Word: edisonizing
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...third-grade music class. Would you care to join us?" Who wouldn't? Fetching classroom greeters are just one of the appealing features of the Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School in Hamden, Conn., a for-profit public school with an exuberant following among its students, parents and teachers. Run by Edison Schools Inc., a company whose shares are traded on the NASDAQ, the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade facility draws students from four local districts and sports a waiting list with more than 1,000 names on it. "We're a curiosity," says principal Dale Bernardoni, who explains that everyone from student...
...company illustrates the promise and pitfalls more clearly than Edison (1999 revenues: $133 million), the leading manager of for-profit schools, which pioneered the concept of for-profits in the early 1990s. Edison has since lost about $160 million while opening 79 schools with 38,000 students in 19 states. But parents are clamoring for its product. Last week the company signed deals to open a pair of schools this fall in Rochester, N.Y., and Milwaukee, Wis., and won a five-year contract to manage two schools in North Carolina...
...flurry of activity caused the boys and girls on Wall Street--all excellent math students--to raise Edison's grade. Its stock, which had fallen below $13 a share since going public at $18 last November, jumped $5.75 last week to close...
Chris Whittle, Edison's founder and CEO, is staking his company's future on its ability to slash administrative costs. For every dollar in a typical school's budget, 20[cents] to 30[cents] goes to administration. Edison spends around 16[cents] and plans to cut that to 8[cents]. "The money we save on central costs goes to the schools, and a portion goes to the bottom line," Whittle says. His goal is a 7%-to-8% profit margin. "If we were simply going to cut overall costs," he notes, "we would not be viable." Whittle puts the magic...
Growth alone won't put Edison in the black; it also has to deliver top-quality schooling. Among other things, Edison facilities provide more instruction than the typical public school--eight hours a day vs. seven, and 200 days a year vs. 180. Every Edison student above the second grade gets free use of a home computer linked to a library, a particularly prized perk among Edison students, 60% of whom come from families with incomes below the poverty line...