More than any other example of privatization, the rise and fall of Education Alternatives Inc. over its nearly four-year tenure in nine schools in Baltimore City has caught the public eye. Actually, privatization is a misnomer. Education Alternatives Inc. (EAI) provided private management of public schools: the schools were still public property and the teachers public- sector employees under the local bargaining unit. While the contracting out of custodial, maintenance, and food services is not new, Baltimore's large-scale contracting out of instructional services to a for-profit corporation was unprecedented.
EAI is the instructional management arm of the larger Alliance for Schools That Work, which includes Johnson Controls World Services (custodial, maintenance, food, and clerical personnel); Computer Curriculum Corporation (computer-assisted instruction software); and KPMG Peat Marwick (financial services). EAI and its "Tesseract" program, however, have become synonymous with the whole package of services. Tesseract is a word from a children's book implying a rapid journey to previously unimagined heights, and Baltimore's nine EAI schools have been known as Tesseract schools.
Background to the Fall
Baltimore City's school system, among the 20 largest in the United States, shares characteristics with other urban school systems. In 1994-95, Baltimore's eligibility rate for free or reduced price meals was 79 percent for students in grades 1-5, and students' reading scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills were at the 41st percentile.
In 1991 and 1992, Baltimore's mayor and influential behind-the-scenes city leaders pushed the bright example of EAI and its work in managing a Miami school (South Pointe Elementary School) onto the then-new superintendent's agenda. Although soon to turn hostile, the Baltimore Teachers Union and its parent American Federation of Teachers had been impressed by EAI's Miami record. In July 1992 Baltimore City signed a contract with EAI. In August, EAI assumed management of 9 of Baltimore's 180 schools for five years, receiving the average per-pupil expenditure for each enrolled student.
- Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills scores for all groups were at levels similar to the year before EAI came in. For comparison schools and all Baltimore schools, the scores were relatively flat. For the Tesseract schools, scores had dipped sharply in the first year, then risen over the next two years to about their pre-EAI level.
- Baltimore City was paying about 11 percent more per student in the seven Tesseract schools than in the comparison elementary schools.
Although our finding of no CTBS test score gain after three years has been publicly viewed as a determining factor in the decision in December 1995 to terminate the contract, it was the report's financial information that cut short EAI's effort. While at first glance, average per- pupil cost seems an appropriate funding basis for alternatives to public education in which "funds follow the student," school systems almost universally spend less than their average per-pupil cost for elementary students and more for secondary and special needs students. The unmasking of this artifice made a mockery of EAI's promise to improve schools at no extra cost to Baltimore City. We have since learned that EAI's inference that it directs a larger percentage of resources to the classroom is also a distortion.
In actuality, the contract termination came after protracted negotiations, during which Baltimore City offered continuation at a rate that was 16 percent less than EAI was projected to receive under the average per-pupil cost formula (and 5 percent less than the comparison elementary schools were to have received). EAI chose not to accept the lower offer. EAI's management of the nine Tesseract schools (and three others for which it had consulting contracts) ended on March 4, 1996, a year and three months short of the original five-year contract.
In retrospect, beginning a new program without a planning year for the schools was a serious mistake. Less apparent was EAI's need for a planning year before launching a project of a scale and complexity far beyond its previous experience. In fairness, EAI did request a year for planning, but both Baltimore City and EAI needed an immediate demonstration of success in transforming urban schools, and both plunged ahead.
Immediately EAI scrambled to build corporate capacity to run a program that was many times the size of the two private schools and one public school that it was currently managing. EAI also rushed into operation its "Tesseract Way," which was, essentially, a child-centered program emphasizing cooperative learning, a multimodality and activity-based classroom, and thematic units built around a whole language program and real-life experiences. In our evaluation, we judged it to be a collection of useful teaching strategies, but we saw little evidence of a well-thought-out plan for implementation.
The Principal's Role in the Experience
At the time of the contract's termination, a number of developments had occurred that had begun to reshape the focus of the program. For example, the Baltimore EAI staff had become relatively autonomous within the EAI corporate structure. The staff was also well into a series of modifications that were to make the Tesseract program in its fourth year quite different from its beginnings. In addition, the Tesseract principals had coalesced into a group that strongly influenced the direction of the program.
Before the pull-out date, the Tesseract principals worked with the superintendent and the Baltimore EAI staff to shape an agreement that kept the program in place through the end of the school year. Later, they proposed to the superintendent a plan that would keep the nine original Tesseract schools, which are not geographically contiguous, functioning as a unit, with as many of the program elements in place as their own budgets and outside resources could support.
In spring 1996, when we talked with the Tesseract school principals, they spoke with one voice in support of the program. Early on, they were pleased with the additional resources EAI provided: freshly painted school interiors, bright new tables and chairs in each classroom, a telephone on each teacher's desk, and a working copier in each school. School materials like paper and art supplies became available in generous amounts, and principals had, at least at first, free rein to order instructional materials, mostly class sets of trade books for a whole language program.
From the beginning, evidence of the Tesseract Way has been visible in every school. Children's work was displayed everywhere, and rooms and halls overflowed with writing, pictures, graphs, models, dioramas, and mobiles. But the principals also stressed their role in shaping the program, so that by the fourth year, the emphasis had changed from the Tesseract Way to the teaching and learning processes that prepare students for the relatively new Maryland School Performance Assessment. This evaluation has replaced the CTBS as the indicator of student achievement in Maryland.
