Something still doesn't seem right about the report last week from NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson slamming the city's DOE for paying the now-bankrupt tutoring company Platform Learning more than their contracts with the city allowed.

This is not meant to be a defense of Platform's performance, business model, recruitment methods, etc. I did spend some time in tutoring sessions run by Platform and other providers a few years ago and they seemed to be all over the map in terms of quality, and Lord only knows how these companies got principals to let them into their schools to handle tutoring under No Child Left Behind.

Those issues all seem ripe for inspection by Thompson (who has been asleep at the switch for much of his term with regard to school spending.) But to criticize the city for paying Platform Learning too much seems off the mark in this case.

Under NCLB, kids in failing schools are entitled to free tutoring. The payments are made to the tutoring providers based on how many kids are enrolled. The providers make it onto the list by applying to the state, and the students/families are supposed to select their providers. The city has to have a contract in order to cut the checks. Whatever the "contract" with the city actually says is pretty much irrelevant. The idea is that you have thousands of theoretical mini-contracts between families and tutoring providers.

If one provider is tutoring 100 kids, and another is tutoring 10 kids, doesn't it make sense that the former should be paid ten times more than the latter? Bill Thompson understands equity.

Whether this framework is a good idea or not is a completely different discussion than whether or not Platform should have gotten paid for the tutoring work it provided.