Sent to the Boston Herald, July 9
Edward Moscovitch (“No time to close book,” July 8) might want to take a closer look at research on reading. Quoting Secretary Spellings, Moscovitch states that in a recent study, thanks to Reading First, the “vast majority” of states showed increases in the percent of students proficient in reading comprehension.
Not really. Let’s take a closer look at the study, published by the Center for Educational Policy. Only 28 states had sufficient data for analysis at the elementary level. Of these, about 11 (40%) either no gains or "slight" gains, less than a 1% yearly increase in the percentage of children reaching the proficient level. In middle school and high school reading, the results were even less impressive.
Reading First cost about a billion dollars a year, and Reading First children get considerably more instructional time in reading, the equivalent of an extra six weeks every year. A more accurate description of the report is: "Nearly half of the states showed little improvement, despite huge increases in funding and instructional time."
Stephen Krashen
For a copy of Moscovitch’s article and interesting commentary by Gerald Bracey, see: http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_outrages.html?id=3453
Showing posts with label Reading First. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading First. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Monday, June 02, 2008
Reading First Cronyism and Corruption...
Read the response to Rosita Johnson's article by Stephen Krashen below.
-Angela
No Child Left Behind’s reading program marked
‘failure’
Author: Rosita Johnson
A key education program created under George W. Bush's
No Child Left Behind Act has failed to produce
results, according to a recent study by the Institute
of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S.
Department of Education. The study concluded that
there was no difference in the reading comprehension
scores between students who participated in the
Reading First program and those who did not.
The Department of Education has spent more than $6
billion on Reading First since 2002, about $1 billion
a year. Reading First has been a core program of the
No Child Left Behind Act with 1.5 million students in
grades kindergarten to third grades participating in
5,200 schools in 13 states.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate
Education Committee, said, “The Bush administration
has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our
children last, and the report shows the disturbing
consequences.” Because of the criticism and
accusations of conflict of interest of Reading First
officials, congressional hearings were held in April
2007.
The hearings disclosed how those who implemented and
designed the $1 billion a-year Reading First program
profited from steering states and school districts to
purchase certain textbooks, tests and services.
Reading First was also charged with mismanagement.
Chris Doherty, former director of Reading First, sent
an email to a staff member which exposed his motives
when referring to a reading program he disapproved.
Said Doherty, “They are trying to crash our party and
we need to beat the [expletive] out of them in front
of all the other would-be party crashers who are
standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we treat
dirt bags.”
Doherty and other Reading First officials awarded
grants only when states and school districts used the
reading programs they favored such as McGraw-Hill’s
Direct Instruction and Voyager Expanded Learning. Even
when other programs such as Reading Recovery and
Success for All complied with the legal guidelines and
criteria, they were not approved to be used. They were
the “dirt bags.”
The Expert Review Panel did not function. Some grant
applications were funded without documentation, while
others were denied for no reason, the hearings
revealed.
During the hearings, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.),
chair of the House Education Committee, told a panel
of Reading First officials, “This sounds like a
criminal enterprise to me. You don’t get to override
the law. But the fact of the matter is that you did.”
Following the hearing, House Appropriations Committee
Chair Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) led the fight to cut
Reading First’s budget from $1 billion to $393 million
in 2008. Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget seeks to restore
funding to previous levels. Chris Doherty resigned
right before the Department of Education Inspector
General, John Higgins, published his Investigation
Report of Reading First.
Actually, the goals and purpose of the Reading First
program are laudable: "To assist States and local
school districts to establish reading programs for low
income students in Kindergarten to 3rd grade based on
scientific research resulting in these students being
able to read on grade level."
The tragedy of the Reading First Program, however, is
not the program itself but the officials who
mismanaged it and their total disregard for the laws
and guidelines under which the department was to
operate. Cronyism and corporate greed was allowed to
override the educational needs of the young children
the program was to serve.
