These excerpts from Education Week are a warning that the Reading First fiasco will lead to a tighter, more specific definition of the term in NCLB II, and that the Department of Education still doesn't "get it." (The fact that states like the money they get under Reading First doesnt mean their purchases contribute to student achievement, and wasn't that the objective of the program?)

School improvement providers (and investors) need four things in a new definition of SBR: clarity; a standard that offers them a competitive advantage over what's been provided for the last 100 years; a methodological approach that recognizes an evolving state of the evaluation art, and a conceptual framework that emphasizes evaluation as a process rather than an event - school improvement programs are neither drugs nor products, but professional service activities where outcomes proceed from a joint effort.

But make no mistake about it, this is a political question that will determine who can play in the k-12 market. Billions of dollars of revenues are at stake. There is time, but every trade group needs draft language, a position paper, and a principled argument for its approach. Better still, they all should sit down and develop a common strategy. There will be many interests at the table, and the school improvement industry is vastly out-gunned.

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Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, promised “vigilant oversight of Reading First” in a statement responding to the GAO report. He has hired an investigator to look into allegations of bias and cronyism within the program, and is planning hearings on the subject this month.... “We must continue to investigate how Reading First was implemented to learn from past mistakes and prevent future abuses.” ...

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who heads the Senate education committee, has issued formal requests for documents from at least eight individual consultants and RMC Research Corp., the Portsmouth, N.H.-based contractor that provided technical assistance to states for Reading First. “More information is needed to determine why specific programs or assessments were eliminated under the Reading First program....”

Success for All founder Robert E. Slavin is among the educators, researchers, and lawmakers who have called for a clarification of the legal requirements for scientifically based instruction…. “Given the timing of the reports [after the program has been implemented], there’s not a great deal to do about the current program... My great hope is that there will be language in the [NCLB] reauthorization that will specify in detail what it means to be research-proven.”

Some members of Congress are looking for such an explanation as well.

 “The No Child Left Behind Act refers to scientifically based programs over 100 times,” said Mark Hayes, a spokesman for Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., who was one of a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers to request the GAO audit. “The senator would like to see a strengthening of that definition and a return to the original intent of the law, that we’re using programs because they are proven and tested.”….

“This has been more of a process question for those of us at the department who are working on Reading First. It’s a conversation that is very focused on Washington, D.C.,” said (Amanda L. Farris, a deputy assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education), “At the state level, in most cases, the programs continue to be strong, and it continues to be good for kids.”

State officials agree, according to the GAO, which conducted a Web-based survey…. 69 percent of the respondents reported “great or very great improvement in reading instruction,” while 80 percent said teacher professional development had improved significantly….

Most of the hard data on student achievement under Reading First, however, have not yet been compiled. An independent review of test scores for Reading First schools is due out later this year.

Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week, April 4
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SBR will be examined in an upcoming segment of New Education Economy's® provision-by-provision review of NCLB.

The role of SBR in our emerging market for school improvement has been the subject of many "Letters From the Editor" in New Education Economy®, and can be heard on SIIW • The Podcast.  Links to a few are below:

• Getting Serious About R&D

• Rules for Educators Purchasing School Improvement Programs

• SBR as an Example for Reducing Political Risk

• The New Gold Standard

• Another Look at Edison's Rand Study

• Keeping Up With The Gold Standard

• AYP and SBR Bound School Improvement Providers' Market Potential

• The Reading First Scandal

• Reading First: Management Mess is Worse than One Messed-Up Manager

• Entrepreneurial Firms or Textbook Publishers"

• Dead End or New Path, Slavin’s Charges Lead to a Fork In The Road

• A New Path?: Corporate Culture, Institutional Change, and the Reading First Scandal

• School Improvement Providers Need to Pursue Marketing “by Other Means" I

• School Improvement Providers Need to Pursue Marketing “by Other Means" II