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9486 in the collection
CST Texas pre-K program criticized for costs
The Texas Model: Follow the
money.
The San Antonio Express-News asked
university officials Aug. 20 to document the
products for which they received royalties from
such companies as Brewer Educational Resources
Inc., Hatch Inc., Teachscape Inc. and Wireless
Generation Inc. that produce pre-K education
products.
Critics are skeptical that royalties are paid
only on educational products used in non-TEEM
classrooms because they’re too costly for most
public schools and child care centers to buy
without grants.
UTHSC-Houston has not yet provided such
documentation; instead, university officials
have asked the state attorney general for an
opinion on whether the information can be
released as it involves third parties — the
companies paying the royalties.
One of those companies — Wireless Generation
Inc. — recently notified the attorney general’s
office it objected to the release of its
documents.
By Gary Scharrer
AUSTIN — An experiment to better prepare low-
income Texas youngsters for school has cost
taxpayers more than three times the typical
pre-kindergarten curriculum and raises
questions about payments to the educators who
commercialized the program.
State records show the program’s developers
received about $500,000 in royalties from book
publishers and vendors.
Leaders at the State Center for Early Childhood
Development who developed the Texas Early
Education Model — better known as TEEM — say
they don’t receive royalties from products used
directly in TEEM classrooms. They receive
royalties when other schools or pre-K programs
use products they have developed from their
early childhood research.
But critics view the TEEM approach as little
more than an effort by state center staff
members to market their research and products
through a variety of commercial vendors.
“This preschool scheme is not about preparing
these little ones to be ready for school,” said
Jay Spuck, a retired Houston area school
administrator, former classroom teacher and
education advocate. “It is about advancing a
political agenda of implanting corporate
interests into nursery schools. It is all about
trademarks, copyrights, patents, contracts,
royalties, power and greed. The goal is to
privatize education, ‘cradle to college.’”
Since launching five years ago, TEEM has cost
about $80 million. But while the price tag is
high, Susan Landry, the director of the state
center, says she’s optimistic it will help
thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds achieve greater
academic success as they navigate the public
school system.
The state center, which runs TEEM, falls under
the umbrella of the Children’s Learning
Institute at the University of Texas Health
Science Center-Houston.
“I really expect these kids to show effects of
this program long term. It is probably not an
inoculation against everything bad in education
(and society),” Landry said. “But it gives them
a fair shot. They get to start on the same
footing. These kids are writing their names,
they are writing letters and they are so proud
of it.”
TEEM evolved from legislation (SB 76) approved
by state lawmakers in 2003 to improve pre-
kindergarten coordination between public
schools, Head Start programs and child care
centers. At least 75 percent of youngsters
participating in TEEM classrooms must come from
low-income families.
About 52,000 preschool children in 3,082
classrooms spread among 40 Texas communities
are participating in TEEM this fall. It started
with 3,834 children in 11 communities.
Landry said preschool-aged children learn best
from trained teachers, which is one of the
hallmarks of the TEEM approach. Children who
participate in TEEM are coded, which allows
school officials to track them as they move
through the education system.
Eventually, educators will know if the special
TEEM focus on 4-year-olds has improved high
school graduation rates.
“It would be everything we would hope for,”
said Landry, a professor of pediatrics.
But the cost is undeniably higher.
Materials, licensing fees and mentoring for a
TEEM classroom cost $11,175 for the first year
of a participating school, child care center or
Head Start program — far more than the $4,000
for a typical pre-K classroom. State and
federal grants pay for the TEEM costs. Landry
contends TEEM classroom start-up costs drop
significantly in subsequent years, although
some critics expressed doubt.Spuck said
taxpayers simply are getting socked twice as
school districts already provide professional
development, assessment and curriculum for pre-
K. She’s convinced youngsters participating in
TEEM aren’t benefiting.
“Instead of providing these very young children
with an enriched age-appropriate curriculum and
robust instructional activities, the center is
testing — not educating these extremely young
children — using their own questionable for-
profit assessments,” she said.
A former high-ranking state official familiar
with TEEM funding said the program just costs
too much.
“That program is so expensive. When you look at
the cost of subsidized child care, what the
cost of public education is, what the cost of
Head Start is, and then you look at the cost of
this program, that should raise some alarm,
someplace,” said the former official, who
declined to be identified for fear it could
jeopardize future work with the state.
$500,000 in royalties
Records from the UTHSC-Houston show companies
involved in producing pre-K materials and
products, such as those used in TEEM
classrooms, paid about $500,000 in royalties
since 2003 to Landry and nearly 20 other
current and former university employees.
Landry and other staffers earn royalties from
companies that convert their research and ideas
for enhancing children’s learning into products
and software used in pre-K classrooms. The
royalties are shared equally by the university
and staff members who developed the idea
resulting in the commercial product.
University officials issued a clarification in
August indicating none of the products used in
TEEM classrooms generate royalties for State
Center employees.
