After Edison, use reforms that work When parents overwhelmingly rejected the bid by Edison Schools Inc. to take over five New York City schools and run them as charter schools, it again showed why there is a natural alliance between parents and teachers. Under this program, students in the five struggling schools receive extra instruction, smaller classes and a sustained focus on literacy. Meanwhile, the board of education is working to staff the schools with qualified, certified teachers and provide teachers with meaningful professional development that complements the reform effort. No one wants a failing school, least of all parents.
Parents have the best interests of their children at heart.
They saw that working with teachers was a far better choice than teaming up with Edison, a for-profit company more likely to put the interests of shareholders ahead of other interests. The Edison vote showed that while parents are rightly concerned about the quality of the schools their children attend, they won't settle for just any alternative. After weighing the wisdom of turning over their schools to a private company, which would skim some of the public's investment off the top as profit, they chose a different path. It's what most suburban schools offer their students. Parents of children in these five New York City schools are trusting the teachers and administrators who run their school to bring in these kinds of reforms and to make them work.