------------------------------
The Tragedy of Reading First: More Than Corruption
Published in the People's Weekly World, May 24, 2008
In “No child left behind’s reading program marked
‘failure’,” author Rosita Johnson provides an accurate
description of the most recent failure of Reading
First and the extreme corruption connection to the
program. The article, however, concludes that the
goals of Reading First are “laudable” and seems to
accept their claim that it is based on “scientific
research.”
Reading First is based on the report of the National
Reading Panel, which has been thoroughly dismantled by
a number of respected scholars. Moreover, the recent
failure of Reading First is only the latest of a
number of failures. It has consistently failed on
state, national and international test, despite the
huge cost and extra time in reading instruction.
Example: The secretary of education consistently
claims that reading scores on the NAEP, a national
test, are at an all-time high. But nearly all the
increase occurred before Reading First was
implemented.
Yes, the cronyism and corruption of Reading First are
a tragedy, as the article concludes. But the tragedy
goes well beyond this. It is also the wrong approach
to helping children learn to read. The analogy with
the war in Iraq is striking: The reasons for both were
wrong, the implementation didn’t work, and Friends of
Bush are profiting (and continue to profit).
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California
-Angela
No Child Left Behind’s reading program marked
‘failure’
Author: Rosita Johnson
A key education program created under George W. Bush's
No Child Left Behind Act has failed to produce
results, according to a recent study by the Institute
of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S.
Department of Education. The study concluded that
there was no difference in the reading comprehension
scores between students who participated in the
Reading First program and those who did not.
The Department of Education has spent more than $6
billion on Reading First since 2002, about $1 billion
a year. Reading First has been a core program of the
No Child Left Behind Act with 1.5 million students in
grades kindergarten to third grades participating in
5,200 schools in 13 states.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate
Education Committee, said, “The Bush administration
has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our
children last, and the report shows the disturbing
consequences.” Because of the criticism and
accusations of conflict of interest of Reading First
officials, congressional hearings were held in April
2007.
The hearings disclosed how those who implemented and
designed the $1 billion a-year Reading First program
profited from steering states and school districts to
purchase certain textbooks, tests and services.
Reading First was also charged with mismanagement.
Chris Doherty, former director of Reading First, sent
an email to a staff member which exposed his motives
when referring to a reading program he disapproved.
Said Doherty, “They are trying to crash our party and
we need to beat the [expletive] out of them in front
of all the other would-be party crashers who are
standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we treat
dirt bags.”
Doherty and other Reading First officials awarded
grants only when states and school districts used the
reading programs they favored such as McGraw-Hill’s
Direct Instruction and Voyager Expanded Learning. Even
when other programs such as Reading Recovery and
Success for All complied with the legal guidelines and
criteria, they were not approved to be used. They were
the “dirt bags.”
The Expert Review Panel did not function. Some grant
applications were funded without documentation, while
others were denied for no reason, the hearings
revealed.
During the hearings, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.),
chair of the House Education Committee, told a panel
of Reading First officials, “This sounds like a
criminal enterprise to me. You don’t get to override
the law. But the fact of the matter is that you did.”
Following the hearing, House Appropriations Committee
Chair Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) led the fight to cut
Reading First’s budget from $1 billion to $393 million
in 2008. Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget seeks to restore
funding to previous levels. Chris Doherty resigned
right before the Department of Education Inspector
General, John Higgins, published his Investigation
Report of Reading First.
Actually, the goals and purpose of the Reading First
program are laudable: "To assist States and local
school districts to establish reading programs for low
income students in Kindergarten to 3rd grade based on
scientific research resulting in these students being
able to read on grade level."
The tragedy of the Reading First Program, however, is
not the program itself but the officials who
mismanaged it and their total disregard for the laws
and guidelines under which the department was to
operate. Cronyism and corporate greed was allowed to
override the educational needs of the young children
the program was to serve.
------------------------------
The Tragedy of Reading First: More Than Corruption
Published in the People's Weekly World, May 24, 2008
In “No child left behind’s reading program marked
‘failure’,” author Rosita Johnson provides an accurate
description of the most recent failure of Reading
First and the extreme corruption connection to the
program. The article, however, concludes that the
goals of Reading First are “laudable” and seems to
accept their claim that it is based on “scientific
research.”
