May 2, 2008

Reading First, finishing last

The “academic cornerstone” of Bush’s education policy is a flop. But in this case, the failure is even more embarrassing that it appears at first glance.

President Bush’s $1 billion a year initiative to teach reading to low-income children has not helped improve their reading comprehension, according to a Department of Education report released on Thursday.

The program, known as Reading First, drew on some of Mr. Bush’s educational experiences as Texas governor, and at his insistence Congress included it in the federal No Child Left Behind legislation that passed by bipartisan majorities in 2001. It has been a subject of dispute almost ever since, however, with the Bush administration and some state officials characterizing the program as beneficial for young students, and Congressional Democrats and federal investigators criticizing conflict of interest among its top advisers.

“Reading First did not improve students’ reading comprehension,” concluded the report, which was mandated by Congress and carried out by the Department of Education’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences. “The program did not increase the percentages of students in grades one, two or three whose reading comprehension scores were at or above grade level.”

Noting that education reform efforts routinely fall short of expectations, Kevin noted, “Maybe RF was poorly implemented. Maybe it just happened to be a bad idea. But it’s astonishing how many efforts to improve K-12 instruction turn out not to work. Even the ones that do seem to work usually turn out to fail if you just wait a few years or try to scale them up beyond pilot size. This is one of the reasons I don’t blog much about education policy even though it’s an interesting subject. For all the sturm and drang, in the end nothing really seems to matter. After a hundred years of more-or-less rigorous pedagogical research, we still don’t know how to teach kids any better than we used to.”

Fair enough. Reform efforts really are notoriously difficult, and when one falls short, few are surprised.

But in the case of “Reading First,” the problems go a little deeper than just an unsuccessful reading program.

I’ve been following “Reading First,” off and on, for a while now, and watching the billions of dollars the Bush administration has invested in the program nationwide.

And while it’s disappointing when an education reform effort flops, it’s worth keeping in mind precisely how “Reading First” flopped. In this case, true to form, the Bush administration ran the program with its trademark incompetence and ineptitude.

Top Education Department officials, including former Secretary Rod Paige, allowed specialists to improperly encourage state and local officials to spend billions of dollars in federal grant money with a small group of companies, government investigators have concluded.

In educating state and local officials about the department’s Reading First grant program, officials loaded expert panels with speakers who overwhelmingly preferred products from a handful of educational companies, according to a report released yesterday by the Education Department’s inspector general.

As ABC’s Justin Rood explained a while back, the Department of Education is prohibited from interfering with curriculum decisions by state and local education officials. But when it came to Reading First, Bush’s political appointees would pick favored companies, then push state and local education officials to buy their products and services.

And wouldn’t you know it, the companies favored by the administration just happened to be headed by Bush donors.

The IG found that the training programs set up by the Department to educate states about the Reading First program violated the prohibition against controlling individual school curricula by promoting specific reading materials and instructions to the financial of benefit companies — such as McGraw Hill and Voyager — headed by top Bush administration donors. The IG also found that the Department failed to adequately assess “issues of bias and objectivity” in approving technical assistance providers.

In response to the report, CREW’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan said: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the Bush administration has been sacrificing the education of children to financially benefit a select group of loyalists and donors. CREW has filed suit to force the Department of Education to come clean about the extent to which cronyism and corruption have permeated the Reading First panels, potentially depriving our nation’s highest risk children of the best possible reading materials.”

For example, McGraw-Hill’s Chairman and CEO, Harold McGraw III, and its Chairman Emeritus, Harold McGraw Jr., contributed a total of over $23,000 to the Republican National Committee and to President Bush’s campaigns between 1999 and 2006. Sure enough, the company was pushed during the Education Secretary’s “Readership Language Academies.”

In fact, these official seminars for state and local education officials didn’t just promote favored companies, they also cracked down on companies the Bush gang disapproved of.

In one particularly amusing example, Reading First’s then-director Chris Doherty wrote an email to a staff member, urging the aide to come down hard on a company he didn’t support. “They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the (expletive deleted) 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 wrote.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, chairman of the Senate’s education committee, said, “The Bush administration has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last, and this report shows the disturbing consequences.”

Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

 
Discussion

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22 Comments
1.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 9:20 am, Former Dan said:

In Bush’s mind, it was a success. His friends got rich and that’s all that matters.

Cronyism! Yay!

2.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 am, little bear said:

Agree with Former Dan - we can now follow a 7 year track record of failure in terms of outcomes - but this is not about “competence”, this is about corruption and manipulation by the mainstream media.