Professional Development Evolves
Staff development has been a centerpiece of the Tesseract program, and program schools immediately opted for a longer day and shorter lunch-time four days a week (an opportunity available to all Baltimore schools) so that teachers could meet on Wednesday afternoons. During the program's first year, a series of outside staff developers made regular presentations to the teachers, either as a whole or to each school's lead teacher. The lead teacher in turn presented the script-based training in the individual school on Wednesdays. Although teachers were on their own in applying what they had learned, and some felt the material was "stuff we already were doing," most were energized by the outside presenters and welcomed the model of lead teacher- presented programs.
The second and third years saw an evolution toward school-based staff development, which, particularly in the fourth year, was bringing about self-improving institutions. Also during the third and fourth years, an EAI reading/language arts specialist and a mathematics specialist worked in classrooms with elementary teachers, particularly the new ones. Tesseract school teachers spoke appreciatively of staff development, particularly as they began to feel more ownership of its content.
The principals noted a new level of professionalism among their staffs, with most teachers making real changes in their teaching strategies and embracing a literature-based whole language program. Especially in the last year, principals observed an expectation of teachers' sharing and learning from one another's practices.
EAI has had great success in establishing the supremacy of Wednesday afternoons for staff development and in persuading the public that continuous learning is an important part of school reform.
The Use of Interns
The placement of a second adult with a college degree, called an intern, in every classroom was a hallmark of the Tesseract program, one that was expected to transform teaching in the schools. In our observations in 54 Tesseract classrooms and 49 comparison school classrooms, we found that teachers at Tesseract schools spent less time teaching the class as a whole and more time teaching groups of students. The interns also worked with student groups or monitored classroom activities.
When we interviewed teachers and interns in the middle of the third year, we found opinions on the use of interns dramatically split. Satisfied teachers saw the interns' varied backgrounds as enriching and their assistance useful beyond measure, and satisfied interns enjoyed their work with children and felt appreciated. Other teachers had seen a succession of interns come and go, felt burdened with training them, and found some of them unsuited to the classroom. Dissatisfied interns cited unclear duties, the overwhelming educational and behavioral needs of students, and the position's low pay with no benefits.
Before our report was released, EAI had considerably revamped its intern screening and training processes, so that by the program's fourth year, intern turnover was reduced, and the interns were proving increasingly satisfactory. The full complement of interns remained in schools through June 1996, and some remain now in the lower grades, as principals choose to hire interns within their staffing allocations.
Computers and Student Achievement
Even more than staff development and interns, computers have been the Tesseract showpiece. Use of Computer Curriculum Corporation's integrated learning system software was central to the model. Although never described as such, the use of this software can be seen as a demonstration project embedded in the Tesseract program to show that full use of an integrated learning system would improve student achievement.
In addition to four computers in each classroom, EAI provided one or two labs of 24 to 28 computers in each elementary school. Students were expected to spend time daily on a classroom computer and, with their class, to attend the computer lab twice a week (more often for Chapter 1 students). EAI placed considerable pressure on administrators and teachers to see that students logged sufficient computer time to achieve courseware levels that would lead to improved achievement test levels.
Computer Curriculum Corporation's analysis, after the second year of the program, found that elementary students spent an average of 22 hours on mathematics and 25 hours on reading courseware that year. Usage was variable across schools, however, and about 10 percent of the students were not on computers for the minimum required time of 15 hours in each area to maintain achievement level. Further, more than 95 percent were not spending EAI's expected time of 40 hours in reading and 40 hours in mathematics to increase achievement.
Technology-starved Baltimore City, of course, welcomed any computers. Until the last months of the third year, however, the number of computers in some schools fell short of the number needed to implement the Tesseract model with minimum disruption to the rest of the instructional program. In fact, we concluded that cycling students through computers during classroom time was ineffective. Further, EAI's insistence on maintaining high levels of computer use took precedence over other, less easily monitored aspects of the Tesseract program.
Disappointingly, Computer Curriculum Corporation did not take advantage of its opportunity to demonstrate the success of its product in urban schools. Although we had been told that a new version of the software was coming, it never materialized. This version would have allowed a lab manager to pull out a specific computer activity for all students that supported a teacher's classroom lesson, something the current software precludes. The cost of the new program, as well as a necessary memory upgrade for each computer, scuttled the plan.
After the Fall
Where do things stand now in the former Tesseract schools? Principals and teachers say that they plan to continue several elements of the program. For example, although the Personal Education Plan, a no-cost device for parent involvement, met with limited success, the schools will continue using it in a modified form, particularly to engage students in thinking about personal and academic goals. Teachers also will continue to keep each student's records (including the goal- setting process, report cards, and portfolio documents) in a visible notebook in the classroom.
Program schools also plan to continue providing parents detailed progress reports instead of traditional report cards. Another no-cost component, the multigrade community meeting, will also remain in place, although usually on a twice-a-week basis rather than daily. This regular, brief early morning assembly of four or five classes has been an important community-building aspect of the Tesseract program.
In retrospect, EAI's opportunity to demonstrate an "excellent urban education program" was cut short, largely over the money issue. Had test scores improved, a compelling case might have been made for EAI's continuation, despite the higher cost. Nevertheless, Baltimore City's experience with the contracting out of instructional services suggests that, with a thoughtful collaborative plan for implementation, the approach could work.
