
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 6, 1994                   TAG: 9402250012
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN PORTSMOUTH

VIRGINIA is sometimes criticized for moving at a glacier pace to embrace new ideas. But privatization of public schools is a new idea that warrants serious slow-pokiness.

One particular wrinkle of the idea - contracting with private businesses to manage public schools - might in theory lead to more efficient, responsive and innovative schools. But the concept lacks a proven track record.

A few localities - Baltimore, Minneapolis, Dade County, Fla.- are trying "franchise schools," but their experiments are too young to judge the results.

At the moment, the Portsmouth School Board is considering turning over five of 27 city schools - four elementary schools and one middle school - to private management. The reason would appear to be sheer desperation.

The Tidewater city's standardized test scores are among the lowest in the region. Half of Portsmouth's ninth graders don't finish high school in four years. Last year, 50 percent of the city's sixth graders flunked the state's Literary Passport test. Meanwhile, enrollment is declining, and so is the city's tax base. As a result, the city has cut by $1 million its contribution to the $82 million school budget this year.

Portsmouth's School Superintendent Richard Trumble says privatization of some public schools might help solve two of the worst problems in Portsmouth schools: institutional gridlock and lack of money. A private company, he says, might be less vulnerable to political pressure that protects the status quo in the schools, might be more able to cut costs and reassign people as needed. Pointing to one company that invests $750,000 in each school it takes over, he said privatization might also bring a quick infusion of cash to set up computer labs, hire teacher aides and provide other services the schools now lack.

He's right. Privatization might do all those things - and inject a bit of needed competition into the mix as well. This is not to say that Portsmouth - an extreme case - should flatly dismiss the franchise-school concept.

But it should be noted that institutional gridlock is a problem that strong superintendents have successfully addressed in other school districts without hiring outside managers. And it's a little troubling that money seems to be Portsmouth's bottom line. The purpose of public schools is not to turn a profit or to save money for a city or county.

Eventually, the experiments in other states - or, perhaps, even a small venture into carefully controlled pilot programs in Virginia - may provide evidence that privatization improves academic achievement of public-school students without diminishing the public character of public education.

Until there is such evidence, the Virginia response to franchise schools ought to be procrastination.

by CNB