Dateline: 03/05/97 - by Walter H. Horowitz, Vice President, NoteSys, Inc.
Can a private organization run better public schools? The Edison Project hopes to prove that they can. An overview of the Edison Project was published U.S. News Online 1/11/93 (no longer online).
According to their home page, "The Edison Project is a nationwide group of public school partnerships in which all students are provided home computers linked to the schoolwide network. All schools will be linked to each other for collaborative projects. Teachers will be furnished with laptop computers. The Edison Project will constitute a real electronic community."
Edison project schools that have pages on the web include Boston Renaissance Charter School and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy.
The delivery of the first batch of 900 computers to students at the Henry Reeves Elementary school in Miami was covered on page 1B of the Miami Herald on February 9, 1997. If your local library doesn't keep the Herald in its collection, copies of the article can be purchased online from HERALDlink using their online archives. Just search for "Edison Project." Access to the article costs $1.95.
The Palo Alto Weekly covered the decision not to extend the Edison Project to their local school in the article "SCHOOLS: Private firm puts off Ravenswood" published Mar 15, 1995. This was a followup to "SCHOOLS: School may soon be managed by private firm." published Feb 15, 1995.
The Edison Project uses all current funding sources to finance their schools. Their grant application to participate in the state networking project can be found at Private Sector Survey for State Networking Project.
Unfortunately, not everything in print is available online yet. Here is a reference to an article. Let me know if you find an online source for it: Brodinsky, B. (1993). How "new" will the "new" Whittle American school be? A case study in privatization. Phi Delta Kappan, 74(7), 540-547.