Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > October > 02 > Entry
There’s a very detailed account in the Washington Post of the Education Department shenanigans regarding the Reading First program, including more on how the officials steered contracts away from programs that had proof of success in favor of better connected companies without such proof.
It’s worth reading.
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Comments
By Rick
October 4, 2006 5:44 PM | Link to this
Scott, KDeRosa has a very different take on this. If this Washington Post report is nothing more than an attempt to revivify the whole word approach, then you have fallen for a sham. The debate between whole word and phonics is over: phonics is clearly superior. Steering contracts to phonics based systems is a GOOD thing. In addition, you need to consider that the folks at the Washington Post suffer from BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome.By KDeRosa
October 3, 2006 12:42 PM | Link to this
But there is no actual evidence in the OIG report that this happened. There is evidence that DOE steered states away from whole language programs. And there is evidence that DOE referred states to successful applications of other states as an example since DOE was not permitted to favor, endorse, or mandate a perticular program. However, there is no evidence that DOE steered any state away from including a real scientifically based program such as SFA in their applications. The States seemed to be excluding that program as well as the other scientific program on their own. Slavin has pointed out that DI and SFA combined received less than 3% of RF grants. Lastly, Reading First does not mandate that funds be directed to only programs thatare actually scientifically validated. Rather, the statute permits programs that are based on or consistent with programs that were scientifically based. This is how the untested commercial programs received funding, because the publishers successfully made the programs look like the scintifically validated programs.