Is a blue ribbon worth the cost at Grayslake's Meadowview School?

Visitors to Grayslake Elementary District 46's Meadowview School can't miss a large flag with the words "blue ribbon" on it inside the main entrance.

What is unstated is the Blue Ribbon Lighthouse award came from a private consultant paid by District 46. It's the second time in two years a District 46 school received South Carolina-based Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Inc.'s top award.

The honors come from a private company that sets standards that must be met to receive the top award, named almost the same as a program run by the U.S. Department of Education. The consultant has received thousands of dollars from the district in the past two years.

Grayslake elementary officials say it is a great way to improve its schools and is well worth the money, including the cost of sending 25 employees to sunny Myrtle Beach, S.C., in December to pick up the latest award and attend a conference run by the company.

The expense comes as the district eliminated 29 jobs last week as part of cost-cutting measures tentatively totaling $2.8 million.

Critics say there's no need for a public school district to hire a private company to assess it and then give it awards, when there are myriad programs already in place that assess school systems.

At least one other suburban district has received Blue Ribbon Schools' sales pitches, but it only paid for a building assessment and declined to send a team of employees to Myrtle Beach.

District 46 participated in the Blue Ribbon Schools gathering in Myrtle Beach, Dec. 9-12, 2008, even though critics in academia last year questioned the value of awards from a hired company that encourages travel to its conferences. It cost more than $25,250 for the latest trip.

District 46 Superintendent Ellen Correll said the district's budget gap wasn't known when she approved the trip before the 2008-09 year began. It was too late to cancel once the financial situation became clear, she said.

"Once you buy airline tickets, we're going to be out," Correll said. "We could have gotten money back from the hotels, we could have not rented the cars, but we would have been out money."

As she did a year ago, Correll defended the convention expenses, saying valuable knowledge was gained by the District 46 teachers and administrators on how to best improve technology and curriculum for students.

Returning to S.C.

Total travel-related expenses for the 25 staffers sent to Myrtle Beach in December was almost $7,200 more than the $18,082 spent for the 20 employees who attended the company's convention in North Charleston, S.C., in 2007, according to documents obtained through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

District 46's Prairieview School in Hainesville received the company's Blue Ribbon Lighthouse honor in 2007. Meadowview in Grayslake received formal recognition for that designation at the 2008 banquet in Myrtle Beach.

Blue Ribbon Schools has received $30,322 in consulting and conference fees from District 46 since 2007.

The district touts the Blue Ribbon Lighthouse awards without noting the financial connection to the consultant on individual building Web pages. However, unlike for Prairieview in 2007, no news releases were issued for Meadowview's Blue Ribbon Lighthouse status.

In 2007, the company gave Meadowview a lesser award, the Points of Light honor, but moved it up in May 2008, saying it had made enough improvement to be a Blue Ribbon Lighthouse winner.

Correll says the company's assessments help schools improve and she says it does not amount to purchasing awards. She also stressed the Myrtle Beach trip involved much more than attending the banquet to collect Meadowview's award.

District 46 teachers made education presentations to peers at the conference, Correll said. She called it a good expense of budgeted staff development money, so more educators could learn and grow from the experience.

Jeff Knapp, principal of Woodview School in Grayslake, said it was worth it for teachers to meet educators from across the United States. He was part of the traveling party to Myrtle Beach.

"I think a lot of it comes down to whether you value professional development and whether or not you want schools and your staff to remain, for lack of a better word, stagnant," Knapp said. "We want to continue to push our staff forward. In turn, we know it will help student achievement and help push students forward."

District 46's decision to begin equipping classrooms with technology similar to electronic chalkboards resulted from Blue Ribbon Schools' advice, Correll said. Another recommendation led to Meadowview's continued effort to build and develop an outdoor classroom.

"Based on the positive effects it's had on our buildings, our staff and our teachers," Correll said, "I've seen more improvement in those areas as a result of this Blue Ribbon than I've seen in the time I've been here. The teachers have really taken a hold of this."

