Philadelphia’s schools have long been troubled.  After years of chronically poor funding and student performance the state took control of the schools in late 2001.  The state contracted private firms, most notably Edison Schools, Inc., to teach the students in Philly.

Well, one of the reasons why the schools there have long been so bad is clear: they have a bunch of morons calling the shots.

The cash-strapped Philadelphia School District is paying the for-profit management company Edison Schools Inc. more than $1.6 million to educate 2,196 students who do not exist.

The School Reform Commission in May 2005 decided to maintain the per-pupil funding level for 12,591 students in Edison-run schools, even though the combined enrollment at the company’s schools had been dropping since the contract began in 2002.

The commission pays Edison $750 per student, which means they are overpaying Edison to the tune of $1.65 million.  I’m no contract negotiator, but it seems to me that if you arbitrarily fix the number of students you’re providing “per-pupil” funding for then it isn’t actually a variable cost, per-pupil contract.  It is a fixed cost contract.  If you, as the government contracting authority, know that attendance is declining and you issue such a contract then you are knowingly wasting taxpayer dollars.

Does Edison deserve blame?  I’m torn.  They are in this to make money after all.  But, let’s be honest - they are most certainly not dumb and they probably knew full well about the declining attendance.  When they negotiated and inked this contract they knew that they were going to be fleecing the taxpayers.  That should weigh heavily on the minds of the (hopefully new) government contracting authority when it comes time to re-bid this contract.

I should note that the situation in Philly is in no way representative of actual private education.  This is simply government education on contract.  An actual voucher based private education would not ensconce a particular education provider in place for an extended duration, all the while paying them a fixed fee.

Related content:

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• Huntsville schools considering buying laptops for kids
• Myth: Schools are underfunded

This entry was posted by Brian on Saturday, March 10th, 2007 at 6:33 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.