February 4, 2012
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Spring 2000 Vol. 9 No. 1
Interview with Chris Whittle
by Carole Novak
Who
is this guy? That's what the education establishment wanted to know in 1989,
when his for-profit company launched Channel One, the first national
television news program for middle and high school students — which just
happened to feature paid advertising during school broadcasts. He's Chris
Whittle, founder of Whittle Communications, which from 1970 to 1989 was one
of the largest publishers of magazines and related print media for students
from elementary school through college. He's also founder of The Edison Project,
announced in 1992 with the lofty mission of building a chain of private schools
across America. That plan was amended to become Edison Schools, a growing
network of privately managed public schools, which Whittle oversees as president
and CEO of the publicly traded parent company,
Edison Schools, Inc. As a businessman, he doesn't think “profit”
is a dirty word, he's adaptable to economic changes, and he isn't afraid of
being held accountable for results. But in the world of education, his chosen
niche, his ventures elicit reactions ranging from cold indifference to outright
hostility. Why? A better question is: Does Chris Whittle care? Not a whit,
it would seem, as he plans a future for American education that includes high-tech
instruction and new teacher-training methods. the success of his Edison Schools
bears witness to his tenacity. TECHNOS spoke with Whittle in March 2000.
Edison Schools, Inc., is doing pretty well so far. You've now got 79 schools on board serving 38,000 students, another announced today in Milwaukee, renewals coming, student test scores are improving, and your IPO was successful. To what do you attribute this success?
The school announced today is one of many — meaning we'll be announcing more in the future, so you'll be seeing lots of new schools coming online by this fall. What do I attribute it to? First and foremost, a nationwide interest in looking for any and all ways to make public schools as good as they can be. And our timing couldn't be better in that regard. In most political polling that you see, education is the number two or number one topic on voters' minds. If you talk to parents, it's obviously very much on their minds. So there's a national awareness that public schools need to be as good as we can make them. And we just happen to be in that world. I would say that is the biggest wind in our sails. A second thing is that overall we're doing a good job with the schools that we have and that word of that is getting around. We're not perfect, by any means; we have our problem schools. But if you look at it in the aggregate, we're moving student achievement upward in our schools, and I think that word's getting around, too. Another indicator of that is we haven't lost any schools. We've been at this for five years, going into our sixth academic year, and I think the fact that we haven't been fired yet is another indicator.
How long are your contracts?
We have five-year contracts, but we can be terminated. Our first ones just came up for renewal, and of the 14 schools that were up for renewal, we renewed 12, and the two we did not renew was by our choice. So, I would say these two things are driving our success so far: one, high demand; and two, generally good satisfaction. I don't think it's much more mysterious than that.
Since the economy is still humming along, is it a good political atmosphere now for people to be turning toward education, to finally do something about it?
I think that there's been a lot of national attention on it for a couple of decades. And in some respects, the fact that there's been so much attention but we haven't seen the results that some people would like to see, I think that's part of what is moving people to consider us.
So it's time for results.
It is. And I think there's some frustration growing out there about results. What you've basically seen is a couple of decades of increased spending of pretty substantial amounts with relatively flat results, and that's leading people to decide to be more aggressive. I think they view us as one form of that.
You started out with the Edison Project in 1992 — at what point did you decide to manage public schools through Edison Schools?
We started out with the idea that we were going to build a national system of private schools — that was The Edison Project.
But we altered that plan relatively quickly. Actually, we came to that conclusion in the R&D process, as we were researching how to do this, and we concluded that the best way to do it was to build a national system of public schools, which we would manage. We decided that in '93 or '94. We changed the name to Edison Schools, Inc., last November, when we issued our IPO.
How do you find the schools that you're going to manage?
We run two types of schools: contract schools and charter schools. In the contract schools, we go into cities, tell them what we do, and offer to be recruited to manage some — not all — of the schools in those cities. In those cases, we work for the public school system that is there, and we take over existing public schools. When we do that, they choose the schools we'll run for them. We basically say we're here to serve any children that you want, but they pick the schools. With the charters, we start from scratch, and in those schools we pick where we're going to be. We don't choose the students that go to them — we have to accept all children — but we get to pick where they're going to be. Typically, we place those schools in situations where there are high levels of dissatisfaction with existing public schools.
