THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 9, 1994 TAG: 9406090525
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE STAUNTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940609 LENGTH: PORTSMOUTH
The news comes at a bad time for EAI, whose officials have been in Portsmouth - along with those from three other school-management companies - trying to sell residents and school officials on their plans to reform five city schools.
{REST} Superintendent Richard D. Trumble wants the School Board to hire one of the companies to run the schools to see whether student achievement would improve under more innovative management.
``Obviously, those kinds of unintentional errors hurt the credibility of that particular company,'' Trumble said.
EAI Vice President Mae Gaskins, who attended a privatization meeting at I.C. Norcom High School on Wednesday, said the error was unfortunate, but added, ``Just because those numbers were wrong doesn't mean a lot of kids were still not making that progress.''
Nearly 350 people, most of them school district employees, attended this week's three meetings. The majority remain skeptical, at best.
``A lot of the ideas sound good,'' said Vina Falzone, a PTA activist who visited EAI's Baltimore schools. ``But there are too many ifs, ands and buts. We need to build on what we already have.''
Last August, the Minneapolis-based company said that in three months it had raised student achievement levels an average of nearly an entire grade at nine of the Baltimore public schools it fully manages.
But after a report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the company retracted the August statement Monday, calling it ``an unintentional error.''
The gains were for ``one subset'' of 954 students in five schools, the company said, not for about 4,800 students in the nine schools, as it had reported.
In the same nine schools, Baltimore data show, students' average scores in reading and math on a standardized test have dropped slightly since EAI took over.
Courting Portsmouth are: EAI; Public Educational Services and Zeiders Enterprises Inc., both based in Woodbridge; and the New York City-based Edison Project, also in the national spotlight.
Edison's critics say its backers oversell what the company can do, especially given that Edison has yet to assume control of its first school.
The five targeted Portsmouth schools have a combined annual budget of $16.3 million and serve about 3,200 students. If a company is chosen to run them, Trumble said, it would receive no additional money.
All the companies emphasize that they would live or die by their performance.
A review committee will recommend one of the management plans to the board later this month. But the likelihood of the board accepting any plan is slim.
``I wouldn't bet a plug nickel on how the vote turns out,'' board Chairman J. Thomas Benn III said.
by CNB