EdisonLearning, Inc. is a profit-seeking organization that manages public schools under contract with local school districts or charter school authorities. The organization’s goal is to offer superior education for about the same amount of money per student that districts spend in their other schools. EdisonLearning’s role has stirred debate about whether nonpublic authorities should be allowed to run schools funded with public tax dollars.
EdisonLearning hires its own administrators, teachers, and staff and offers its own learning program. At EdisonLearning schools, both the school day and the school year are significantly longer than the United States average. Students in EdisonLearning schools generally have the same mix of abilities, ethnic backgrounds, and family income levels as do students in the rest of a district.
EdisonLearning offers a comprehensive curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12. This curriculum stresses fundamentals of reading and mathematics in kindergarten through second grade. Emphasis on problem-solving, thinking, and writing increases as students mature. EdisonLearnning also focuses on technology as a learning resource and a communication tool. The project uses narrative report cards, cumulative portfolios, and other nontraditional measures of student progress.
Chris Whittle, an American publishing executive, founded the organization, originally called the Edison Project, in 1992. It was named for the American inventor Thomas Edison to highlight the organization’s commitment to inventiveness and technical creativity. Whittle assembled a team of experts in education, social science, and technology who spent three years developing the curriculum. The project opened its first schools in 1995. It changed its name to Edison Schools in 1999. In 2002, Edison established a new branch, called Edison Schools UK (now EdisonLearning Ltd.), to manage schools in the United Kingdom. The U.S. organization changed its name to EdisonLearning, Inc. in 2008.
See also Charter school; Edison, Thomas Alva.