That sounds like more fun, frankly.
They each have their plusses and their minuses.
So charter schools aren't problematic for Edison Schools?
Not at all. In fact, we are the largest charter-school operator in America.
Our strategy is to be union friendly.
But most of your schools are contract schools.
About two-thirds are contracts, so a third are charters. And we are opening very large numbers of charters in the fall. For example, the one we announced today in Milwaukee is a charter. Charter schools are really an important part of what we do, and any time there's progress in charter schools, it's good for us.
What about vouchers? Is that any different?
Vouchers, contrary to charters, don't have a direct impact on us. Typically a voucher would be used at a private or parochial school, and we don't run those schools.
How does it work, then, with the teachers and the staff, and particularly the teacher unions? How are they receiving Edison Schools?
In the charter schools, it's rather straightforward. Meaning, it's a new school, and we recruit staff. As a general rule, charter schools are not unionized. By the way, they can become unionized, but they don't start under union management typically. In contract schools, for the most part we have a relationship with the unions, and for the most part we are operating in collective bargaining agreements, albeit modified collective bargaining agreements in the places where we do contract schools. Well north of half of our schools are with unions. How are they receiving us? The best answer to your question is that it varies from city to city. From literally wholehearted support — example: we just announced that we're opening a contract school in Springfield, Illinois, and the teachers' union there has been extremely helpful in seeing that that school gets launched. We have lots of examples of that attitude, and then we have plenty of examples of considerable opposition.
Our strategy is to be union friendly. We think there are plenty of unions out there that are quite progressive and are looking to change and improve schools, and that we can work with. Most companies — and there are now almost 20 Edison-like entities — are not union friendly. So we somewhat stand alone in that regard. We're happy to work with unions, we reach out to unions, and I think that in general we have good relations, particularly at the national level.
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Edison Schools was founded in 1992 as The Edison Project. In 1999-2000, it manages 79 public schools in 16 states and the District of Columbia and serves 38,000 students. For more information: www.edisonschools.com
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Nothing makes more difference than the quality of teachers in the school.
If there is a problem with the local union, what happens with those teachers? Are they reassigned?
If there's a problem with the local union, we're not likely to be opening a contract school. Because generally, if we don't have their cooperation, it's not going to work. With a charter school, it's not required, but with a contract school, it is.
But I think you're asking a slightly different question: ‘When Edison Schools take over a school, what happens?’ Is that the question?
Yes, actually.
Here's typically what happens: The teachers in that school are guaranteed that they will have employment in the district that they're in, but they are not guaranteed that they will have employment at that school. If they want to stay at that school, they go through an interview process with us, and they have the first choice of whether they want to stay or not; then we have a choice of whether we want to offer them a position at that site. So, in some respects, it's like a new situation. The only difference is that no one loses their job. If they don't choose to stay, or we don't choose to keep them, they're guaranteed a post within the district. And I think we manage that pretty well.
It seems a natural next step for Edison Schools to get into the teacher training curriculum, professional development area — possibly in partnership with local universities. Is that on the horizon for you?
I think it's beyond a possibility. It's highly probable. And just to show you how much, we have publicly stated, and we're quite serious about it, that we plan to open our own teachers' colleges around the United States, and we've already assigned the person who's going to head that effort within the company. And we're allocating a good bit of R&D money toward that in our next fiscal year beginning July 1. The reasoning, I think you've already anticipated: Nothing makes more difference than the quality of teachers in the school. And our view is that the more we can have an impact on their education as teachers, the better the schools are going to be. So we plan to have Edison Teachers Colleges.
On actual, physical campuses? Or will they be virtual?
We're thinking about them as both online and residential. We're actually testing this spring our first online professional development courses. And we're doing that in conjunction with a Paul Allen company called APEX Learning [www.apexlearning.com]. Indeed, those tests are underway as we speak. And there are courses that teachers at three of our sites are taking right now over the Internet that we designed with APEX.
