It looks like the Rhode Island state legislature will come up short on its goal to implement a statewide teacher's contract--a goal that perhaps hadn't seemed that daunting in a state with only 300 schools. A report sent to the state legislature last week warns that the effort was going to require either massive concessions from the wealthier districts or that the legislature was going to have to cough up huge sums of money to help poorer districts achieve parity. The state would have to find another $50 million per annum to give every teacher the same pay that the highest paying school district in the Ocean State now provides (or it could save $64 million by going with the lowest paying district). The executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Tim Duffy, was unimpressed by the report's revelations. "The report acknowledges what we have always known."