At the request of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, the city's Independent Budget Officeundertook a review of DOEspending on accountability measures-- everything from the mythically plagued ARIS computer program to the progress reports. A summary is here, and the complete pdf is here, but short report: at least $352.2 million spent on accountability, from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2009.

For context, that's nearly six years of textbooks for every classroom and child in the city ($57 million in 2006-07) -- and within 10% of the $385 million in DOE funding cutbacksthat the Mayor projects for next year.