The criminal cabal behind dur chimpfurher has no interest in educating Americans - not possible to have a well-informed electorate and successfully “catapult the propaganda.”

They do need, however, to be able to proclaim they stand for good schools - after all, this is the last HUGE untapped market for the private secto, public education!

The republicans have always been about looking public monies to enrich themselves and hiding behind proclaimations for “small-government” - remember, they are actually the old, corrupt WIG party from the 1800s - rebranded when the public (which was highly literate) would no longer support them because of outrageous corruption.

Course, chimpy’s corruption make the ol’ Wigs” look like statesman in honest government.!

3.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 am, Don B said:

I agree with Drum - the likelihood that any of these sweeping reforms will change things is pretty small. I go to my kids’ classrooms fairly often to help with math and reading, and from what I can tell, their home situation is the biggest factor in their learning. The kids who have the support at home and parents who push them to do better, do better. The kids who don’t read at home and don’t have parents helping them with homework and making it a priority, don’t. All the government programs in the world won’t help.

Nowadays, my 2nd grader does much more complicated stuff than I did when I was in second grade. Which means that the capable kids outpace the less-capable kids at a faster rate. The kids that fall behind are almost hopelessly behind by 2nd or 3rd grade. The kids who always have done well will continue to do so, and those who haven’t, won’t.

In my humble opinion.

4.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 am, little bear said:

Back to topic:

You don’t actually directly teach children to read - you prepare them with a foundation of skills that become the “building blocks” of reading - this is well documented, however, the scam education reforms from dur chimpfurher intentionally avoid this.

“Learning to read” starts long before children enter Kindergarten. They need:

(1). Print Awareness - knowing that we use text all the time for different info
(2). Print motivation (hey, its actually going to be a lot of work to learn to read)
(3). Phonological Awareness - hearing and playing with the sound of language - critical skill here, but it is much more than just phonics
(4) Enriched vocabulary - “at risk” students hear less than 1/3 of the language and words of affluent families. The differences in vocabulary when a kids enter Kindgergarten is HUGE!
(5). Letter knowledge - knowing letters and understanding that they can be written differenently. Knowing that words are groups of letters that are separated by space.
(6). Narrative skills - children need to be able to tell stories and follow sequences in order to learn to read.

Reading programs based on these “pre-reading” skills work - they are much cheaper than expensive programs to “catch up” kids that fall behind in reading.

If children are not reading by the end of second grade, chances are they will never be fluent readers and the probability of them catching up with their peers decreases after each additional year in school.

Traditional approach (which was still used in chimpy’s program) is to ignore early literacy, proclaim it doesn’t matter, and provide no intervention until AFTER reading failure occurs, when it is demonstratably too late.

In the meantime, those connected with the repug elite make money hands over fist with programs that merely distract and institutionalize failure - guaranteeing an unending stream of revenue.

5.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 9:48 am, little bear said:

Don B - great points, but please be careful. This is not about blaming families, especially when many struggle to get by and many parents were underserved in the schools they attended as well.

Research clearly demonstrates that a child’s early years are important - the key to getting ready for reading, getting ready for school.

Some families are at a HUGE disadvantage because of socioeconomic factors that are TOTALLY beyond their control - those that live in poverty have not chosen to raise their children that way. If you leave in economically distressed areas, and attended dysfunctional schools, you have few choices.

If we stop playing the “blame game” we see that it does take a village to raise a child, at least in terms of supporting the needs of families to provide enriched environments for their children.

6.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 am, PJ said:

We actually do know how to teach children. What we don’t know is how to standardize either the teaching process or the testing process. There is a reason for this: good teaching, like good parenting, involves individual attention and respect for every child as an individual human being. Good teaching is also very intensive and expensive, requiring rigorous but gentle discipline and constant conflict resolution, which is why none of the good ideas from Waldorf, Montessori or any other listening-centered educational model are ever implemented in a meaningful way in public schools. Child-size tables and chairs were revolutionary a hundred years ago, but they have not kept kindergarten from turning - with woeful results for teachers, parents and children - into first grade for 5-year-olds.

7.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:12 am, Jen said:

I’ll try to restrain myself here, this is a topic I can go on and on about.

But on a vaguely related note, when NCLB was implemented many teachers I know quickly came to feel that its entire intent was to kill the public school system. At the time, though I could follow the dots they were pointing out, I still felt it was a little too conspiratorial and all.

However, in retrospect, it may have been one of the few ways in which they competently killed something — but were able to do so using unrealistic expectations, ridiculous sloganeering, developmentally inappropriate methods, and an insane state by state set-up.

