We bottom-liners, scratching our heads, lost that round. Shortly after Calkins' lecture, Sheree Speakman of the accounting firm Coopers and Lybrand took over the podium. Speakman did not find rampant corruption, at least not enough to get excited about. What she did find was rampant professional arrogance that got in the way of effective use of money to help children learn better. They are not trained to, and they don't want to be.
Productivity is a dirty word.
They do not know how to apply money in ways that work. If the test is children learning, then there is a ton of unproductive money in education. Speakman told of school officials who shooed her out of their offices when she showed them evidence of poor productivity. Don't show me, because I can't do anything about it. If I am in compliance, I don't worry about the money.