[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MISMANAGEMENT AND CONFLICTS OF
INTEREST IN THE READING FIRST PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 20, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-22
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
Available on the Internet:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
Chairman California,
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
David Wu, Oregon Ric Keller, Florida
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Susan A. Davis, California John Kline, Minnesota
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Bob Inglis, South Carolina
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Kenny Marchant, Texas
Linda T. Sanchez, California Tom Price, Georgia
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
David Loebsack, Iowa Louisiana
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky York
Phil Hare, Illinois Rob Bishop, Utah
Yvette D. Clarke, New York David Davis, Tennessee
Joe Courtney, Connecticut Timothy Walberg, Michigan
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 20, 2007................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Altmire, Hon. Jason, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of............... 84
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' Senior Republican Member,
Committee on Education and Labor........................... 3
Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and
Labor...................................................... 1
Letters to witnesses..................................... 89
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby,'' a Representative in Congress
from the State of Virginia, additional questions for the
witnesses.................................................. 86
Statement of Witnesses:
Doherty, Christopher J., former program director for Reading
First, U.S. Department of Education........................ 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Response to questions by Mr. Scott....................... 87
Good, Roland, associate professor, University of Oregon...... 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Higgins, John P., Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Education.................................................. 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Response to questions posed by Mr. Miller................ 84
Internet addresses to various audit reports [Microsoft
Word documents]:
``The Reading First Program's Grant Application
Process, Final Inspection Report''................. 86
``RMC Research Corporation's Administration of the
Reading First Program Contracts, Final Audit
Report''........................................... 86
``The Department's Administration of Selected Aspects
of the Reading First Program, Final Audit Report''. 86
In the form of a letter, dated January 18, 2007,
``Review of the Georgia Reading First Program--
Final Audit Report''............................... 86
``Audit of New York State Education Department's
Reading First Program, Final Audit Report''........ 86
In the form of a letter, dated October 20, 2006,
``Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's
Reading First Program--Final Audit Report''........ 86
Kame'enui, Edward, Commissioner of the National Center for
Special Education Research, U.S. Department of Education... 11
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Response to questions by Mr. Scott....................... 87
Transcript edits received from........................... 92
Lewis, Starr, associate commissioner, Kentucky Department of
Education.................................................. 27
Prepared statement of.................................... 29
Additional written testimony of.......................... 31
Follow-up testimony of................................... 100
Simmons, Deborah C., professor of special education, Texas
A&M University............................................. 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 24
Response to questions by Mr. Scott....................... 88
Transcript edits received from........................... 96
MISMANAGEMENT AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN THE READING FIRST PROGRAM
----------
Friday, April 20, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
----------
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m., in Room
2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Kildee, Payne, Scott,
Woolsey, Hinojosa, McCarthy, Tierney, Kucinich, Wu, Davis of
California, Grijalva, Bishop of New York, Sarbanes, Sestak,
Loebsack, Hirono, Altmire, Yarmuth, Hare, Clarke, Shea-Porter,
McKeon, Castle, Wilson, Kuhl, and Heller.
Staff present: Aaron Albright, Press Secretary; Tylease
Alli, Hearing Clerk; Alice Cain, Senior Education Policy
Advisor (K-12); Fran-Victoria Cox, Documents Clerk; Sarah
Dyson, Administrative Assistant, Oversight; Amy Elverum,
Legislative Fellow, Education; Michael Gaffin, Staff Assistant,
Labor; Jeffrey Hancuff, Staff Assistant, Labor; Ryan Holden,
Senior Investigator, Oversight; Lloyd Horwich, Policy Advisor
for Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secretary
Education; Thomas Kiley, Communications Director; Ann-Frances
Lambert, Administrative Assistant to Director of Education
Policy; Ricardo Martinez, Policy Advisor for Subcommittee on
Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness;
Stephanie Moore, General Counsel; Alex Nock, Deputy Staff
Director; Joe Novotny, Chief Clerk; Rachel Racusen, Deputy
Communications Director; Theda Zawaiza, Senior Disability
Policy Advisor; Michael Zola, Chief Investigative Counsel,
Oversight; Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director; James Bergeron,
Counselor to the Chairman; Robert Borden, General Counsel;
Kathryn Bruns, Legislative Assistant; Steve Forde,
Communications Director; Taylor Hansen, Legislative Assistant;
Victor Klatt, Staff Director; Chad Miller, Professional Staff;
Susan Ross, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy;
Linda Stevens, Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General Counsel;
Sally Stroup, Deputy Staff Director; and Brad Thomas,
Professional Staff Member.
Chairman Miller [presiding]. The committee will come to
order.
Good morning to all the members and to the audience and to
the witnesses.
The purpose of the meeting this morning is to conduct a
hearing on the mismanagement and conflicts of interest in the
Reading First Program.
I will begin with my opening statement.
In 2002, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, Congress
established the Reading First Program to help young children
become better readers.
Under the Reading First program, the federal government
provides grants to states to help them improve reading
instruction. States may use this funding for a variety of
purposes, including the purchase of: core reading curricula;
programs to assess students' progress toward reading
proficiency; and the intervention programs to help students who
are falling behind in reading.
In September 2006, the Education Department's inspector
general issued the first six reports on the implementation of
the Reading First Program. I am pleased that the inspector
general is joining us today to discuss some of his findings. It
is critically important that the committee has this opportunity
to hear directly from the inspector general about them.