Reading First is based on the report of the National
Reading Panel, which has been thoroughly dismantled by
a number of respected scholars. Moreover, the recent
failure of Reading First is only the latest of a
number of failures. It has consistently failed on
state, national and international test, despite the
huge cost and extra time in reading instruction.
Example: The secretary of education consistently
claims that reading scores on the NAEP, a national
test, are at an all-time high. But nearly all the
increase occurred before Reading First was
implemented.
Yes, the cronyism and corruption of Reading First are
a tragedy, as the article concludes. But the tragedy
goes well beyond this. It is also the wrong approach
to helping children learn to read. The analogy with
the war in Iraq is striking: The reasons for both were
wrong, the implementation didn’t work, and Friends of
Bush are profiting (and continue to profit).
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Massive Funding Cuts to ‘Reading First’ Generate Worries for Struggling Schools
Read comments by Dr. Stephen Krashen at the end. He provides data that provides an important corrective to the inadequate analysis on the Reading First Oregon data. Ed Week should hire him in order to improve their own coverage of these issues! -Angela
Massive Funding Cuts to ‘Reading First’ Generate Worries for Struggling Schools
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
The reading coaches, professional-development programs, and instructional materials that are the cornerstones of the Reading First program and are credited with improving instruction in struggling schools may be threatened by a deep cut included in the 2008 federal budget, officials and observers say.
The reduction of more than 60 percent—from nearly $1 billion each year since the program was rolled out in 2002 to $393 million for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1—will likely inhibit further improvements and test the sustainability of the changes Reading First has fostered over the past six years. The cut is part of an omnibus spending bill President Bush signed into law last month.
Read the rest here
Massive Funding Cuts to ‘Reading First’ Generate Worries for Struggling Schools
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
The reading coaches, professional-development programs, and instructional materials that are the cornerstones of the Reading First program and are credited with improving instruction in struggling schools may be threatened by a deep cut included in the 2008 federal budget, officials and observers say.
The reduction of more than 60 percent—from nearly $1 billion each year since the program was rolled out in 2002 to $393 million for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1—will likely inhibit further improvements and test the sustainability of the changes Reading First has fostered over the past six years. The cut is part of an omnibus spending bill President Bush signed into law last month.
Read the rest here
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Advisory Panel Finds ‘Reading First’ Data Less Than Definitive
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo / EdWeek
August 23, 2007
Washington
State-by-state data on the federal Reading First program were released with fanfare this past spring by the U.S. Department of Education as evidence that the initiative was fueling “tremendous progress” among students and teachers. The Reading First Advisory Committee, a federal panel that met for the first time here this week, found that information on student achievement in participating schools far less definitive and has asked for more time and technical assistance in evaluating the data from the $1 billion-a-year program.
“It seems like there are no standards anyone can interpret,” said committee member Frank R. Vellutino, a prominent reading researcher from the State University of New York at Albany.
He was referring to the variations among states in the assessments used to gauge students’ reading skills, as well as differences in cutoff scores used to determine whether children are on track toward becoming “proficient” readers.
See Also
Read more stories on the Reading First program.
“It’s going to be a job and a half to come to any conclusion whether states are meeting their responsibilities” in improving achievement in Reading First schools, Mr. Vellutino said.
The committee was given a thick binder filled with test-score data from grantees, which states are required to submit to the department each year. The information is based on the assessments and proficiency benchmarks set by each state as part of its Reading First plan.
Some Results ‘Impressive’
Members assigned to a subcommittee to review the information more closely described some of the data as “impressive.” But they also questioned whether the goals set by each state are appropriate, particularly those states that appear to have low expectations for student proficiency.
“I’ve never seen any test where 40 percent was considered proficient,” said Susan Brady, an early-reading expert at the University of Rhode Island and Haskins Laboratory in New Haven, Conn. “One needs to scrutinize what these levels are and what are the skills behind these cut scores.”
