Can it work? Should it be done?

I did some reading on the Edison school program. It's controversial and linked with a lot of conflicting stories. However, some digging into their overall school design reveals some very interesting ideas.

Maybe it's a good idea to go over a few of those, but first, I'm just wondering about the whole school for profit bit. One interesting aspect of the dollars is some innovation required to earn them. Edison clearly contributed to our pool of understanding and ideas related to primary schools. That's a good thing, IMHO --though it may well fall under copyright.

(and by primary, I mean K - 12)

I don't think I've seen anything similar coming out of public systems. We have adademies now. I'm 50/50 on those, largely because I don't like such differentiation at a young age. We've also got things like NCLB, Oregons CIM/CAM and plenty of other initatives that remind me more of dowsing for performance than anything else. Still, it's some innovation.

Anyone up for a discussion about privately run schools -vs- public ones? Schools for profit, or perhaps just companies figuring out how to make a profit with the state dollars?

My leaning right now is public. The primary reason is the seperation of church and state, which more or less demands the public schools focus on matters of education, leaving matters of ideology alone. I know this is not really true in a lot of cases, but it's true enough for discussion.

Having said that, I do find many of the Edison ideas very compelling. Maybe we can have more private run schools, but limit their ideological focus? Maybe permit more ideological focus in public schools in exchange for something? Maybe leave it all alone and the problem is elsewhere?


Thoughts?