your youngsters should stay.
That’s an Old World way of viewing
the world.” Chris Whittle CEO, Edison Schools, Inc. “One of the things I
think you’re
going to see
in the
decades
ahead is a
tremendous
amount of
diversity in
how busi-
nesses and
private organizations, non profit and for profit, relate to public schools. One of
the great things about competition is
that there’s not just one answer. There
are many answers. I want to show you
one.”       Whittle was one of the first to take
the arrows that often come with discov-
ering new territory. Recognizing that
schools might benefit from the models
of scale that successful national busi-
nesses have found, Chris Whittle
launched his private management
organization of schools. “Buying power
cannot be marshaled among smaller,
cottage organizations.” Thus Edison is
striving to operate a national system of
schools that serve the needs and
demands of a growing number of fami-
lies that feel their traditional local
school is not optimal.       Edison Schools, Inc. now boasts 108
schools up and operating serving
57,000 children. They are in 45 cities
in 21 states. Relative to school districts,
Edison would rank at 60th in size (out
of approximately 14,000). Whittle says
they’ve learned many important lessons
in their ten years. One is that “we tend
to brush with broad strokes and there
are indeed tens of thousands of good
schools. But there are also tens of thou-
sands of schools doing poorly, too.
Those are the ones we tend to focus on.
Our product is better public schools.
When you say ‘what does better mean,’
if you can’t demonstrate superior stu-
dent achievement on whatever measure
is being used in the locale that you’re in,
you’re not better. That is one form of
better.       “We think you’ve got to run every
aspect of a school to make it great.
What’s the reading program, the math
program, what is the discipline pro-
gram, what’s your technology program,
what is your purchasing problem? It’s
no different than if you went to
Marriott, they’re thinking about it the Business Delivers Better Schools, CER’s Second Don Shalvey Chris Whittle