I was very impressed to read this honest op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, written by a veteran teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. T.C. Williams is an intriguing high school for many reasons, one of which is because of how it represents an unique cross-section of American diversity. For instance, 43% of the student body at the school is African-American, 25% is Hispanic, 24% is white, and 6% is Asian. 31% of the students at the school are qualified for free or reduced lunch, which means it has more low-income youth than the state average. And it is a fairly large school as well, with 2,100 students split among just three grade levels, 10-12.

But the most intriguing thing about T.C. Williams is that it is one of the highest spending schools in the country. In a state where the average per student expenditure is just under $9,000--close to the national average--T.C. Williams spends a staggering $15,000 per student per year. As the op-ed points out, all of this money has been spent on a luxurious set of facilities, including a new $98 million school building, a universal laptop initiative that began three years ago and that provides every student in the school with a free laptop computer, and countless other technologically advanced instructional devices. If you're looking for a state-of-the-art high school, 30-year English teacher Patrick Welsh suggests that you'll be hard pressed to find one more advanced than TC Williams.

But what has the return been on this incredible investment? If student test scores are one measure, not much. Out of the eleven subjects tested at the school as part of Virginia's Standards of Learning proficiency exams, Williams outscores the statewide average in just two subjects: chemistry and algebra II. In the other 9 subjects, the school's students perform below state averages.

Why hasn't the school been able to get more bang for its buck, so to speak? Mr. Welsh suggests that the school's administration has been overwhelmed by the "technology bug" - a tendency among school leaders to lose sight of the most important objective (student achievement) in lieu of headline grabbing technology purchases. Mr. Welsh gives the example of a $40,000 expense to buy 77 "school pads" for $500 a piece. The school pads are supposed to make teachers jobs easier, except many of the teachers in the building had expressed no interest in using them. One teacher even said that the $40,000 investment seemed to be little more than a refurbished version of this old toy that was popular twenty years ago.

From my vantage point in a school where education technology is a laughable luxury (one teacher who asked if we might be able to buy security cameras to watch over areas where students were vandalizing, bringing in weapons, or even engaging in inappropriate sexual activity with other students was literally sneered at for the idea), it's hard to imagine that Williams teachers are actually up in arms over administrative requirements to utilize technology in their classrooms. I would give anything for a computer system that could track attendance throughout the building, let alone a tv and dvd player in each room. But the TC Williams example makes this much perfectly clear: throwing money at the problems in our schools will not alone solve anything. Without clear direction as to what purchases will and will not have a significant impact on our schools, too many administrators are just making blind guesses as to what will work best.

If you ask me, Williams would go a lot farther towards helping students if it used a healthy chunk of its resources to identify, hire, and reward excellent teachers... and replace those who are not delivering results with the children. In the end, a good teacher with a chalkboard will do more for her children than a poor teacher with a $20,000 smart board and accompanying magna-doodle.