Federal reading program gets ‘F’

By Stephanie Banchero, Tribune staff reporter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Published September 23, 2006

A blistering internal review of President Bush’s pet reading program for young children has found that the program was beset by mismanagement and questionable decision-making.

The audit, released Friday by the Office of Inspector General–an independent arm of the U.S. Department of Education–calls the program’s credibility into question and charges that department officials stacked panel review committees with people who had clear conflicts of interest.

It also charges that the program managers may have broken the law by trying to steer districts and states into using curricula favored by program managers.

In one e-mail, according to the audit, after the director of Reading First found out that states were using a reading program he did not approve of, he wrote to staff members:

“They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags,” the official wrote.

The program manager was recently replaced, officials said.
…

The new report found the department:

- Botched the way it picked a panel to review grant applications, raising questions over whether grants were approved as the law requires.

- Failed in screening grant reviewers to discover that six of them had a clear conflict based on their industry connections.

- Did not let states see the comments of experts who reviewed their applications.

- Required states to meet conditions that weren’t part of the law.

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I don’t think anyone is surprised. We pretty much knew beforehand that this was going to wind up in utter failure. It’s what we’ve come to expect from a man with an anti-midas touch.