Editorial: Between the lines

Monday, Oct. 9, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

A major goal of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was to seek out scientifically solid, research-based approaches for improving teaching methods.

At the center of this goal is the Reading First program, which dedicates about $1 billion annually to assist low-income schools in adopting methods that "have been proven to prevent or remediate reading failure."

But rather than ferreting out successful reading programs that are the result of comprehensive, peer-reviewed research, a recent story by the Washington Post shows that the Education Department's 5-year-old Reading First effort has become little more than a source of lucrative government contracts for untested reading programs and textbooks developed by friends or former employees of the Bush administration.

A recent Education Department inspector general's report that revealed some of the program's mismanagement and cronyism included internal e-mails from the former Reading First director, who accused non-insiders seeking grants for their programs of "trying to crash our party."

Many times, the Post reports, those who own the unproven texts and programs have paid royalties to the Reading First contractors - who, in turn, are the consultants for the states seeking Reading First grants and chair the panels that award those grants. The companies that have been awarded grants also have hired former Bush administration officials. Former Education Secretary Roderick Paige and a Bush administration official who crafted the Reading First program both now work for the owner of one of these untested, but federally adopted, programs, the Post reports.

This type of overt and arrogant cronyism seems to permeate every corner of the Bush administration. Such favoritism violates the public's trust in a fair and objective government process and pollutes even the most important goals, such as teaching our children to read.