The rally was one of many protests organized over the past weeks as part of a successful effort to defeat a proposal by the New York City government to turn five public schools over to Edison Schools Inc., a private, for-profit company. Backed by Schools Chancellor Harold Levy and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Edison received $500,000 from the Board of Education to promote the privatization scheme. The Board also provided Edison with parents' addresses and phone numbers during this effort. Edison was to be paid $250 million if the plan passed.

A majority of students at the five schools are Latino and African American. The teachers union and some local Democratic Party politicians also came out in opposition to the plan. The New York Times backed the plan in a March 22 editorial entitled "Give Edison a Try."

The schools are among those called the "worst performing" by city officials who have vowed to turn them over to private businesses to manage. City authorities, though, ran into a small snag: there is an element of democracy involved in the changeover. State law requires 50 percent of parents with children in the school to vote in favor of any proposal to turn a public school over to a private company. Edison's plan was to make these facilities into charter schools that would be run by them.

Nearly 5,000 parents were eligible to vote in person, by telephone, mail, or via the Internet over a two-week period that ended on March 30. Edison not only failed to obtain 50 percent of the votes, but only 2,286 parents cast a ballot, putting the turnout at 47 percent. The highest turnout was at Public School 161, a middle school in Harlem, where 69 percent of parents voted. Parents, teachers, and community groups there extensively organized to defeat the plan. In the end some 80 percent who voted cast ballots against Edison.

Prior to the vote Chancellor Levy threatened that if the plan failed he would close two of the five schools and reopen them with new teaching staffs. After Edison lost the vote, Giuliani told the press: "Obviously, what the parents have indicated by not showing up to vote is a lack of interest." He pressed for Levy to "take control of this and do a contract with Edison and turn the schools over to them."

In response to the label of "worst performing schools" in the city, Pam Price-Haynes, a teacher for 18 years at P.S. 161, said the Board of Education "does not provide us with the tools, the support, and the staff that we need. They blame the teachers and parents. We need the resources that we now don't have so that we can also provide children with more art classes, sports, and other recreational activities. Give us what we need and we'll do the job."

Odessa Watford in the Bronx told the Times that she voted against Edison because "I don't feel anybody should come in and make money off our children." Others were attracted by Edison's promises of smaller class sizes, computers for students, and other improvements. "I voted yes because I liked the way Edison plans to make smaller classrooms," Olga Ramírez said. "Right now, my daughter has 36 students in her classroom."

Edison Schools Inc. is the largest private school company in the country, operating 143 schools in 45 cities. This is the first attempt by a for-profit company to take over a school in New York City, which has the largest school system in the nation with 1.1 million students. In face of its defeat here, Edison's financial problems have worsened.

Since its founding in 1992 the company has lost $200 million, according to an article in the Times. San Francisco's Unified School District is trying to revoke Edison's contract to run a charter school there because of financial discrepancies and Edison's failure to have an independent community board oversee the school.

According to the Times, "The district's report also faulted Edison for high teacher turnover after each of its first two years managing the school. In the spring of 1999, after Edison's first year operating the school, 21 of 26 teachers left in a dispute over Edison's longer working hours."  
 
 
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