Education Alternatives, Inc., based in Bloomington, Minnesota, has signed no new clients in more than a year. Meanwhile, the Hartford Board of Education, which has already wrested back control of 26 out of 32 schools, is so unhappy with the company's performance that it refuses to allow EAI to manage the school budget and insists that because there have been no savings, there will be no reimbursement of expenses. Unless EAI supporters win three out of the five open seats in this week's school-board election, the company's contract will probably be terminated altogether. Still, EAI chairman and CEO John Golle downplays the trouble. I don't think so at all.
School reform is a freight train moving down the track.
EAI has come in and done so many things that have divided the community. Named after a magical pathway in the children's classic A Wrinkle in Time, Tesseract stresses small classes and individualized lesson plans. A common complaint is Tesseract's reliance on computer drills. An EAI spokesperson agrees that students use the computers for drills, but insists the approach is effective. As for test scores, Baltimore students attending a control group of non-EAI schools have shown a steady improvement in math and reading scores since 1992, while EAI school scores lagged behind not only the control group but the city as a whole.