In measuring fluency, many states are consistent. Nearly 40 of the 54 states and other jurisdictions, for example, use the same test and the same cutoff score. But there are more differences in how states gauge comprehension skills. Arkansas and Idaho, for example, deem students to be proficient if they rank at the 40th percentile on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Other states, such as Georgia and Michigan, define the 50th percentile as proficient.
The data include test results for 1st through 3rd graders from 2002 to 2006. Results are broken down into subgroups by race and socioeconomic status, as well as for English-language learners and students with disabilities.
The committee, which met Aug. 20-22, has asked the Education Department to assign a statistician to the task of reviewing the data and suggesting ways to analyze the information and compare results across states.
A more rigorous analysis of student achievement in participating schools commissioned by the department’s Institute of Education Sciences, is under way, and results are expected later this year.
Reading First has been under scrutiny by federal auditors, who have been responding to complaints from several commercial vendors that federal program officials and consultants favored particular reading textbooks, assessments, and approaches over others and directed states to use certain products, a level of federal prescriptiveness that the NCLB law prohibits.
The Education Department’s inspector general largely substantiated those claims, as did a separate review by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The House Education and Labor Committee held two hearings on the matter last spring. And a Senate investigation is continuing. ("Senate Report Cites ‘Reading First’ Conflicts," May 16, 2007.)
Puerto Rico Grant Review
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings formed the advisory committee in response to the inspector general’s reports. The committee will make recommendations to the department, but they are not binding.
In other business from the panel’s discussions:
• Puerto Rico may be closer to getting funding under the Reading First program, but the commonwealth will have to make some additional changes to its proposal based on the committee’s recommendations. The self-governing U.S. territory is the last eligible jurisdiction still awaiting its grant award under the program, which was designed to improve reading instruction in the United States’ most disadvantaged school districts. The committee reviewed Puerto Rico’s latest proposal for its $35.6 million Reading First grant, which has been revised about a dozen times. An earlier version was approved in 2003, but allocation of the funding was held up when new leaders of Puerto Rico’s school system rejected some of the tenets of the plan. ("Puerto Rico Still Has No Reading First Funds," Nov. 30, 2005.)
• Targeted-assistance grants totaling more than $2 million will be split by Massachusetts and Virginia to help them expand their Reading First models beyond participating schools. The grants were given to states that had increased students’ test scores in Reading First schools in grades 1, 2, and 3, and for all subgroups. Tennessee received one of the grants last year.
• The committee agreed to meet again this fall to discuss the data further and take up any other business determined by department officials.
August 23, 2007
Washington
State-by-state data on the federal Reading First program were released with fanfare this past spring by the U.S. Department of Education as evidence that the initiative was fueling “tremendous progress” among students and teachers. The Reading First Advisory Committee, a federal panel that met for the first time here this week, found that information on student achievement in participating schools far less definitive and has asked for more time and technical assistance in evaluating the data from the $1 billion-a-year program.
“It seems like there are no standards anyone can interpret,” said committee member Frank R. Vellutino, a prominent reading researcher from the State University of New York at Albany.
He was referring to the variations among states in the assessments used to gauge students’ reading skills, as well as differences in cutoff scores used to determine whether children are on track toward becoming “proficient” readers.
See Also
Read more stories on the Reading First program.
“It’s going to be a job and a half to come to any conclusion whether states are meeting their responsibilities” in improving achievement in Reading First schools, Mr. Vellutino said.
The committee was given a thick binder filled with test-score data from grantees, which states are required to submit to the department each year. The information is based on the assessments and proficiency benchmarks set by each state as part of its Reading First plan.
Some Results ‘Impressive’
Members assigned to a subcommittee to review the information more closely described some of the data as “impressive.” But they also questioned whether the goals set by each state are appropriate, particularly those states that appear to have low expectations for student proficiency.
