Mich. District Hires Edison To Manage Its Schools

By Darcia Harris Bowman

Unable to stem a steady exodus of students from their classrooms, leaders of a small urban district in Michigan decided last week to hire Edison Schools Inc. to run all of their schools.

A five-year contract between the Inkster, Mich., school board and the for-profit school management company is expected to be made final next month. The arrangement, under which Edison will manage everything from the district's finances and staffing to curriculum development and instruction, follows now-defunct systemwide arrangements in two other districts that involved for-profit companies.

"There was the unmistakable sense that history was being made," said David Arsen, a professor of political economy at Michigan State University who researches school choice and witnessed...