“No royalties are taken from products using
these programs,” Landry said. “These products
are available all over the country and state.
... We’re not getting royalties, and that can
be demonstrated to you.”
Gov. Rick Perry appointed Landry director of
the State Center for Early Childhood
Development in 2003. Her base pay is $269,535,
which includes her positions as professor of
pediatrics and director of the Children’s
Learning Center.
The San Antonio Express-News asked university
officials Aug. 20 to document the products for
which they received royalties from such
companies as Brewer Educational Resources Inc.,
Hatch Inc., Teachscape Inc. and Wireless
Generation Inc. that produce pre-K education
products.
Critics are skeptical that royalties are paid
only on educational products used in non-TEEM
classrooms because they’re too costly for most
public schools and child care centers to buy
without grants.
UTHSC-Houston has not yet provided such
documentation; instead, university officials
have asked the state attorney general for an
opinion on whether the information can be
released as it involves third parties — the
companies paying the royalties.
One of those companies — Wireless Generation
Inc. — recently notified the attorney general’s
office it objected to the release of its
documents.
The TEEM approach
Charlotte Watts, a pre-K teacher at Jewel’s
Learning Center in Houston, endorses the TEEM
approach, which provides a deliberate plan for
teaching 3- and 4-year-olds letters and words,
she said.
Children spend about 10 minutes at learning
centers where they are exposed to letters,
math, science and other activities in a playful
environment.
“The lesson plan is very specific,” Watts said.
“What am I going go do in that time slot It’s
real purposeful. That’s the whole thing. It’s
more planned. That’s what I like most about
Project TEEM.”
Before TEEM, Watts said she sometimes felt as
if she was “maybe shooting from the hip.”
Samuel Meisels, president of the Chicago-based
Erikson Institute, is one of the nation’s
leading authorities on the assessment of young
children. He is skeptical of TEEM.
“It’s a very narrow perspective on how children
learn and, particularly, how they learn early
literacy skills,” he said. “I have seen their
(TEEM) assessment. Their assessment seems very
narrow. It would be difficult to conclude from
their results that children doing well or
poorly are, in fact, going to do well or poorly
in their overall literacy learning because it
was so narrow.”
Learning phonetic skills is important but so is
literacy, exposure to books and reading and
comprehension, Meisels said. “What you get in a
concentration of this sort is acquisition of
phonetic skills but not necessarily acquisition
of comprehension, and that’s a real weakness.”
Peer reviewed
The TEEM approach has been peer reviewed by
researchers across the country, Landry
counters. The TEEM components were developed
and studied as part of a highly competitive
federal grant program conducted by the
Institute of Education Sciences, National
Institute of Child Health and Development and
the National Science Foundation, she said. The
research will appear in the Journal of
Education Psychology this fall.
“We see greater learning occurring for these
children, and we see that it’s directly related
to what the teachers are doing with the
children. There’s much more planning, much more
purposeful,” Landry said.
Hilda Salas, director of San Antonio
Independent School District’s early childhood
program, said she is “comfortable with (TEEM)
to some extent,” adding that teachers are
satisfied with the online training. Teachers
earn a $1,000 stipend for participating in the
Internet-based professional development courses
offering 130 hours of instruction.
She declined to say whether pre-K directors
feel pressure to go with TEEM.
“I don’t have the documentation to prove it. I
can give you my gut feeling. I’m hesitant to
give you that,” Salas said.
Landry cited a review conducted last year by
Edvance Research Inc. of San Antonio validating
the TEEM approach. But the report said it was
premature to judge TEEM.
“Does TEEM really improve school readiness for
children? This is not a question that can be
answered with any of the data analyzed in this
report. However, it is a question that can and
should be answered with future data,” according
to the report, which cost the Texas Education
Agency $375,000.
The state has spent about $48.4 million on
TEEM, so far, with another $24 million coming
in federal funds passing through the Texas
Workforce Commission. Foundations, such as
Dell, Meadows and Annie E. Casey, have
contributed another $8 million for TEEM.
Nearly 2,000 classrooms seeking TEEM funding
could not be accommodated because there wasn’t
enough money this year, Landry said.
“We are turning people away, and we certainly
aren’t asking anyone or pressuring anyone to do
this,” she said.
Former Workforce Commission Chairwoman Diane
Rath of San Antonio says the early TEEM results
are encouraging but emphasizes that it will
take time to determine if these children
perform well once they reach high school.
“It will be very interesting to see the long-
term results of the TEEM program to evaluate
the complete effectiveness of this investment,”
she said. “It won’t be until the first cohorts
graduate from high school before we’re able to
fully understand the value and rewards of this
investment.”
Landry emphasizes that TEEM’s goal is getting
youngsters ready for school.
“We were not asked to increase quantity,” she
said. “We were asked to find a system that got
kids ready for schools. There’s no point in
putting more and more kids in pre-K if it’s not
going to get them school ready in the state of
Texas.”
— Gary Scharrer
San Antonio Express-News
2008-11-09
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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