Limitations of the Market Model

What's behind the travails of Edison Schools Inc.?

By Heidi Steffens and Peter W. Cookson Jr.

A decade ago, during the corporate boom of the 1990s, Christopher Whittle had an idea: Why not start a system of publicly financed for-profit schools? It was the ideal environment for such a venture.

The market was hot, and so was education. The public sector was in disrepute. The time seemed ripe to replace cumbersome, overly politicized public school bureaucracies with smart, efficient corporate management and show how the market could improve the outcomes and the efficiency of public schools.

So Mr. Whittle founded the Edison Project (later renamed Edison Schools Inc.), raised tens of millions of dollars in capital, hired a qualified, well-connected team, and set it loose for three years to design an exemplary school. When the first four Edison schools opened in the fall of 1995, they implemented "the Edison design," the well-researched educational plan still used in Edison schools today. In many ways, Edison did the...