“I’ve never seen any test where 40 percent was considered proficient,” said Susan Brady, an early-reading expert at the University of Rhode Island and Haskins Laboratory in New Haven, Conn. “One needs to scrutinize what these levels are and what are the skills behind these cut scores.”
In measuring fluency, many states are consistent. Nearly 40 of the 54 states and other jurisdictions, for example, use the same test and the same cutoff score. But there are more differences in how states gauge comprehension skills. Arkansas and Idaho, for example, deem students to be proficient if they rank at the 40th percentile on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Other states, such as Georgia and Michigan, define the 50th percentile as proficient.
The data include test results for 1st through 3rd graders from 2002 to 2006. Results are broken down into subgroups by race and socioeconomic status, as well as for English-language learners and students with disabilities.
The committee, which met Aug. 20-22, has asked the Education Department to assign a statistician to the task of reviewing the data and suggesting ways to analyze the information and compare results across states.
A more rigorous analysis of student achievement in participating schools commissioned by the department’s Institute of Education Sciences, is under way, and results are expected later this year.
Reading First has been under scrutiny by federal auditors, who have been responding to complaints from several commercial vendors that federal program officials and consultants favored particular reading textbooks, assessments, and approaches over others and directed states to use certain products, a level of federal prescriptiveness that the NCLB law prohibits.
The Education Department’s inspector general largely substantiated those claims, as did a separate review by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The House Education and Labor Committee held two hearings on the matter last spring. And a Senate investigation is continuing. ("Senate Report Cites ‘Reading First’ Conflicts," May 16, 2007.)
Puerto Rico Grant Review
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings formed the advisory committee in response to the inspector general’s reports. The committee will make recommendations to the department, but they are not binding.
In other business from the panel’s discussions:
• Puerto Rico may be closer to getting funding under the Reading First program, but the commonwealth will have to make some additional changes to its proposal based on the committee’s recommendations. The self-governing U.S. territory is the last eligible jurisdiction still awaiting its grant award under the program, which was designed to improve reading instruction in the United States’ most disadvantaged school districts. The committee reviewed Puerto Rico’s latest proposal for its $35.6 million Reading First grant, which has been revised about a dozen times. An earlier version was approved in 2003, but allocation of the funding was held up when new leaders of Puerto Rico’s school system rejected some of the tenets of the plan. ("Puerto Rico Still Has No Reading First Funds," Nov. 30, 2005.)
• Targeted-assistance grants totaling more than $2 million will be split by Massachusetts and Virginia to help them expand their Reading First models beyond participating schools. The grants were given to states that had increased students’ test scores in Reading First schools in grades 1, 2, and 3, and for all subgroups. Tennessee received one of the grants last year.
• The committee agreed to meet again this fall to discuss the data further and take up any other business determined by department officials.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Former ‘Reading First’ Adviser to Leave Federal Post
Former ‘Reading First’ Adviser to Leave Federal Post
By Sean Cavanagh
May 16, 2007 /Edweek.org
A former adviser to the federal Reading First program will leave his current position at the U.S. Department of Education at the end of next month, the agency announced one week after a congressional report questioned whether he had gained financially in that previous job by promoting certain commercial products.
Edward J. Kame’enui will resign as the commissioner of special education research at the Institute of Education Sciences, which is a division of the department, at the end of June, the IES said in a May 16 statement.
Mr. Kame’enui had been serving under a two-year agreement at the institute, which was set to expire at the end of next month, and he had already planned to leave the institute at that point, IES spokesman Mike Bowler said. He will return to his faculty position at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, according to the statement released by IES Director Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst.
Controversy swirled over Mr. Kame’enui’s previous role as a technical-assistance adviser to the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program, which was established as part of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 to improve reading instruction in the early grades. A report released May 9 by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said that Mr. Kame’enui served as a high-level federal adviser to states while promoting a commercial reading program that he had written.
During that time, Mr. Kame'enui was responsible for providing advice to states about the kinds of texts and assessments that would meet Reading First requirements. Between 2003 and 2006, he earned at least $150,000 a year in royalties and compensation from Pearson Scott Foresman, which publishes a textbook he wrote with another university professor, according to the congressional report.
