Student Achievement in Privately Managed and District-Managed Schools in Philadelphia Since the State Takeover

Introduction In 2002, the state of Pennsylvania, frustrated by years of low achievement and a decade of budget crises in the School District of Philadelphia, took charge of the city’s 200,000-pupil system. Th e state replaced Philadelphia’s ninemember school board with an appointed School Reform Commission (SRC) composed of three members appointed by the governor and two appointed by the city’s mayor. Th e SRC then hired a new CEO who immediately instituted sweeping changes, including the implementation of districtwide common curricula and a system of frequent benchmark assessments to be used for diagnostic purposes. More controversially, the SRC adopted a “diverse provider” model as it turned over management of 45 of the district’s lowest-performing elementary and middle schools to seven for-profi t and nonprofi t organizations, including two local universities; the private managers were given additional per-pupil funding to support their work. For the last four years, Philadelphia has been the site of the nation’s largest experiment in the private management of public schools. Philadelphia’s experience may have implications for schools and districts across the country: State takeover and private management are two of the interventions that can be applied to chronically low-achieving schools and districts under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In addition to privately managed schools, the diverse provider model in Philadelphia also included two groups of low-achieving schools that were given special support and/ or funding while remaining under district management. At the same time the SRC brought in the private managers, it “restructured” an additional 21 low-performing schools, providing intensive staff support and extra per-student funding, and provided 16 other schools that were perceived as improving (and became known as the “sweet 16”) with increased funding but no additional intervention. Th is research brief summarizes fi ndings presented in State Takeover, School Restructuring, Private Management, and Student Achievement in Philadelphia, which analyzes achievement diff erentials associated with Philadelphia’s privately managed, restructured, and sweet 16 schools, and examines whether diff erent private providers had different eff ects. Prior to examining diff erences among treatments within the Philadelphia public schools, that study sets the context for the analysis by examining districtwide achievement trends in the fi rst four years following the state takeover (through spring 2006). It does not aim to provide a rich and comprehensive assessment of all aspects of Philadelphia’s school improvement eff orts since 2002; it merely evaluates, to the extent possible, the achievement impacts of some of those eff orts, as measured by results on annual assessments in reading and mathematics.