"There was a noteworthy absence of work requiring rote memory or asking students to copy information from source documents onto worksheets. However, the curriculum provided inadequate guidance for teachers in content and skill instruction and lacked sufficient overall direction in the form of policy and planning. The initiative was expensive in dollars and staff effort, and was not managed according to a rational curriculum development model."

USP editors' comment: The auditors betray their sympathy for the near century-old conviction among professional educators that asking children to remember things is an ineffective teaching method. However, a review of the bulk of research in the cognitive neuro-sciences (brain research) seems to indicate that deliberate memory ("rote") is superior to incidental memory.

"Although implementation of the ICI would cause students to undergo radical changes in teaching-learning environments as they make the transition from elementary to middle school, the district had no goals or objectives regarding the coexistence of the ICI in elementary schools and the traditional curriculum in secondary schools."

"A curriculum needs assessment had not been conducted, nor had a formal determination been made as to what student achievement objectives or needs the ICI would satisfy."

USP editors' de-jargonizing: PISD planners, apparently, just felt like taking a curriculum that, based on test scores, has served us very well, and throwing it out in favor of the latest national fad -"integration."

"Although curriculum developers explained that the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS; known as 'essential elements' or learning objectives) were embedded in curriculum documents, there were not readily apparent, written connections between the essential elements and integrated curriculum.

USP editors' comment: In addition, the TEA has revised TEKS this year, and integrated curriculum lacks a number of the new elements. Thirty million dollars later, is it back to the old drawing board?

"Cost estimates for the ICI (including technology) exceeded $30 million. Comments of administrators indicated that continual funding was taken for granted, in spite of state funding equalization efforts that would reduce district resources."

USP editors' comments: This attitude should not surprise close observers of the PISD's extravagant and wasteful spending habits. Our study shows that $30 million figure is vastly understated.