Edison stock continues fall

Monday, June 3, 2002 | 10:55 a.m.

The stock price for Edison Schools Inc. dipped below a dollar this morning for the first time in the company's 10-year history, but the fiscal slide has Clark County School District administrators far from concerned.

"We're in the business of education, and for us it's business as usual this morning," said Principal Jean Jackson of Cahlan-Edison Elementary School in North Las Vegas, one of Edison's seven Clark County campuses. "We're receiving the same level of support we always have from Edison. Nothing has changed."

Edison's stock has plummeted from about $20 at this time last year to $3 a month ago. This morning's top price for shares of Edison's stock was 98 cents.

Even if Edison is unable to recover from its fiscal tailspin, the effect on Clark County students will be minimal, said Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of finance for the School District.

If Edison pulls out, the district will simply resume its responsibilities, Rulffes said. All of the teachers, staff and administrators at the seven Edison schools are still district employees, Rulffes said.

But School District officials say they are not worried, and in fact are not paying any particular attention to Edison's ongoing financial woes.

Edison officials were rebuked by the Securities and Exchange Commission last month for failing to complete an audit on time, and a New York law firm has filed a class-action suit on behalf of Edison's shareholders, claiming the company misrepresented its earnings.

Some of Edison's programs, which have been criticized as a cookie-cutter approach to education, would have to be dropped, School District officials conceded. Edison students undergo monthly online tests to gauge progress, and the results are analyzed by the company's home office in New York. The same instructional methods and textbooks are used by all of Edison's schools.

But much of Edison's curriculum was put in place up front, Jackson said. For example, the Success for All reading program used by Edison schools is also used elsewhere in the School District, Jackson said.

"That's the wonderful thing about education," she said. "Once you have it, it's always yours and no one can ever take it back."