A billion-dollar-a-year federal reading program that ran into scathing criticism over conflicts of interest now has a new one: The government contractor that set up the program for the Education Department is also part of the team hired to evaluate it…. RMC Research Corp. was the contractor hired to establish and implement the program starting in 2002, under three contracts worth about $40 million…. RMC failed to keep the program free of conflicts of interest. For example, RMC did not screen subcontractors for relationships with publishers of reading programs.

Now, Reading First is in the midst of a five-year evaluation under a 2003 contract with a team that includes RMC, which is based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire…. Congress required the review, spelling out that it must be an "independent evaluation."

Sen. Edward Kennedy… "It's a classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop."

Rep. George Miller…. "RMC played a significant role in the implementation of Reading First and, according to the inspector general, a sometimes flawed role. If it's true that RMC was also hired to evaluate the effectiveness of the very program it was hired to help implement, then the conflict of interest could not be any clearer."… Miller announced Friday he would hold a hearing on the issue April 20.

Patrick Riccards, who was a senior adviser to the National Reading Panel, which reported on best practices in reading instruction, said he was disappointed to learn of RMC's role in the evaluation. "Reading First will succeed in improving the reading skills of students throughout the nation…. But you provide Reading First critics real ammunition to attack the law when evaluation is not conducted by a completely independent third party, without even a hint of potential conflict."

CMM.com, April 1.