Senate investigators described financial gains acquired by Mr. Kame’enui and three other researchers who served as regional service directors of Reading First. Overall, outside income “soared” for the researchers between 2001 and 2006, when they were serving as consultants to Reading First, according to the report released by Sen. Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Following that Senate report, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, called on Mr. Kame’enui to resign. Rep. Miller said Mr. Kame’enui had been “less than candid” in earlier testimony before his committee in April, which explored alleged improprieties in the implementation of Reading First.
Just last week, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was asked after a hearing by the House committee if she would ask Mr. Kame’enui to resign. “I don’t know,” the secretary responded. She made no mention at that time of any previous plans by Mr. Kame’enui to leave the department at the end of a two-year stint.
Work Praised
Mr. Kame’enui’s current supervisor, Mr. Whitehurst, praised his work at the Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees research on a broad range of school issues. Mr. Kame’enui helped arrange the staffing and organization and helped manage studies and grants at the National Center for Special Education Research, Mr. Whitehurst said. “These are significant accomplishments,” the IES chief said in a statement.
Mr. Kame’enui has been working at the IES under a two-year term under the federal Intergovernmental Personnel Act, which arranges partnerships between educational institutions and federal agencies, institute officials said.
Cindy Cupp, a Georgia-based reading-program publisher whose complaints about alleged conflicts of interest in Reading First helped spark investigations into the federal program, said she hoped the exposure given to Mr. Kame’enui’s activities would lead to stricter oversight of the programs.
But she said she also was disappointed that complaints she made years ago, after her products failed to get approval for purchase with Reading First money, were not, in her view, taken seriously until relatively recently. Last week’s Senate report, she said, “documented a lot of the things that people who had been following [Reading First] for years had thought.”
“Bottom line, why did it take this long?” she said of recent probes into the implementation of Reading First. “If [federal officials] had looked into this at the time, they could have saved taxpayers thousands and thousands of dollars in investigations.”
Vol. 26
By Sean Cavanagh
May 16, 2007 /Edweek.org
A former adviser to the federal Reading First program will leave his current position at the U.S. Department of Education at the end of next month, the agency announced one week after a congressional report questioned whether he had gained financially in that previous job by promoting certain commercial products.
Edward J. Kame’enui will resign as the commissioner of special education research at the Institute of Education Sciences, which is a division of the department, at the end of June, the IES said in a May 16 statement.
Mr. Kame’enui had been serving under a two-year agreement at the institute, which was set to expire at the end of next month, and he had already planned to leave the institute at that point, IES spokesman Mike Bowler said. He will return to his faculty position at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, according to the statement released by IES Director Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst.
Controversy swirled over Mr. Kame’enui’s previous role as a technical-assistance adviser to the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program, which was established as part of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 to improve reading instruction in the early grades. A report released May 9 by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said that Mr. Kame’enui served as a high-level federal adviser to states while promoting a commercial reading program that he had written.
During that time, Mr. Kame'enui was responsible for providing advice to states about the kinds of texts and assessments that would meet Reading First requirements. Between 2003 and 2006, he earned at least $150,000 a year in royalties and compensation from Pearson Scott Foresman, which publishes a textbook he wrote with another university professor, according to the congressional report.
Senate investigators described financial gains acquired by Mr. Kame’enui and three other researchers who served as regional service directors of Reading First. Overall, outside income “soared” for the researchers between 2001 and 2006, when they were serving as consultants to Reading First, according to the report released by Sen. Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Following that Senate report, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, called on Mr. Kame’enui to resign. Rep. Miller said Mr. Kame’enui had been “less than candid” in earlier testimony before his committee in April, which explored alleged improprieties in the implementation of Reading First.
Just last week, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was asked after a hearing by the House committee if she would ask Mr. Kame’enui to resign. “I don’t know,” the secretary responded. She made no mention at that time of any previous plans by Mr. Kame’enui to leave the department at the end of a two-year stint.
