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Troubled Reading Program Draws Heat From Congress
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ShareApril 19, 2007 10:35 PM
The Department of Education today touted what it called successes in its troubled multi-billion-dollar reading grant program, even as a prominent lawmaker accused it of hiding information about the grant money.
Citing "strong gains" in reading proficiency among American children receiving instruction through the Reading First grant program, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education Amanda Farris said it was evidence of "tremendous progress."
The number of first-graders at schools receiving grant money meeting or exceeding reading standards on "fluency outcome measures" increased by 14 percentage points, the study found. The number of third-graders at Reading First schools meeting or exceeding those standards for their age level increased by seven percentage points.
"We rarely see this kind of success from a federal education program," Farris said of the report, according to a press release from the department.
But others saw the report as evidence of a problem. In a letter to the department today, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., charged the Education Department with withholding the report for months from his committee’s investigators.
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In late February, Miller wrote, his staff requested a state-by-state breakdown of where the billions of dollars in Reading First grant money had gone – information that was included in the department’s report released today.
But Miller’s staff received the information only yesterday, he wrote. "It is inconceivable to me that the Department withheld the request information from Committee investigators who had been conducting a formal Congressional inquiry." He demanded to know of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings whether her staff had deliberately withheld the information from his panel.
The fireworks come on the eve of a major hearing in Miller’s committee on the Reading First program, which has been plagued with accusations of bias, improper political influence and fraud.
The Education Department's inspector general has mounted six separate investigations into the matter, one of which concluded in February that the program had inappropriately steered billions in grant money towards a select group of companies.
An Education Department official criticized that report, saying it "did not recognize the positive aspects" of the program’s activities.
At tomorrow's hearing, Miller told ABC News he hoped to determine whether the misdeeds within the program amount to criminal activity. "You could not end up with the result that they ended up with without intending from the very outset to either ignore the law, violate the law, distort the law," he said in a recent interview. "At that point, yes, it raises question about criminal activity and criminal intent."
Secretary Spellings turned down ABC News' request for an interview on the Reading First program.
April 19, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (6)
Perhaps Sec. Spellings turned down the interview to find the "positive aspects of the Reading First program."
Posted by: shortnativetexan | Apr 22, 2007 1:27:31 AM
Perhaps the problem is the objective itself. Increases in fluency? How about maintaining fluency! There's a point of diminishing returns no matter how much money you throw at it. anyway I'm sure the program costs about as much as 2 weeks of Iraqi occupation, so lets put it in perspective.
Posted by: Steve Savage | Apr 28, 2007 3:32:44 AM
It costs $1 to save an African child infected with malaria. One day in Iraq would save all. The 20 billion dollars "step-up" in Iraq would pay the tuition for EVERY current high school student in the US to attend a public university for 4 years. This corrupt leadership needs to go now. Bush's implementation of NCLB (No Crony Left Behind) has done more long term damage to education then ever help.
Posted by: George Lange | Apr 28, 2007 12:16:17 PM
Too-shaa!
Posted by: dyan | Apr 30, 2007 3:00:29 AM
As a teacher involved in Reading First, I am so sorry a few people have given this federal grant its "black eye."
Our school district in Kanawha County, West Virginia, has seen wonderful growth in reading scores for children. Because of the outstanding staff development it affords, the grant has helped us to teach better. I have taught reading in elementary and secondary schools for 30 plus years. Looking back, I know I could have helped more students read better if I had had the foundation in HOW to teach that I now have.
Is Slavin just angry that he didn't get a piece of the Reading First "pie?" We used his approach to cooperative learning and his math program in the early 90's. Neither helped our reading or math scores.
The best thing about Reading First is that the principles we've learned about teaching reading will help us help students long after the grant is gone.
Brenda McQuerrey
Title I Reading Specialist
Kanawha County Schools
Charleston, WV
Posted by: Brenda McQuerrey | May 17, 2007 8:04:08 AM
Has everyone totally discounted reading comprehension??????? As a seasoned special education teacher and mother of 3, I can assure you that a child is never referred to the special needs program because they do not read as fluently as our politician want them to. However, they ARE almost ALWAYS referred because of their inability to remember what they have read. Our country needs to wake up and realize that we are leaving all children behind!!
Inclusion forces special needs children to pick up the pace and when they are unable to do so, it only deepens the child's feelings that they are stupid. On the other hand, as teachers slow down the teaching process to pick up the slow learners, all of the average and above-average learners in the room are being made to "wait" on everyone else to catch up--thus creating a lose/lose situation for all.
Also, pulling slow readers out of other core subject areas, such as math, only makes matters worse. At the end of the year, they may read faster, but not only can they not remember what they've read, but they can't perform simple math calculations.
When was the last time we asked our politicians how fast they read????? We already know they are incapable of adding...if they could, they would know that these programs don't add up to the benefit of anyone except the pocketbooks of many who have no clue what the rest of us are actually trying to do for a living.
Posted by: Holli | Aug 24, 2007 12:28:31 PM
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