As public education transitions from a vertically integrated monopoly to a sytem that embraces and integrates a competitive market, the role of the Department of Education's Inspector General will assume greater importance and higher visibility.  Before No Child Left Behind introduced a requirement for the Department to regulate a competive market of school improvement providers based on "scientifically based research" - as in Reading First,  the independent inspector general function focused on fraud and abuse by agencies and agency employees in the use of federal funds. Now it serves as the means by which the Department itself will be compelled to change its approach to k-12 regulation. Before NCLB, regulation was a political negotiation between federal and state agancies, behind closed doors and without a record. After NCLB, regulation will be moving towards decisionmaking on a objective basis, in the open and with a record. The Reading First fiasco - the gross abuse of discretion by department officials - outlines why this must be so. Expect the Inspector General to become a key player in  the Department's halting movement towards a market mindset.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

When Cindy Cupp met with two lawyers from the Department of Education’s office of inspector general in December 2005 about her complaints that the Reading First program was biased toward some providers, she was impressed…. “At the time, I thought they were the two most brilliant people I’d ever met,” said Ms. Cupp, the Savannah, Ga.-based publisher of a reading series that bears her name.

Staff members from the inspector general’s office routinely fan out across the country to investigate allegations of misuse of federal education funds or lack of compliance…. But… the office… also serves as a watchdog—both within the department and for how federal programs are carried out by its grantees….

The office, which has 300 staff members in 17 locations, is charged with conducting financial audits of department programs, investigating alleged wrongdoing, and inspections. Some inquiries are requested by the secretary of education or members of Congress, although the Reading First investigation was prompted by complaints from vendors of reading materials…. These days the office is spending more time on federal elementary and secondary education programs….

On Reading First, Ms. Cupp saw the results of the office’s investigation in the form of an inspector general’s report released in January, and she was generally pleased. The report found that the state of Georgia had mismanaged several aspects of the Reading First program, including the appearance of unfair treatment when it came to some possible Reading First providers…. But she thought the report didn’t tell the whole story. “What they put down was accurate, but they left out huge pieces,” Ms. Cupp said, adding that some omissions pertained to what she viewed as failings by Education Department employees.… The inspector general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on Ms. Cupp’s statement.

Michelle R. Davis, Education Week,  April 4.