You do know that by 2014 all children will be proficient, right? They’ll have annihilated the bell curve — or at least moved it three standard deviations up.

The worst changes I see (I have a 17, 14 and 5 yo) in my public urban system are that far more kids dislike learning, reading and school altogether at a younger age, that actual knowledge has decreased enormously — they learn how to read something short and answer questions about that. They don’t learn to play with ideas or think or hold opposing viewpoints in their head.

The great teachers of a decade or so ago have either retired or are holed up in their classrooms trying to maintain some joy and happiness in learning while complying with ridiculous demands — many of which require moving on with the program whether or not a child has actually gotten the concept. But, what is most common, is a school filled with teachers following the rules, following the calendars and scripts and prescriptions from above, getting no support if they say it isn’t working, and getting angrier and more bitter waiting for the pendulum to swing back again.

I was just reading somewhere and it described teachers as having the most responsibility, the most accountability (currently at least) and the least power and say within the system. Sort of a recipe for bad schools.

8.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:14 am, Jen said:

Oh lordy, rereading my post, sorry for all the oddities in commas, run-ons and the like. Two nights with far too little sleep and not enough caffeine yet today — it’s amazing I can type at all!

9.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 am, Dana Hunter said:

Ah, so that’s why Bush was so eager to eliminate Reading is Fundamental. That program was actually helping kids develop a love for reading rather than simply lining his cronies’ pockets.

I’m having a heart-attack from not surprised.

10.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:21 am, Grumpy said:

“The program, known as Reading First, drew on some of Mr. Bush’s educational experiences as Texas governor…”

Sounds like Bush himself learned to read while governor, and was therefore illiterate prior to 1994.

11.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 am, BNB said:

Don’t expect any changes anytime soon at the Dept. of Education. From the story on this Reading First study in today’s WaPo:

“During a speech to educators in March, [Secy. of Education] Spellings said that Reading First was one of most effective education programs she had encountered. ‘If ever a program was rooted in research and science and fact, this is it,’ she said.

Amanda Farris, deputy assistant secretary for policy and strategic initiatives in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, said in a statement that the department will use the report, along with other data, to better implement the program.

She said, “The department has been encouraged by numerous indicators over the last several months which point to the positive impact this program is having with our young readers.”

12.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am, jhm said:

Indeed, most of the alleged success of the Texas programs on which NCLB was based consisted of eliminating the scores of poor scoring test takers, thereby boosting overall scores.

13.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 am, tom_oftheplains said:

Who wants to bet that, if pressed on this, Dana Perino will just say “Oh, we need more time to study this, nothing’s conclusive, the President CARES so DEEPLY for our children, etc., etc., etc.”

14.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 11:11 am, J said:

I only have one point, which I guess just goes to the way any statistics can be distorted or reported to suggest anything at all:

Grade level is defined as the 50th percentile of students. That means, by definition, exactly 50% of students are above, and 50% are below grade level. Thus, the point that the percentage of students scoring at grade level did not rise means absolutely nothing. The question is whether the raw scores were higher or lower. I think my biggest concern is that apparently the Department of Education doesn’t even understand its own research - no wonder our children aren’t learning anything…

15.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am, Tom Cleaver said:

First off, the best way to reform education policy is to get rid of all the education bureaucrats - they’re the ones who qualify under: “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”

I was fortunate enough to have two grandmothers who had both been trained teachers, who - when I was 4-5 - taught me to read. Using nice old-fashioned phonics. When I was in 1st grade, the elderly teacher used phonics. She retired the end of that year, and the next year they began the first “reading reform,” known as “word recognition.” This is fine, so long as someone who knows what the word is tells you what the word you’ve never seen before is. This “reform” resulted in a generation of kids who didn’t like reading, because it was hard, since there were all those words out there they didn’t understand. I come from a “reading” family. Both my sister and brother - both victims of this reform - had lifelong difficulties in reading, no matter how much they tried. When he was in his 30s, my brother took a semester of phonics at night school in an ESL class (where they taught it!); it was amazing how much his reading skills improved - he even got promoted at work as a result. To this day, my sister has about 10 books in her house.

This “reform” was the cause of the first “Why Johnny Can’t Read” brou-ha-ha in 1958. Nothing changed.

I remember all the other “reforms” that came alongwere going to make everything better, like “new math,” which actually made my minimal math skills worse.