We are definitely planning to be a force in that. We think about it as a form of vertical integration of what we do. And we're very excited about it and hope to be a player. We're going to announce who's going to be leading it and start R&D in a serious way in the coming school year. We've already started on the online side, but I'm talking about the actual, physical colleges themselves.
How will the certification process be devised?
You already guessed one route we'll look at, which is in partnership with other entities.
Who are the people who will be involved in the development of these colleges? It almost seems like you're going backward in time...in the sense that many universities began as teachers colleges, then expanded to offer other programs and grant other degrees. Now you're going back to the concept of teachers colleges.
Clearly, we don't think about it as going backward! But teaching is a very specific art and science, and it deserves its own college, which we're clearly not the first to think of. And we're only going to do that; meaning, we're not going to do universities, because it obviously doesn't make any sense for us to get into liberal arts and business courses and such. It's going to be highly specialized.
I imagine they'll be feeder schools into your Edison Schools.
Absolutely. You wouldn't have to do that, but our guess is that virtually all of the students that would go to these colleges will do so in anticipation that they're going to wind up teaching in an Edison School. And we will likely say that if you do well academically within these schools that we will guarantee positions, which will not be hard. Because just in the year we're going into, we will recruit somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 teachers for all the new schools we'll be opening in the coming year. So we've got lots of posts that will be available.
We are a real-world company, maybe e-enhanced somewhat.
As I look at the map of where Edison Schools are located, I would guess that maybe one of these colleges would be started in Michigan, where you now have 22 sites.
Our tendency will be to place them where we have clusters of Edison Schools, for rather obvious reasons. For instance, we would prefer that pre-service teachers do their student teaching in Edison Schools. So where you see concentrations of our schools would be places we're obviously looking closely at.
Let's talk about the stock market for a minute. I've been checking the Edison Schools, Inc., stock, and it looked like it was up slightly, but still down from the IPO. How's it doing overall?
It's been doing okay for the last couple of months. It is down from the offering, and we think having little to do with the company. Basically, as one professional investor described it, technology is just Ôtaking all the oxygen out of the room.' And if you're not a dot.com or in high tech, you're not in the game. Look at the Dow overall; it has been way up and way down this year. So most non-tech stocks have been suffering in this dot.com mania. That's one reason, and I don't think it's a small one. And I think that'll correct on its own accord. The second reason is that this is a complicated company and it takes time for people to understand it. But once they understand it, they tend to be quite interested. Just today, almost 400,000 Edison shares traded, and about 500,000 traded last Friday. Those are people that have taken the time to get to know what we're doing. That was hard to do in the compressed environment of a Road Show. If you look at the company, we've had nothing but good news since the IPO. So we don't think it has anything to do with the company, it just has to do with the technical aspects of the market and people getting to know us.
I don't see any reason why it couldn't almost be its own dot.com anyway. Don't you provide that kind of technology for teachers, students, and parents?
We have a tremendous amount of technology-related work going on here, but I want to be very careful not to position us as a dot.com. The reason is, I fear that though there are going to be big winners there, there's also going to be a huge shake-out, and I prefer not to be part of it when that day comes. The way I like to talk about this company is: there's a virtual world and the real world. I think we are a real-world company, maybe e-enhanced somewhat. But I don't think of us as a virtual company, and the reason is we have 38,000 souls on board everyday, and that's not virtual.
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Ten Fundamentals Behind Edison's School Design
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I'd like to talk about some of the technologies you provide. I wandered around the Edison Schools' Web site and saw that there's record keeping software and databases for the teachers to use, but there's also email for the students and teachers and parents, and you're putting technology in the kids' homes. Isn't that awfully expensive, above and beyond the per-pupil funding you're getting from the local community?
