The district has spent more than $107 million on contracts with two for-profit companies, two nonprofits, and two universities since 2002.
Heralded as a way to spur improvement by introducing competition, the privatization experiment became a cornerstone of the plan to overhaul the district's worst schools after the state takeover in December 2001.
But in recent months, two outside reports that looked at their five-year history said they had not lived up to high expectations. The district's internal team concurred with that analysis and said that if any managers were retained, they should be given only two-year contracts with an option for a third and be under strict requirements for improvement.
"There is little evidence that the substantial investment . . . has produced sufficient academic success to warrant continuation," said the report, prepared by a task force of 19 district employees at the behest of the School Reform Commission. The study group included several high-level administrators.
The task force based its recommendations on analysis of standardized-test scores; interviews and phone surveys with parents, teachers and principals; and input at seven community meetings. It also considered other school data, including attendance, behavior and violence, and teacher training.
The report was presented to the commission in a private session nearly two weeks ago, but the commission declined repeated requests from The Inquirer to make the report public.
The commission could vote on contract renewals for the six groups as early as May 29 - the day it expects to adopt its $2.18 billion budget, which still has a gaping deficit.
John Chubb, Edison's chief education officer, called the report "biased, intellectually dishonest and downright sloppy" in a letter to James Nevels, the commission's chairman.
Chubb said it failed to recognize that competition spurred by the groups had led to the district's overall test-score growth.
