As Jennell Minor weaves her way among the sixth-grade students divided into groups, each with its own tutor, she talks about the challenges she and other teachers face at Attucks Middle School.

It's tougher than usual this year because of the change in math objectives — concepts that in previous years students didn't tackle till seventh grade, they're supposed to know in sixth now, she says. There's two math classes a day for sixth graders — one in the traditional classroom setting and this one, in which up to three students are paired with a tutor. Small sessions are especially good for students who may be able to get to a solution but not as quickly as others, she says. "They have that time to process the infor-mation and come up with the answer," Minor explains.

Apollo Fellow tutors are one of the few visible legacies of the controversial Apollo 20 pilot project, designed to turn around some low-performing Houston Independent School District schools. By paying intensive attention to the children at these schools, the district hoped to raise test scores, decrease behavior problems and get more kids on grade level in their subjects. Apollo ended after the 2012-13 school year, leaving in its wake a reduced tutor program and an adoption of "best practices" at the remaining original Apollo schools and six more.

Next up: the reading class. Oh no, Minor says, Apollo is just math.

Come again?

In 2010, the Apollo 20 program started with four high schools and five middle schools (11 elementaries joined the next year). By the end of its three-year run, 19 of 20 principals had been replaced, many teachers were let go or moved to other schools, and parents and other increasingly concerned residents attended board meetings protesting the project. Apollo was supposed to build a new culture at these schools, with better teachers and principals, tutoring, and longer school days, in order to stop and reverse any downward slides.

People either embraced Apollo as an about-time recognition of the neglect allowed for too many years for some of the district's children or thought it was a high-priced dog and pony show. Critics were outraged by the cost and the fact that the program's benefits were restricted to just a few schools in the sprawling district. They questioned whether the district needed to spend millions of dollars to find out what most said they already knew: that tutoring and more time in class could pay off in increased student achievement.

But the program continued, buoyed by a mostly supportive school board, sizable private contributions and HISD Superintendent Terry Grier's considerable charismatic ability to talk to individuals and organizations with money and get them to join the crusade. Who wanted to be on the sidelines when something this important, remarkable and needed was happening?

There were some successes, some failures. Two of the freshman class — Jones High and Ryan Middle — are now repurposed. Apollo ended after three years and $60 million in expenditures — most of which came from state and federal money, with $18 million of that total from private donations. Math scores went up in the Apollo years, dropped after, and reading scores remained static and low. In an October 2013 review of the project, Harvard economics professor Dr. Roland Fryer, who led the project for his company, EdLabs, admitted they hadn't made much progress with reading even with the extra help he said some students got in that subject.

Now, more than a year after the end, we're left with remnants of the former program. Longer school days continue at some schools. The school board voted to allocate $16 million this year for tutoring in the former Apollo schools as well as another $22 million for other low-performing schools. And there's a call for new reading initiatives.

And, astonishingly enough, a new contract with EdLabs, the same outside company that managed Apollo 20.

At the August 14, 2014, HISD board meeting, Manuel Rodriguez, who has been a strong supporter of Apollo 20, was one of only three trustees to vote against another contract with EdLabs, asking famously why Dr. Roland Fryer's company was getting more of the district's money "when they didn't complete the task in the three years they were here."

Ah, but excuses and revisionist history were the order of the day.

Trustee Greg Meyers argued for rehiring EdLabs and Fryer — the first year of the contract will cost up to $306,000, with significantly higher costs if there's a second year — this time to help a number of HISD schools adopt a management program dependent in large part on the book Leverage Leadership (the latest education buzz phrase that seems to involve constant checking, rechecking and documentation of just what those teachers are up to). Meyers declared that "Apollo 20 was never about reading. It was a math tutorial."

Trustee Paula Harris said, "He [Fryer] didn't have a reading assignment in the beginning." HISD Superintendent Terry Grier went further, saying: "The Apollo program never addressed reading. The goal there was to close and to address the achievement gap in math."

But a check of HISD's own historic literature shows otherwise. In July 2010 HISD issued an "Apollo 20 Project: Fact Sheet" in which it stated there would be "high dosage" tutoring "for students in grades 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 who are below grade level, a double dose of math OR reading based on the subject in which they are most behind." On January 29, 2011, another HISD press release referred to the double time students were spending in English Language Arts and "Saturday school for [elementary] students who need the most help in math and/or reading."

There was no mention of "math only" in April 2011, when Grier called a press conference to announce the first round of state test scores for fifth and eighth graders at Apollo schools and presented both reading and math scores.

And in February 2011, it was none other than Greg Meyers himself who, during a debate over extending the Apollo program to the elementary schools in the second year, proclaimed: "I am not going to support delaying something that's going to make a difference in the lives of kids. We have children that are not reading on grade level, and that's an issue we have to get our arms around."

Guys and gals, this is your own work product. This is what you said. You may want to claim now that Apollo was only ever just about higher math scores, improved attendance rates and better behavior in the hallways — goals you achieved — but that's not what you were saying, writing or making speeches about in 2010 and 2011.

And how was a math-only approach going to turn around all these schools anyway? Whatever the gains made and lessons learned from Apollo 20 — and make no mistake, there were some — it seems as if there's some selective misremembering going on here. Which just clouds the issue about whether Apollo 20 was good for HISD, something that deserves reasoned study.