“Reading First” (Cost: $1 Billion/Year) Comes in Tied With “Nothing Different”

by David Safier

As part of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration has plowed $1 billion per year into a program called “Reading First.” Its purpose, according to the Department of Ed’s website, is “to apply scientifically based reading research—and the proven instructional and assessment tools consistent with this research—to ensure that all children learn to read well by the end of third grade.”

The results are in. According to a study by the Department of Education, there is no significant difference between the reading comprehension of children at schools that participated in Reading First and schools that didn’t.

Let me repeat. This isn’t a study by some lefty/commie/new-age/whole-language think tank funded by George Soros. This is the Department of Ed’s own study. And according to the study, $1 billion a year gave us exactly nothing.

Actually, by this administration’s standards, that’s a positive outcome. Think of the billions spent in Iraq, given to oil companies and used to implement “Clean Skies” and “Healthy Forests.” A mere $1 billion a year that does no harm is money well spent for this cabal of “small-government conservatives.”

I’ve been watching the Reading First program for years. Basically, the administration fell in love with one reading program called “Direct Instruction,” which is a phonics based program that involves lots of drilling on the smallest units of reading, then helping students knit the units together into words. So when the Reading First people evaluated the various reading programs asking for inclusion, they decided that Direct Instruction was one of the only programs that was proven effective by “scientifically based reading research.” They rewarded an inordinate amount of money to that one program and declared others they didn’t like “unscientific.”

One problem. Some of the advisors on the recommendation panels had ties to the publishers of the materials. According to the NY Times:

In 2006, John Higgins, the department’s inspector general, reported that federal officials and private contractors with ties to publishers had advised educators in several states to buy reading materials for the Reading First program from those publishers.

Typical. This administration has turned cronyism from an art to a science, while anything like the “science” practiced by people called “scientists” is routinely discarded.

Was there really cronyism? Read this passage from the Times article and decide for yourself:

The Reading First director, Chris Doherty, resigned in 2006, days before the release of Mr. Higgins’s report, which disclosed a number of e-mail messages in which Mr. Doherty referred to contractors or educators who favored alternative curriculums seen as competitors to the Reading First approach as “dirtbags” who he said were “trying to crash our party.”

Putting aside my cynicism about everything the Bush administration touches for a moment, I’m actually saddened by this finding. As much as I dislike the “Drill and Kill” approach that is at the heart of the Direct Instruction program, it’s a well thought out concept conceived by serious educators, and I would like to see it have a positive effect. Even Drill and Kill can be done in an upbeat way (kids love chanting things in unison, which is a big part of this method), and if successful drill can be combined with reading for understanding and enjoyment, you could have a valuable, balanced reading program. I want us to find methodology that improves the reading skills of those students who tend to fall behind. But I guess I’ll have to keep looking.