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CER Letter to the Editor
EDISON SCHOOL FUSS
By Jeanne Allen
The San Francisco Chronicle,Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Editor -- In addition to the ideological actions that the San Francisco school board is about to take to sever the Edison elementary school's relationship with Edison Schools, I am appalled by school board president Jill Wynns' comment that national press attention to the controversy is the result of "slick" marketing by the Edison company.
As president of the nation's leading school reform group, I can tell you that the attention being directed to this one school situation is the result not of Edison but of the cold, hard reality that a school board made up of adults has put its needs above those of the children.
This happens daily in pockets of this country, from large cities to small towns. It garners major national attention among those who believe that schools should be about children's needs and not about those of a system.
That system, especially in urban America, has failed children out of a fixation on rules and a lack of fixation on what individual children need. Those needs are the primary motivation of the charter school and the contract San Francisco entered into with Edison Schools Inc.
As should be the case, the media are focused on what is happening with education in this country. People who get in the way of children succeeding should be front-page news.
Sincerely,
Jeanne Allen
President
The Center for Education Reform
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The Center for Education Reform [CER] is a national, independent, non-profit advocacy organization providing support and guidance to individuals, community and civic groups, policymakers and others who are working to bring fundamental reforms to their schools. For additional information on education reform please call CER at (202) 822-9000.