Work Praised
Mr. Kame’enui’s current supervisor, Mr. Whitehurst, praised his work at the Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees research on a broad range of school issues. Mr. Kame’enui helped arrange the staffing and organization and helped manage studies and grants at the National Center for Special Education Research, Mr. Whitehurst said. “These are significant accomplishments,” the IES chief said in a statement.
Mr. Kame’enui has been working at the IES under a two-year term under the federal Intergovernmental Personnel Act, which arranges partnerships between educational institutions and federal agencies, institute officials said.
Cindy Cupp, a Georgia-based reading-program publisher whose complaints about alleged conflicts of interest in Reading First helped spark investigations into the federal program, said she hoped the exposure given to Mr. Kame’enui’s activities would lead to stricter oversight of the programs.
But she said she also was disappointed that complaints she made years ago, after her products failed to get approval for purchase with Reading First money, were not, in her view, taken seriously until relatively recently. Last week’s Senate report, she said, “documented a lot of the things that people who had been following [Reading First] for years had thought.”
“Bottom line, why did it take this long?” she said of recent probes into the implementation of Reading First. “If [federal officials] had looked into this at the time, they could have saved taxpayers thousands and thousands of dollars in investigations.”
Vol. 26
Monday, April 23, 2007
Key Initiative of "No Child" Under Federal Investigation
Key Initiative of "No Child" Under Federal Investigation
By Amit R. Paley
The Washington Post
Saturday 21 April 2007
Officials profited from reading first program.
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.
Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042207Y.shtml
By Amit R. Paley
The Washington Post
Saturday 21 April 2007
Officials profited from reading first program.
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.
Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042207Y.shtml
Monday, April 16, 2007
Multibillion dollar textbook scandal reaches Congress
Multibillion dollar textbook scandal reaches Congress
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
April 15, 2007
A slow-motion scandal surrounding a federal multibillion-dollar reading program has its first congressional hearing this week, but it remains to be seen whether the scrutiny will shed any new light on a complex, contradictory tale of textbooks, tests and allegations of federal arm-twisting.
A key part of President Bush's efforts to remake public education, Reading First was launched in 2002, giving schools $1 billion a year to improve reading in early elementary grades. Five years later, early evidence suggests that it may be helping. But investigators say a handful of advisers have railroaded schools into buying textbooks and other materials that they and associates developed.
The result: a conflict-of-interest case that took two years to jell as investigators in the Education Department connected the dots. To date, no criminal charges have been filed, but Democrats, now in control of Congress, promise to give the case a full airing.
"The purpose of Reading First is to help schoolchildren learn to read, not feather the nests of a select group of well-connected individuals and organizations," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., are conducting probes. Kennedy plans hearings later this spring.
Miller will preside at the first hearing Friday, which brings together Chris Doherty, the program's former director, and three top advisers.
Atop the witness list: John Higgins, the Education Department's inspector general, who has issued six reports detailing how Reading First leaders and contractors looked the other way at possible conflicts of interest among advisers and others — several of whom authored textbooks. He also found that Doherty and others strong-armed states and school districts into choosing from a small selection of materials that stress phonics.
In one e-mail Higgins cited, Doherty said of a publisher whose books downplayed phonics, "They are trying to crash our party, and we need to beat the (expletive) out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags."
Doherty quit in September after the report's release.
Higgins also found that a 2002 conference for educators focused too exclusively on a few programs, creating what investigators said was a perception that there was an "approved list" of texts.
A related probe last month by the Government Accountability Office found that officials from 10 states complained that the Education Department told them to eliminate reading programs or tests that they didn't endorse. Federal rules prohibit the department from endorsing any curriculum.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who until 2005 was a White House domestic policy adviser, says the troubles occurred before her move to the Education Department. But Mike Petrilli, a former associate deputy secretary under Spellings' predecessor, Rod Paige, says Spellings "micromanaged the implementation of Reading First from her West Wing office." She already has told lawmakers she is beefing up oversight of the program.