I'll give you a data point. Recent estimates say that total annual spending per pupil by typical public schools in the United States per year is about $100 on technology. I just saw some numbers the other day that may boost that up to about $120 — but let's say it's between $100 and $125 per pupil per year, and that's on anything related to technology: hardware, software, repair, etc. Edison is spending about $500 per child per year on technology — so our expenditure is four to five times what you'd see in typical public schools. By the way, just to complete the picture, it is estimated that typical companies today are spending at around $3,000 per employee for technology. So, though we are light years ahead of typical public schools, we are light years behind typical companies. And the reason is that the total spending per child in a U.S. public school is just around $6,000, and we obviously can't spend half of that amount on technology. So this company is dedicated to a whole different level of technological infrastructure than what you usually see. We get there for two reasons: one, we think the best way for kids to learn about technology is for them to be around it and be able to use it. Think of trying to teach driver's ed without the student ever getting behind the wheel. It doesn't work. So we believe we need to make this equipment available, because we think being technologically literate is critical in the days ahead. That's why we call it Technology as a Second Language™, and have in fact trademarked that phrase.
The second thing is — and this you're just going to begin to see from us — we believe technology can deliver certain aspects of education in a way that schools have just not seen yet. And the most exciting thing we are doing there is actually being tested in three cities, starting in April or May, where we are going to be delivering courses through a combination of a teacher in class, the Internet, and video, all working in a coordinated way in a classroom. And we are launching two courses at the fifth-grade level in this integrated way, one in science, one in Spanish. It's a little hard to describe, but imagine this: a teacher and students in a class that begins with a very well-delivered lesson through video. The teacher then leads the discussion about the lesson, and then the whole class goes to their desks, where their computers are built in, and accesses the Internet, and they do interactive exercises that are based on the topics in the video and the discussion. And when they get home at night, on their home machines, they have electronic homework packages that are also integrated into the same lesson. We're testing that this spring. APEX Learning is our partner in it, plus two video companies. You ought to think about it as Kitty Hawk; meaning, it may not be pretty in some respects, but there's actually millions invested in it, and it's really interesting.
We believe technology can deliver certain aspects of education in a way that schools have just not seen yet.
Who has developed the instructional design for this?
Think of us as the general contractor, okay? And then there are four important partners: APEX is doing the digital work; Pixel Visual Communications Company in Canada is doing the animation; Lucky Duck Productions is doing the video, and an architectural firm out of New York is designing the classrooms. These don't look like regular classrooms; they're completely redesigned. It's quite something, really. The most advanced test site for all of that will be in our Colorado Springs school. I think it's the future of schools, actually, to be immodest about it.
We've talked around the topic of other operators of schools, and I'm wondering specifically about Advantage Schools, Inc., of Boston. Are their schools competition for Edison Schools?
We are actually in favor of lots of people being in this world, because that draws attention and interest to it. And there are 88,000 public schools in the United States, so there's plenty of work for everyone. We run 79 of them today, and the last time I looked, Advantage was running 16 — so we're not worried about it. We're the leader in the category.
I've been reading the work of Alex Molnar, who runs the Center for the Analysis of the Commercialization of Education at the University of Wisconsin and who talks down everything about what he calls the Ôeducation profiteers,' yourself among them. What's your reaction to such critics?
I think the best answer is this: We just opened a school on Chicago's South Side. It's a school that has room for 1,100 children, and nearly 3,000 people applied to get into that school, and we had to finally cut off the waiting list. And I can promise you that for the people who wanted into that school the last thing on their minds was whether we may or may not make a profit. The first thing on their minds was, can they get their child into the best possible school they could get their child into? And guess what — if we don't do a good job, the first reason they're going to leave us is because they aren't happy with what we're doing. And isn't that the point? Isn't the point that if we do a good job, we're going to get rewarded for it? And if we don't do a good job, we're going to be out of business? And candidly speaking, wouldn't it be better if all schools were run that way?
Sure. You can make a profit and get academic results, and everybody's happy.
But the point I was making is: If you don't, you're out of business. Right now, there are schools all over this country that are in business that really shouldn't be. And if they had to live or die on how well they did, they'd be better for it. And the children would be better served. So, I think people who put forth the argument that profits are a bad thing are missing the big point. Because we're not going to make any profit if we don't run good schools. End of discussion!
Also, if you look at the now 36 cities, soon to be 60 cities, that have recruited us, they weighed that topic, and they decided that the key point is that they think we're good at what we do.
I think the main reason you're getting resistance is that some people ask the question, not can you make a profit, but should you make a profit? I'm wondering why education, by definition, has to be a nonprofit enterprise.
