Eai

THE NINE "Tesseract" schools that were managed by Education Alternatives Inc. are now supposed to become "enterprise schools," just like all the others in Baltimore. In essence, they've jumped from one experiment to another. When will it end? When will the mayor and superintendent of schools be able to look parents in the eye and say, "We're going to do this for your children because we already know it works"?Parents with children in the EAI schools thought what was happening inside them worked.

Bill is too valuable to peace in Northern Ireland to be allowed back in Washington, where he is not nearly so effective.The economy is in depression. The average salary of Major League baseball players declined 5 percent in the past year, to $1,110,766, and the mean salary 39 percent. Deep depression.The EAI experiment showed there may be profit in public schools for a privately owned company or for a mayor, but not for both simultaneously.The U.S. troops can concentrate on land mines in Bosnia.

When Christopher Blake hears about the troubles of Education Alternatives Inc., the school management firm given the boot last week by the Baltimore school board, he smiles.Dr. Blake, an assistant professor of education at Towson State University, has heard it all before. A native of England, he has been a close observer of the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and he says moving from London to Towson is "like jumping from one educational conveyor belt to the other."

On Thursday night, while the Baltimore school board was voting unanimously to kill the city's contract with Education Alternatives, Inc., one EAI representative was at another meeting -- telling parents at Murch School in Northwest Washington about EAI's school-management services.EAI's cancellation in Baltimore may make it more difficult for the Minneapolis-based firm to win contracts in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, even supporters of EAI say."What's happened in Baltimore is extremely disappointing.

Baltimore's school board severed its contracts with Education Alternatives Inc. yesterday, officially halting its nationally watched school privatization experiment after 3 1/2 years.The board set March 4 as the date that the pioneering business-education partnership will end and also canceled a related contract covering services provided by EAI's partner, Johnson Controls.Its two unanimous votes provoked an angry outcry from 200 parents, students and EAI employees who filled the auditorium at Coldstream Park Elementary School.

Education Alternatives Inc. may move on, but school privatization is here to stay, Baltimore officials said last week.However, Baltimore must be a shrewder deal-maker if future school partnerships with business are to succeed, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Superintendent Walter G. Amprey said.The officials said they lost much naivete about the ways of shareholders, chief executive officers and Wall Street during the partnership with EAI, which began in 1992 with a five-year contract that school board members intend to sever early with a vote Thursday.

MAYOR KURT L. SCHMOKE, an early supporter of Education Alternatives Inc., hadn't counted on this. One reason he felt comfortable giving teachers a big pay raise this year was belief EAI would agree to a reduction in its $44 million fee. He negotiated for weeks thinking an agreement would occur. When it became apparent that it wouldn't, he found himself painted into a corner he helped create. The teachers had their raise. Settling a special education lawsuit was costly. The legislature was withholding millions.

Baltimore's decision yesterday to cancel its contracts with Education Alternatives Inc. ends its nationally watched partnership aimed at improving educational quality but does little to resolve the school system's immediate financial crisis.Ending the contracts will save the school system an estimated $2.8 million this year -- far less than the savings sought during weeks of futile negotiations with EAI, city officials said.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday that it was EAI's unwillingness to accept a $7 million cut in fees that forced him to void its deals with the city.

Education Alternatives Inc.'s grand experiment in school privatization took a mortal blow yesterday, leaving a two-part question unanswered after the company's rocky 3 1/2 years in Baltimore:Did EAI, a profit-making company, improve public education in Baltimore -- and make a profit in the bargain?EAI and its irrepressible chief, John Golle, still say yes -- and yes. But Tuesday, even as Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and the school board were preparing to administer the coup de grace, Mr. Golle was insisting that his company had never earned the money his foes had claimed in Baltimore and that the mayor and city finance officials, in insisting on a $7 million reduction in EAI's contract, had based their analysis on "capricious and erroneous information."

Baltimore's school board turned its back on Education Alternatives Inc. yesterday, advising Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to end the firm's five-year contract with the city this academic year.After a closed meeting with the mayor late yesterday, board members said their support for the 3 1/2 -year-old experiment has eroded during weeks of unfruitful fee negotiations with the Minneapolis school-management firm.Labor representatives also recommended ending EAI's management and consulting deals affecting 12 city schools.