First Krashen, then the Washington Post... The good news: the
reading nazis are being exposed for their corruption. The bad
news:
Miller and Kennedy still buy the official propaganda that kill and
drill teaching "works"
Sent to the Washington Post, April 21
According to The Post ("Reading first paying off,
Education Dept. Says," April 19), the US Department of
Education reported that the percentage of third
graders meeting or exceeding the proficient level on
tests of reading comprehension increased by 12%
between 2004 and 2006, which they regard as strong
support for the effectiveness of Reading First.
I have examined this data (available on the Department
of Education website). For the 30 states with test
scores available, I found an average increase of 6.7%
in the percentage of third graders scoring at the
proficient level or higher between 2004 and 2006. This
is considerably less than the figure reported by the
Department of Education.
Eight states had impressive gains, ranging from 10% to
26%, but these states combined contained only about
10% of the total number of students in Reading First.
For other 22 states, the average increase between 2004
and 2006 was only 3%.
In other words, only a small percentage of children
appear to have profited from Reading First. For states
that include 90% of those in Reading First, gains were
minimal.
Children in Reading First get 100 extra minutes of
reading instruction per week, and Reading First
teachers get significantly more professional
development. The Department of Education's own data
shows that Reading First, for the vast majority of
children, is not very efficient.
Stephen Krashen
KEY INITIATIVE OF "NO CHILD" UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION
Washington Post -- April 21, 2007
by Amit R. Paley
The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion
reading
initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind
law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of
financial
conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the
matter
said yesterday.
The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how
people
implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at
least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal
government steered states.
"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George
Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee,
which
held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to
override
the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials.
"But
the fact of the matter is that you did."
The Education Department's inspector general, John P. Higgins,
Jr.,
said he has made several referrals to the Justice Department
about
the five-year-old program, which provides grants to improve
reading
for children in kindergarten through third grade.
Higgins declined to offer more specifics, but Christopher J.
Doherty, former director of Reading First, said in an interview
that
he was questioned by Justice officials in November. The civil
division of the U.S. attorney's office for the District, which
can
bring criminal charges, is reviewing the matter.
Doherty, one of the two Education Department employees who
oversaw
the initiative, acknowledged yesterday that his wife had worked
for
a decade as a paid consultant for a reading program, Direct
Instruction, that investigators said he improperly tried to force
schools to use. He repeatedly failed to disclose the conflict on
financial disclosure forms.
"I'm very proud of this program and my role in this program,"
Doherty said in the interview. "I think it's been implemented in
accordance with the law."
The management of Reading First has come under attacks from
members
of both parties. Federal investigators say program officials
improperly forced states to use certain tests and textbooks
created
by those officials.
One official, Roland H. Good III, said his company made $1.3
million
off a reading test, known as DIBELS, that was endorsed by a
Reading
First evaluation panel he sat on. Good, who owns half the
company,
Dynamic Measurement Group, told the committee that he donated
royalties from the product to the University of Oregon, where he
is
an associate professor.
Two former University of Oregon researchers on the panel, Edward
J.
Kame'enui and Deborah C. Simmons, said they received about
$150,000
in royalties last year for a program that is now packaged with
DIBELS. They testified that they received smaller royalties in
previous years for the program, Scott Foresman Early Reading
Intervention, and did not know it was being sold with DIBELS.
Members of the panel said they recused themselves from voting on
their own products but did assess their competitors. Of 24 tests
approved by the committee, seven were tied to members of the panel.
"I regret the perception of conflicts of interest," said
Kame'enui,
former chairman of the committee, who now works at the department
as
commissioner of the National Center for Special Education
Research.
"But there was no real conflict of interest being engaged in."
The intricate financial connections between Reading First
products
and program officials extend beyond issues the committee explored
yesterday.>
Another researcher, Sharon Vaughn, worked with Kame'enui, Simmons
and Good to design Voyager Universal Literacy, a program that
Reading First officials urged states to use. Vaughn was director
of
a center at the University of Texas that was hired to provide
states
advice on selecting Reading First tests and books.
The publisher of that product, Voyager Expanded Learning, was
founded and run by Randy Best, a major Bush campaign contributor,
who sold the company in 2005 for more than $350 million. Now Best
runs Higher Ed Holdings, a company that develops colleges of
education, where former education secretary Roderick R. Paige is
a
senior adviser and G. Reid Lyon, Bush's former reading adviser,
is
an executive vice president.
"I'm very disappointed and saddened by the information that was
provided at the hearing today," said Lyon, who had been a strong
defender of Reading First, which he said had nothing to do with
his
new job. "The issues appear much more serious than I had been led
to
understand."
Despite the controversy surrounding Reading First's management,
the
percentage of students in the program who are proficient on
fluency
tests has risen about 15 percent, Education Department officials
said. School districts across the country praise the program.
Members of both parties continue to support the goals of Reading
First even as they attack its management. Miller and Senate
education committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) joined
Republicans yesterday in pledging to tighten restrictions on
conflicts of interest in No Child Left Behind.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who declined to comment
yesterday, has said management problems with Reading First
"reflect
individual mistakes." But Doherty said nearly every aspect of the
program was carefully monitored by the department and the White
House, where Spelling was Bush's top education adviser.
"This program was always firmly under the watch and control of
the
highest levels of the government," Doherty said.