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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1994                   TAG: 9401260157
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

MORE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE BEING PRIVATELY RUN

As a rising number of cities turn to private firms to operate failing schools, the Education Department, state legislators and members of Congress are showing more support for private management of public schools.

"There is built-in resistance" to companies running public schools, John T. Golle, chairman of Education Alternatives Inc., told a Senate hearing Tuesday exploring the growing movement. "But those walls are starting to come down."

Education Alternatives has evidence. It is expanding its operation of nine schools in Baltimore to 11, and Tuesday continued to negotiate with the District of Columbia for the operation of as many as 15 of its schools. In addition, Golle's company now has proposals to operate a few dozen more schools in Milwaukee, San Diego and Pinckney, Mich. Next month, it will be involved in Hawaii's statewide televised hearings on private management of some of its schools.

Golle said companies like his aim to do for public schools what Federal Express and United Parcel Service did for the U.S. Postal Service. "They introduced competition," he said, "and made it the best in the world."

Benno C. Schmidt Jr., president of the Edison Project, another for-profit venture aiming to manage public schools, said that, this week alone, he would be traveling to six states to talk to interested public schools.

Although teachers' unions and others still oppose the concept, new state laws may make efforts like those of Golle and Schmidt easier.

In two years, at least nine states have enacted legislation that allows for "charter" schools, public schools with special autonomy that in some cases could allow them to opt for private management.

Similar efforts, by various names, are spreading in other cities. Baltimore and Washington, for instance, are moving toward giving their schools new authority and independence.

Education Alternatives and the Edison Project promise to operate public schools at the same cost, but with more teachers and technology in a cleaner, safer environment.

by CNB