I ended up going to a “teachers college” for 5 quarters before dropping out (having graduated 125 from the bottom of a HS class of 925 due to boredom, it was where I could get in). That last quarter, I finally got dragged kicking and screaming into two of the “education” classes. They were an “education” all right - I realized after watching what they made teachers out of (I had worked for the campus public relations office and read a student survey where for 85% of the student body, this school was not their first preference, and for 60% it wasn’t their third preference - given that the entrance requirement was that one be a high school graduate, not qualified further, you can get a pretty good idea of the demographic here), and how they went about it (rote memorization of the book for “fill in the blank” tests using the book for the questions), I finally realized why it was I had graduated 125 from the bottom of my high school class. Outside of two teachers in 12 years, I never had a “learning experience” in school, and both of them were later forced out of the profession for “not fitting in” (with the rest of the sheep).

Cut to: the “whole language reform” that actively hated phonics, whose adherents chased phonics believers out of the classroom at the height of this insanity, where it was believed if you sat a student down next to a “great book” and opened it up and “exposed” them to it, they would become educated by some form of osmosis.

The truth is, the conservatives are right about learning the basics to begin with. Because I know how to read well, I am a good writer, and I have made my way in the world through that knowledge (that and taking that typing class to get enough credits to get out of Junior High). Once the necessary database has been constructed, all the “independent thinking” can be introduced, but without the database, it’s not only useless but actively harmful.

The best thing that could be done for education reform is to fire the faculty at the School of Education at San Bernardino State University and close the school. That is the “patient zero” of the infection.

/rant - you may now return to your regularly-scheduled whatever. :-)

16.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 am, Don B said:

little bear @ 5: I didn’t mean to “blame” anyone. I was simply saying that there is more to it than government programs or even shiny new computers or textbooks. There are many factors to education as others have pointed out - I was just pointing out that sometimes we can’t legislate or mandate away some of the factors. I’ve been doing as much as possible as a “village citizen” to help.

17.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 am, Tom Cleaver said:

As an addendum, reading DoB’s post, I would agree with his premise about home situation, from anecdotal evidence. Here in Los Angeles, close to 70+% of the students in the public schools are Latino, and the majority of them are found at the bottom of the bottom of most of the scores. When one looks at the home situation of many of their families - with 12 people living someplace designed for 4 - and with parents who have at best an elementary school education and do not have the knowledge that’s needed to help (not to mention after probably working two jobs, they’re a bit exhausted when they get home), the child has no place in the home to get away from the hurly-burly of life and study, and the streets are seen as a better place than home - and we all know what’s out on the streets.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I once had a Latino family for neighbors. He had come from El Salvador as a refugee from the death squads for being a union organizer, she had come from Guatemala as the survivor of an Army massacre in her village. They both worked two jobs to have that little house, and (as he said) they weren’t “good Catholics” since they only had one son. But they worked with Javier, and they did everything to promote his learning and growing and getting his skills, and the result was that three years ago he entered UCLA on a full pre-med scholarship. Yes, parenting matters.

And you can go past any elementary school here in the San Fernando Valley, where the student body is 100% Latino, and at 3pm you see large numbers of mothers there for their children, so the desire is there. Unfortunately, the kid then goes from 4 hours spent speaking English to 20 hours of Spanish, which is why becoming English-proficient (the best indicator of being able to get some opportunity) takes almost two generations.

Not saying people in that community don’t want things better - they came for the chance of school for their kids - but with everything else to be dealt with, achieving that difference DonB mentioned is hard to do.

And stuff like “Reading First” doesn’t even begin to touch this. And with the teachers in overwhelm, the real question is why it isn’t worse than it is.

18.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm, mellowjohn said:

“You do know that by 2014 all children will be proficient, right? They’ll have annihilated the bell curve — or at least moved it three standard deviations up.”

no, we’ll just all have to move to lake woebegone, where all the children are above average.

19.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm, Cmac said:

The depressing thing about this, to those of us who struggle to deal with the dreadful NCLB, is that the article which appeared in the LA Times this morning was approximately two column inches at the bottom of page 17.

It should have been on page 1, above the fold.

20.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm, Helena Montana said:

Am I incorrect in recalling that Neil Bush is selling this program or software to go with this program? Or was that something else entirely?

21.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm, SmilingDixie said:

Reading First is NOT A FAILURE! Neil Bush made a lot of money selling software to the program.

22.
On May 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm, mellowjohn said:

helena…
yes, neil bush is slurping a the trough of bush corruption, too. no surprise there.

for a really good look at nclb, reading first, corruption, etc., etc., i recommend the book tested by linda perlstein.