Measure would affect Edison contract

By Emily Richmond

Thursday, April 3, 2003 | 10:05 a.m.

While the word "Edison" appears nowhere in Assembly Bill 512, proposed legislation that would set new limits on how local school districts contract education services is a direct result of the private management company's presence in Clark County.

The bill, discussed Wednesday by the Assembly Education Committee, would require school boards make specific achievement goals part of any contract for private educational services.

Edison Schools Inc. is in the third year of of a five-year contract to manage seven schools in Clark County -- six of which show up on the current state list of campuses needing improvement.

Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-North Las Vegas, and the committee's chairman, opposed the deal with Edison from the start. He has since criticized the Clark County School Board for not terminating the contract when the company failed to fulfill its promise of philanthropic funds, computers and other supplies for the seven schools.

School Board President Sheila Moulton testified that Edison has since caught up on its philanthropic payments and that the promised computers are at the schools. However many parents have yet to come in for the required six hours of training that would allow them to take the computers home, Moulton said.

Moulton said she opposed AB512 because it would take local control away from school boards.

"We are a local body elected by citizens to make these kinds of decisions," Moulton told the committee.

But Assembly woman Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas, disagreed, noting the per-pupil funding Edison receives to run the campuses ultimately comes from the state -- not the school board.

Because Nevada schools switched to a new basic skills exam last fall, there is only one year's data on performance by Edison students, Moulton said. If the company's numbers do not improve on the next round of testing, the school board is prepared to terminate the contract, Moulton said.