David A. Bennett served as an urban public school administrator for 20 years but is now president of Education Alternatives, Inc., a company dedicated to the concept of private management of public schools. Bennett proposes administering schools as public utilities--private management with public regulatory control. (MLF)

When contracting with private companies for support services, districts should define goals and requirements; develop requests for proposals; and create a team with legal, financial, user, and task-management expertise. Contracts should be in plain English, avoid open-ended lists, define terms, and specify service provision details. (MLH)

Whittle Communications, Inc. plans to launch a nationwide chain of private, for-profit schools and sell its proprietary educational products, instructional technology, and management services to school boards. Whittle schools will enroll children aged 3 months to 18 years, schedule hours coinciding with parents' working days, and operate…

Hartford, Connecticut, hired Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI), to help run the schools. EAI's key responsibility will be to help the school board implement their strategic plan for high and clear performance standards, improved assessment methods, more and better staff training, a decentralization of authority, and increased use of technology.…

Privatization pioneer Education Alternatives Inc. (EAI) has lost contracts to manage schools in Baltimore, Maryland, and Hartford, Connecticut. EAI's backers claim the lost contracts are proof of an entrenched bureaucracy. Others fault the contracts for lack of specificity about roles, responsibilities, payments, and outcomes. (MLF)

Public school districts signing on with private companies to provide services need to set up contracts with performance standards. Provides seven general advice tips about what to include in contracts and case studies of what three school districts have done in setting up contracts with private companies. (MLF)

Before signing on with a private firm to manage schools, school boards should consider whether privatization will save the school district and the taxpayers money, lessen bureaucracy, and lead to higher test scores or other objective measures of improvement. In addition, boards should ask whether the proposal is free of bias and whether the…

Besides endorsing a children's bill of rights, teachers at this year's annual National Education Association meeting urged a moratorium on most standardized testing, opposed a federally mandated national test, urged teacher study programs to include courses promoting multicultural education, agreed to a many-sided analysis of Christopher…

Fairfax County (Virginia) Public Schools sends up to 100 high-risk/expelled students yearly to two privately operated Richard Milburn campuses. The cost is $3,500 per student. Although these schools lack typical high-school amenities, kids appreciate getting more teacher attention. Houston has a similar, more costly last-resort program. (MLH)

Education researcher Gerald Bracey claims that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will result in privatization and educational vouchers because schools are expected to show regular gains in the proportion of students judged "proficient." (MLF)

In October, a revised set of test scores showed that students in the eight Education Alternative, Inc. (EAI), schools in Baltimore, Maryland, had not performed as well as originally reported. Indicates that a contract with a for-profit company should specify how much test scores or attendance should improve each year and what the consequences are…

Hiring private contractors to manage school support services, such as food, maintenance, and busing, is a growing trend. Companies such as Marriott Corp., ServiceMaster, ARA Services, and Laidlaw Transit report that school business is steadily increasing. Unions staunchly oppose privatization. This article balances advantages and disadvantages,…

A comparison of two Tennessee school districts revealed that the district with in-house pupil transportation spent less than the district that contracted for the service. A sidebar discusses the characteristics of small vs. large contractors for school buses. (MLF)

Discusses several market-driven school-choice programs: intradistrict choice, interdistrict choice, privatization, and vouchers. Because of the limited and often contradictory research on the effect of alternative choice programs on student achievement, more research is needed to determine their long-term effect. (PKP)

A search consultant describes the process of selecting Peter Hutchinson of Public Strategies, Inc., to head Minneapolis (Minnesota) schools. The board negotiated a contract of performance-based compensation for services provided by Hutchinson's firm, with Hutchinson as superintendent. (MLF)