But even a few critics cautiously concede that the program has been a boon to schools. The Center on Education Policy, a Washington think tank that has criticized Bush's education programs, in September said Reading First is having "a significant impact" in schools.
A five-year, $30.5 million evaluation, begun in 2003, should produce complete results next year.
Cindy Cupp, a Savannah, Ga., educator, was among the first to complain in 2005, after Reading First schools in Georgia passed over her homegrown phonics program. Cupp compiled a huge dossier outlining the links between publishers, federal advisers, universities and the Bush administration. In findings issued last January, Higgins largely upheld her complaint.
She says it's irrelevant whether Reading First works: "To rationalize breaking the law by saying the program has been effective is just that — a rationalization."
She also notes that part of the evaluation bid went to RMC Research Corp., which Higgins cited for turning a blind eye to conflicts of interest among three top advisers it hired. All three are scheduled to testify Friday.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-04-15-textbooks-congress_N.htm
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
April 15, 2007
A slow-motion scandal surrounding a federal multibillion-dollar reading program has its first congressional hearing this week, but it remains to be seen whether the scrutiny will shed any new light on a complex, contradictory tale of textbooks, tests and allegations of federal arm-twisting.
A key part of President Bush's efforts to remake public education, Reading First was launched in 2002, giving schools $1 billion a year to improve reading in early elementary grades. Five years later, early evidence suggests that it may be helping. But investigators say a handful of advisers have railroaded schools into buying textbooks and other materials that they and associates developed.
The result: a conflict-of-interest case that took two years to jell as investigators in the Education Department connected the dots. To date, no criminal charges have been filed, but Democrats, now in control of Congress, promise to give the case a full airing.
"The purpose of Reading First is to help schoolchildren learn to read, not feather the nests of a select group of well-connected individuals and organizations," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., are conducting probes. Kennedy plans hearings later this spring.
Miller will preside at the first hearing Friday, which brings together Chris Doherty, the program's former director, and three top advisers.
Atop the witness list: John Higgins, the Education Department's inspector general, who has issued six reports detailing how Reading First leaders and contractors looked the other way at possible conflicts of interest among advisers and others — several of whom authored textbooks. He also found that Doherty and others strong-armed states and school districts into choosing from a small selection of materials that stress phonics.
In one e-mail Higgins cited, Doherty said of a publisher whose books downplayed phonics, "They are trying to crash our party, and we need to beat the (expletive) out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags."
Doherty quit in September after the report's release.
Higgins also found that a 2002 conference for educators focused too exclusively on a few programs, creating what investigators said was a perception that there was an "approved list" of texts.
A related probe last month by the Government Accountability Office found that officials from 10 states complained that the Education Department told them to eliminate reading programs or tests that they didn't endorse. Federal rules prohibit the department from endorsing any curriculum.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who until 2005 was a White House domestic policy adviser, says the troubles occurred before her move to the Education Department. But Mike Petrilli, a former associate deputy secretary under Spellings' predecessor, Rod Paige, says Spellings "micromanaged the implementation of Reading First from her West Wing office." She already has told lawmakers she is beefing up oversight of the program.
But even a few critics cautiously concede that the program has been a boon to schools. The Center on Education Policy, a Washington think tank that has criticized Bush's education programs, in September said Reading First is having "a significant impact" in schools.
A five-year, $30.5 million evaluation, begun in 2003, should produce complete results next year.
Cindy Cupp, a Savannah, Ga., educator, was among the first to complain in 2005, after Reading First schools in Georgia passed over her homegrown phonics program. Cupp compiled a huge dossier outlining the links between publishers, federal advisers, universities and the Bush administration. In findings issued last January, Higgins largely upheld her complaint.
She says it's irrelevant whether Reading First works: "To rationalize breaking the law by saying the program has been effective is just that — a rationalization."
She also notes that part of the evaluation bid went to RMC Research Corp., which Higgins cited for turning a blind eye to conflicts of interest among three top advisers it hired. All three are scheduled to testify Friday.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-04-15-textbooks-congress_N.htm
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