Chairman Miller: Report Shows We Must Re-Evaluate Effectiveness of Reading First Program

Thursday, May 1, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, issued the following statement on a new report on the federal Reading First program released today by the Institute for Education Sciences. The report found that the program has not made a significant difference in the reading comprehension levels of participating students.

“From day one of the creation of the Reading First program, it has been corrupted by the Bush administration – plagued by severe mismanagement, poor implementation, and gross conflicts of interest. Despite these serious issues, I had nevertheless hoped that the program would produce better results than these. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent administering this program over the years. This report makes it shamefully clear that the only individuals benefiting from this significant investment were the President’s cronies – not the schoolchildren this program was intended to serve. Because of the corruption in the Reading First program, districts and schools were steered towards certain reading programs and products that may not have provided the most effective instruction for students. That may explain why we are seeing these results today.

“We all share the goal of helping all children learn to read. But this report, coupled with the scandals revealed last year, shows that we need to seriously re-examine this program and figure out how to make it work better for students. Our nation’s schoolchildren and taxpayers deserve a program that is both properly managed and successful in boosting the reading skills of students.”

The Reading First program was first created under the No Child Left Behind Act to help all children read at grade level by the end of third grade. An investigation conducted last year by the House Education and Labor Committee uncovered significant conflicts of interest among Department of Education officials and contractors involved with running the program. For more information on the results of that investigation, click here.

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