Blue Ribbon Schools founder Bart Teal said his goal is to bring educators together at a reasonable cost to learn about using technology and other techniques to improve how children learn.

"I am not a wealthy person, if you were to check my finances. It is not about money to me," said Teal, who added he recently received the Confucius Award, a top education honor in China.

Misleading awards?

For the second consecutive year, Edward M. Mazze, professor of business administration at the University of Rhode Island, reviewed Blue Ribbon Schools for the Daily Herald. His second examination of the company was harsher than the first.

Mazze has studied awards programs in academia and business. He was among the critics when University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth issued a news release announcing it won a Pat Summerall Champions of Industry Award in 2004 without disclosing a financial arrangement existed.

Blue Ribbon Schools is one of many recognition programs that require a recipient to pay for an award, Mazze said. He noted how the company encourages parents, educators, students and others to attend the annual conference and awards ceremony.

Mazze views the program as "similar to a diploma mill where you pay for something with little value" and said the award designation should include information about how much was paid for the honor.

He said public and private schools are evaluated by regional and state accrediting associations, as well as state education agencies. And he contends that the Blue Ribbon program isn't as rigorous or important as the accreditation process.

But Teal questioned the legitimacy of Mazze's evaluation, saying the professor didn't attend a Blue Ribbon Schools conference and formed the opinion on various materials posted on the company's Web site.

David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform watchdog group, said there isn't much merit in an award for a public school from a hired business.

Yet Teal defends his awards, saying they were created to help motivate schools after his company makes recommendations on how to improve.

"Sometimes," Teal said, "if there is not a carrot out there, people won't move."

Teal said Lake Murray Elementary School in his hometown of Chapin, S.C., received the Blue Ribbon Lighthouse designation in 2006 without paying his for his services.

And Correll said not all District 46 schools were winners. She said Blue Ribbon Schools objectively judges areas such as technology integration, student focus and support, professional community and success indicators.

Fremont passes on travel

In contrast to District 46, neighboring Fremont Elementary District 79 declined invitations to send employees to the convention, though it paid $6,547 to Blue Ribbon Schools for consulting in 2008.

Teal wrote a letter in April to Fremont offering to celebrate its success in Myrtle Beach. An August e-mail from the "Blue Ribbon Team" invited Fremont to be a featured school with its employees making a presentation at the convention. The offer was declined.

"It's a busy time of year for us," said Lynette Zimmer, assistant superintendent of educational services at District 79, which serves the Mundelein and Grayslake areas. "It's not the most convenient time in December."

Zimmer attended the company's final-day banquet and collected a Points of Light award for Fremont Middle School, but she didn't bill the district because she was visiting the Myrtle Beach area with her family.

Zimmer said the middle school went through the company's assessment process, which included an Internet-based survey of parents, teachers, administrators and others. Blue Ribbon Schools also sent a team to visit classrooms and interview school officials.

She said the $6,547 paid to Blue Ribbon Schools was reasonable for the amount of information received.

Myrtle Beach bills

To send the 25 employees to the four-day Myrtle Beach conference, the Grayslake-based district spent $25,254.75 on hotels, conference charges, substitute teachers, airfare, baggage fees, rental vehicles, limousine rides, food, gas and incidentals.

Correll said the $178 round-trip tab for the limousine from Grayslake to O'Hare International Airport wasn't frivolous. She said Prairieview Principal Amanda Schoenberg ordered the limo and filled it with other employees, which cost less than having everyone from the school drive to O'Hare and bill District 46 for parking.

Airfare cost $5,216, with many of the round trips from O'Hare to Charlotte, N.C., running $189. Records show the district paid $6,800 for substitute teachers to cover for the educators who traveled to Myrtle Beach.

Rental vehicles cost $3,567 so the District 46 employees could travel the final two hours or so from the Charlotte airport to Myrtle Beach. Correll said traveling to Charlotte and renting cars was cheaper than direct flights from Chicago to Myrtle Beach.

Morrison questioned how Correll couldn't know about the looming $2.3 million deficit at District 46 before approving the December trip. "The bigger question is, are they minding the store and taking care of the books?" Morrison said.