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.”