Well, it does not have to be. And, understand this: we're not advocating that there should be only one way to do this. There are plenty of great nonprofit public schools. Right? There are also plenty of terrible ones. And, by the way, there are going to be some bad for-profit schools. Just because you're for-profit doesn't mean you're going to do it right. But I will tell you this: There won't be many for-profit public schools that are bad ones for long. And the reason is, they'll be put out of business — and they should be.
I would think that a businessman like yourself is used to the idea of accountability and what happens if your bottom line isn't acceptable. And I'd think you would carry that over into the way you manage the Edison Schools — or the way your people manage them.
You'd better believe it. And when I get a parent call, or a call from a superintendent who's recruited us, I deal with that with a certain degree of urgency.
People who put forth the argument that profits are a bad thing are missing the big point. Because we're not going to make any profit if we don't run good schools.
Really? You get those calls?
Absolutely. And email messages. I'll give you an example. I got a call this winter from a parent in Michigan who said that the pipes in their school had frozen and that the school was cold and there was a shortage of heaters in Michigan because of some huge freeze, and I said, ‘We will have the heaters Federal Expressed tonight.’ And that happened. They were on a plane that night.
I'd like to know how you got into this business, and why it's important to you.
First of all, I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. I attended public schools all my life, from kindergarten through college. My father was president of the school board, so I saw it from an early age. My first real experience with the education market actually occurred in college. When I ran my political campaign for student government president at the University of Tennessee, I ran it on the basis of educational reform of the university. It was the first time it had ever been done. Typically, people ran on better football tickets or whatever ... and I had gotten very interested in educational reform at the university level through a then relatively radical organization called the National Student Association. So I ran this campaign, and it had the highest vote turnout of any election in the history of the school — and I won.
Then, I was working my way through school by publishing a small magazine. When I got out of school, I went into the student publishing business. Based on that, and over a period of 20 years, I built up a company called Whittle Communications that was a big publisher and big broadcaster in schools. And it was really through that that I got to know K–12 education well. Example: Channel One, which your friend from Wisconsin regularly lambastes, I think it's safe to say, was the most successful teenage media launch in a long time — and 40 percent of all middle schools and high schools today have Channel One.
It's interesting that you said that you got to know K–12 education through that, rather than coming at it as an educator and then developing Channel One. I remember when you announced it, lots of professional educators were just appalled! Who does this guy think he is?
I announced it from the world of media, and the way we viewed it — and I still view it — was we were essentially launching CNN for teenagers. And, by the way, when 40 percent of all the middle and high schools in the United States have it, it means that most educators didn't react that way.
But it was through that experience that I really got to know K–12 well enough. And what actually led me to this present experience was quite specific. In 1989, I was asked by The Business Roundtable to make a speech on the topic, ‘what would you do to improve America's public schools?’ I told them two things: First, U.S. public schools needed to have the benefits of R&D, just as all other sectors of American society did. I felt that was extremely important for schools to move forward. Second, it would take the involvement of national entities — like those involved in The Business Roundtable — to take that on. Because there is no way that a local school district can handle it. And I thought about it a lot after I made the speech and just decided to do it myself. I pulled together about $45 million in R&D funds from private investors and launched The Edison Project.
And you hired Benno Schmidt from Yale University, which was a pretty good move, too.
Yes. Benno was crucial to the mix. We felt we needed to demonstrate that we were serious about what we wanted to do for schools, and he gave us validity at the crucial moment. Benno has been and still is a driving force in The Edison Project and Edison Schools.
Who are your heroes?
I have different heroes from different sectors of society. But in the world of business, there is one person I have always greatly admired: Fred Smith, founder of Federal Express. If you want to talk about the importance of vision, there's a man who has it. Do you know the story of how he got started? He wrote the plan for what eventually became Federal Express as a term paper at Yale; he got a D on it. His success is due to his vision and perseverance.
Do you have children, and do they go to public schools?
Yes, three; one is not of school age yet. They don't attend public schools. We live in New York City, and unfortunately, there are no Edison Schools here for them to choose to attend.
Photo courtesy of Edison Schools, Inc.