Consultants working for the Department of Education and with states on the implementation of the Reading First program collectively benefited to the tune of $1 million by steering district purchases towards programs they developed. The Justice Department is investigating criminal charges. Now maybe editors in the mainstream media will focus some journalistc resources on a story that speaks volumes about the sham passing for regulation of the school improvement industry, a sham the media would tolerate in no other market.

Some in our industry may see this story as a blow. Your editor sees it as the opportunity for school improvemement providers to get the level playing field required to compete against the sheer inertia of "business as usual" in public education's purchase of teaching and learning programs.

As best we can tell from investigations to date, the major publishers had no role in the scandal other than ending up with the bulk of the sales. There is no reason to believe the "evil doers" here were anyone but the consultants who happened to write the textbooks or assessment programs the major publishers sold, and government officials whose personal views of "scientifically based reading research" happened to coincide with those materials.

The fact that the major publishers are not at fault here should not obscure the fact that as the status quo providers of reading programs, they benefited from the wrongdoing of others. It should not obscure the fact the new providers - whose programs not only refer to a body of research, but are actually demonstrated to have an effect on student learning as the result of ongoing evaluation, and who the law intended to benefit from the Reading First program, lost revenue to the publishers.

The school improvement industry should welcome, indeed embrace, investgation into Reading First, as a first step towards a level playing field, and probably an answer to their prayers for investment capial. Only when investors see that NCLB's requirements that federal funds be used to purchase programs employing scientfically based research have a clear meaning and will be enforced fairly, will they have reason to believe that the new providers have a defensible competive advantage over the market dominant publishers. Only then will school improvement become a viable upstart industry and a place to put some real money.

Every CEO and every board member of every school improvement provider should do what they can to see that day come to pass.

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The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how people implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal government steered states.

"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, which held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to override the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials. "But the fact of the matter is that you did."...

Christopher J. Doherty, former director of Reading First....  acknowledged yesterday that his wife had worked for a decade as a paid consultant for a reading program, Direct Instruction, that investigators said he improperly tried to force schools to use. He repeatedly failed to disclose the conflict on financial disclosure forms....

Roland H. Good III, said his company made $1.3 million off a reading test, known as DIBELS, that was endorsed by a Reading First evaluation panel he sat on. Good... owns half the company....

Two former University of Oregon researchers on the panel, Edward J. Kame'enui and Deborah C. Simmons, said they received about $150,000 in royalties last year for a program that is now packaged with DIBELS. They testified that they received smaller royalties in previous years for the program, Scott Foresman Early Reading Intervention, and did not know it was being sold with DIBELS....

Another researcher, Sharon Vaughn, worked with Kame'enui, Simmons and Good to design Voyager Universal Literacy, a program that Reading First officials urged states to use. Vaughn was director of a center at the University of Texas that was hired to provide states advice on selecting Reading First tests and books.

The publisher of that product, Voyager Expanded Learning, was founded and run by Randy Best, a major Bush campaign contributor, who sold the company in 2005 for more than $350 million....

Amit R. Paley, Washington Post, April 21.


A federal investigator checking for conflict of interest and mismanagement in a $1 billion-a-year Education Department reading program said yesterday he has made criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

John Higgins, the Education Department's inspector general, refused to specify for reporters what he has asked prosecutors to look at, but investigators have been highly critical of the department's management of the Reading First program.

Criminal referrals are made by investigators when they encounter evidence of possible federal crimes, which only the Justice Department has authority to prosecute….

"I think we're very close to a criminal enterprise here," House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, California Democrat, said at an investigative hearing yesterday. "Have you made any criminal referrals, Mr. Higgins?... "We have made referrals to the Department of Justice," Mr. Higgins said.... "I think when we put the evidence together we may join you in those criminal referrals," Mr. Miller told Mr. Higgins.

Associated Press, April 21.