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 Edison Schools Reports Extraordinary Gains On Recent Tests at Several Sites Across the Country Thursday, June 28, 2001 Edison Schools announced extraordinary gains on recent standardized tests at a number of its schools throughout the nation. Detroit Edison Public School Academy, an urban school serving students in K-8, increased its percent satisfactory on the Michigan high stakes assessment, MEAP, to 71.4 percent in fourth grade math and 90.4 percent in fourth grade reading, gains of 44 percent and 57 percent respectively. Washington-Edison Elementary School in Battle Creek improved to 55.6 percent in fourth grade math and 60.0 percent in fourth grade reading, jumps of 17 percent and 41 percent, respectively. These gains are extremely remarkable in Michigan, where the state as a whole has not seen average fourth grade scores increase at all over the past three years. Montebello-Edison Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland is another highly notable case. Taken over by the state of Maryland several years ago because of poor academic performance and contracted to Edison in fall 2000, Montebello posted some of the highest scores, as well as gains, in the entire city. First grade students posted median scores at the 93rd percentile in reading and at the 92nd percentile in math on the nationally normed CTBS, representing gains of 51 percent and 67 percent, respectively. Substantial gains were made in every grade, 1-5, and the average gains at Montebello-39.8 percent in math and 28.6 percent in reading-far exceeded those of Baltimore City, which made its own strong improvements. Finally, Edison's New Covenant Charter School in Albany, New York, a school nearly closed by the state before Edison took over management, posted the fifth highest gains of all elementary schools in Albany County on New York's high stakes grade four English Language Arts exam, improving the school's passing rate by 17 percent. Significantly, the four schools making these impressive strides serve students who have not traditionally succeeded. Nearly 97 percent of the students in these schools are minority and over 70 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch, the federal government's indicator of economic disadvantage in schools.
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