The San Francisco Board of Education is aiming to strike a new deal with Edison Schools, Inc., whose charter school the board has been trying to shut down. While this gives parents some hope, it also reveals an education establishment more comfortable with failure than success.

The settlement would release Edison from district control and allow the company to apply to the state for a five-year renewal of the charter.

However, it would also place a moratorium on Edison, preventing the school from either adding grade levels (currently first-fifth) or establishing additional charter schools in the city. The settlement also increases costs, forces Edison to surrender over $300,000 in Consent Decree funds, and further bars Edison from supporting any future parent or teacher petitions.

The deal is a tacit confession that the board’s attacks on Edison were without merit. A charter school good enough for the state should be good enough for San Francisco. Though a victory of sorts for parents, it allows the board to skirt the real issue and save face. Edison has no choice.

It’s either this deal or the threat of revocation at Thursday’s vote.

Whatever the details of the settlement, to be revealed in full on Thursday, the local school-choice debate has been changed forever.

The traditional cast that has for years decried the plight of underachieving minorities now finds itself at odds with those same groups, particularly African Americans and Latinos.

To some of the Edison parents, 80 percent of whom are minorities, the attack on the school’s charter exposed the board-a former ally-as a new enemy. To others, it’s business as usual in the education monopoly.

Edison parent-teacher support is overwhelming. Eighty percent of Edison parents signed a petition in support of the charter. All but one of the Edison teachers signed a petition to renew the charter, submitted to the board in late May.

Before the board granted the Edison Charter, then-Edison Elementary School was one of the most notable failures in San Francisco. Student test scores were among the worst in the state and former principal Ken Romines recalls “[j]ust coming to school was dangerous. Violence was so commonplace, students expected to get hurt or hurt others, and they said so.”

In June 1998, under the state’s charter-school law, the board granted the charter to coincidentally named Edison Schools Inc. based in New York. The renamed and privately managed, Edison Charter showed dramatic improvements by African American and Latino students on the state’s Academic Performance Index (API)-gains that improved at a rate greater than all but two of the District’s 73 elementary schools for the 2000 school year.

For Edison opponents, higher “matched” test scores are not enough (matched scores track the same students year after year). In response to such startling gains, board member Mark Sanchez argues that it cannot possibly be “the same black kids.”

“We could revoke the contract, shut down that school and send the kids other places” said Jill Wynns, board president, “but we’re not that cruel and thoughtless.” Don’t bet on it. That’s precisely the threat that forced Edison to consider the proposed settlement.

For Edison opponents, higher “matched” test scores are not enough (matched scores track the same students year after year). In response to such startling gains, board member Mark Sanchez argues that it cannot possibly be “the same black kids.” On the other hand, while minority students perform poorly across the district, Sanchez and others complain about lack of funding.

Mr. Sanchez also said he was “philosophically against a [for-profit] corporation running a school,” a confession that the campaign against Edison had nothing to do with results and everything to do with ideology.

The attempt to unload Edison to the state shows how success threatens a failed monopoly system. It puts preservation of that system above the needs of children, and it sends the message that educational innovators are not welcome. But it changes none of the basic realities.

The most affected populations stand in dire need of alternatives to their failing local school systems. Low-income and traditionally low-scoring populations are driving a grassroots revolution.

Having tasted excellence and achievement at Edison Charter Academy, parents will never go back to the pre-charter days of low expectations and poor performance for their children. In coming days, the board will find that it cannot vote to avoid raised expectations.

Diallo Dphrepaulezz is a policy fellow at the Center for School Reform at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. He can be reached via email at diallod@pacificresearch.org.