Raise your hand if this is surprising.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-05-01-reading-first_N.htmexcerpt:
But for all their effort, the study shows, their students' reading scores on standardized tests were nearly indistinguishable from those of students in other schools; in many cases, they may have been using the same materials, but their teachers may not have received the same training.
"For all intents and purposes, the kids read at the same level in each grade," Whitehurst says.
Congressional Democrats were quick to point out the program's ties to President Bush. In a statement, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said the Bush administration "has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last and this report shows the disturbing consequences. Instead of awarding scarce education dollars to reading programs that make a difference for our children, the administration chose to reward its friends instead."
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who presided over the April 2007 hearings, said the report, "coupled with the scandals revealed last year, shows that we need to seriously re-examine this program and figure out how to make it work better for students."
While critics will likely say the data portray Reading First as an expensive failure, Whitehurst speculates that the study may simply suggest that schools need to spend even more time on phonics and the like.
But he also notes that states that got Reading First money earlier in the program's history actually got worse results than those that more recently got their federal funding. The difference may be unrelated to years spent in the program, Whitehurst says, as schools in more recently funded states tend to spend more per student to implement the program.
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