CEP mystery: many pass through ... and then?

The company's three discipline schools have served over 10,000 students here, but its public reporting accounts for only a tiny fraction of them.

by Dale Mezzacappa

Photo: Matt Seaver

School Reform Commission chair James Nevels.

The for-profit school manager in Philadelphia with the biggest contract, the longest tenure, and the most difficult mandate is also among the least scrutinized - Community Education Partners, which operates three schools in the city for disruptive youth.

CEP, a Nashville-based corporation, gets $28.1 million a year to educate some 2,000 to 3,000 students at a time who are referred for serious disciplinary infractions. That is more than three times the $8.7 million total for all other alternative school operators, and more than the $20 million paid to all the School District's education management organizations (EMOs) combined.

Since the first Philadelphia CEP school opened in 2000, more than 10,000 troubled students, including some returning from incarceration, have cycled through its no-nonsense, highly-structured program, according to the company's data.

The high numbers reflect the growing clamor from state legislators, teachers and the public to remove unruly and violence-prone students from regular city schools. “The greatest public pressure I get is on discipline,” said School District CEO Paul Vallas. “What the legislature wants, what City Council wants, what the public wants is one thing: get them out.”

As this clamor has intensified, the main beneficiaries have been private companies like CEP that over the past decade have moved rapidly into the discipline school business in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Since Vallas came here four years ago, Philadelphia has entirely outsourced its discipline schools to CEP and three other organizations and companies.

Since 1999, when it authorized districts to hire private companies to run discipline schools, the Pennsylvania legislature has sent tens of millions of dollars a year to Philadelphia to help pay for them. And the industry has steadily grown - despite limited evidence that the outside providers are significantly improving the educational attainment and life chances of most of the students who attend their schools.

Almost all that money is funneled through the state Republican caucus to a handful of urban districts, with little systematic oversight by the state Department of Education.

Officials of the Rendell administration acknowledge that discipline is a tough issue and are glad the legislature is providing money for it. However, they say not enough information is being provided to adequately judge the programs' effectiveness.

“It's amazing that they're willing to spend [this] money on kids, but it's sad they don't hold vendors accountable,” said Donna Cooper, Governor Rendell's policy chief. “We have no data. It's a frustrating thing. We're not happy.”

In Pennsylvania, CEP's mandate is to take these problematic students for a year - fifth through 12th graders - and improve their attendance, skills and behaviors so they can return to their home schools able to learn and ultimately graduate.

While CEP has tracked students who did well at CEP and went back to their neighborhood schools, no comprehensive reports are available on what happens to CEP's students who don't make that successful transition, which appears to be the overwhelming majority.