The inspector general found a number of ways in which the
Department of Education failed to act in the best interests of
the taxpayers, the states, the schools and schoolchildren. The
inspector general's first report showed that, in a number of
cases, the Education Department officials and contractors with
deep financial and personal connections to specific reading
products inappropriately promoted those products over others.
Rather than provide an even playing field on which high-
quality programs can compete based upon the just merits for
business with the states, these officials and contractors
created an uneven playing field that favored certain products.
Indeed, we know of examples where states were essentially
bullied to use those products in order to receive Reading First
money.
This uneven playing field was obviously unfair to the
companies and the publishers that developed products that were
out of favor with the Department of Education, but it was also
unfair and costly to the states and school districts that were
denied the opportunity to use their first-choice reading
curricula and assessments.
Today, we are going to hear from the former Reading First
director Chris Doherty, who figured prominently in the
inspector general's first report. We are also going to hear
from reading experts who served on the Assessments committee
that was set up to offer advice about which reading assessments
the states could use under the law.
We are going to learn about those experts' bias for
specific reading assessment products and evaluate whether they
were capable of being independent brokers in deciding which
programs should receive funding under Reading First.
The purpose of this hearing is not to evaluate the
effectiveness or strengths or weaknesses of the Reading First
Program. I support the Reading First Program, as do many of my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle. As the committee works
to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, we will evaluate the
program to see what we can do to improve it.
But there is no question that this mismanagement and these
conflicts of interest undermined the program and the public's
confidence in it. In reauthorization, this committee will act
on legislation to explicitly prohibit these kinds of conflicts.
When states and school districts and schools are bullied
into using reading programs and assessments that were not their
first choice or had a proven track record, then it meant that
the officials in Washington, D.C., were overriding the informed
decisions of local educators about what is best for their own
students.
Too many times in the Bush administration, we have seen
examples of officials abusing the public trust and misusing tax
dollars, and we have seen way too many examples of cronyism and
conflicts of interest that have undermined the government's
effectiveness.
From the multibillion-dollar contracts at Halliburton in
Iraq to the wasteful spending and gross mismanagement in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina, this administration has simply
failed to be accountable to taxpayers and the public.
Now it appears that we can add Reading First--on which we
have spent roughly $6 billion since 2002--to a long and growing
list of instances where the administration is operating outside
of the law, unaccountable to Congress and the American people.
I do appreciate our witnesses who are here today and are
prepared to discuss their roles in the implementation of
Reading First. I want to assure them that the committee will
give them each an opportunity to voice their perspective on
this scandal. We consider their participation to be extremely
informative and look forward to their testimony.
With that, I would like to recognize the senior Republican
of the committee, Mr. McKeon from California.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this
hearing.
As you know, we are in the midst of an extensive series of
hearings on the No Child Left Behind Act, a series that began
about a year ago when you and I announced our aggressive plan
to lay the background for reauthorization. While today's
hearing may be structured differently than many of the NCLB
hearings we have held during the past year, the subject at hand
today is just as important to the law's reauthorization as the
subjects of any of the other hearings we have had during this
series.
Mr. Chairman, you and I and many other members of this
committee embraced Reading First when we crafted NCLB in 2001
because we agreed it was time for our nation to commit to
scientifically based reading instruction as part of our broader
effort to provide a high-quality education to every single
child.
Six years later, the program appears to be on its way to
achieving the results we had hoped for. Knowing this is welcome
news, considering the fact that we spend a billion dollars a
year on this program. Though the outcomes of Reading First have
been strong, I had hoped that the Department of Education would
have been more effective in managing and staffing this program.
As all of us know, however, for a period of years, the
management quality of this program did not rise to the high
level of the results it has consistently produced for our
nation's students. The responsibility for these shortcomings
lies squarely at the feet of the Department of Education, a
responsibility the secretary accepted quickly and without
hesitation.
Now it is our responsibility to provide thorough and fair
congressional oversight on this issue. My goal for this
hearing--and any others that may follow--is very simple, and I
hope my colleagues share it: to make the Reading First Program
even better.
Today, we will look more deeply into the management of this
program, how it has been assessed and, most importantly, what
we can do to ensure the Department of Education corrects
problems identified by its inspector general and by this
committee.
Yesterday, in order to begin this process and ensure we
remain focused on improving the Reading First Program, I
introduced comprehensive legislation that takes key
recommendations of the inspector general and makes them the law
of the land.
The Reading First Program is too important and too
successful to allow it to fall prey to management questions. By
codifying many of the inspector general's recommendations, we
will ensure these management issues are dealt with in the law
itself so the program can continue to achieve positive results
in practice.
Among a host of other reforms, the Reading First
Improvement Act will require the secretary of education to
explicitly screen for conflicts of interest among Reading First
peer reviewers; ensure that any Reading First contracts the
Education Department enters into include provisions requiring
contractors and subcontractors to screen for potential
conflicts of interest; and reinforce the provisions found in
NCLB and other federal laws that prohibit the Department of
Education from dictating curriculum to local schools.
Many of these reforms already have been embraced by the
Department of Education, and I applaud that. However, it is our
responsibility to ensure that they remain permanent, regardless
of which administration is in office, and for that reason, it
is best addressed legislatively as part of the NCLB's
reauthorization.
Mr. Chairman, I believe these are common-sense steps we can
get behind and build upon in a bipartisan way. I urge my
colleagues to enjoy me in supporting the Reading First
Improvement Act and setting these important reforms into
motion.
When the first inspector general report was released last
fall, I committed to a thorough and fair oversight hearing of
Reading First management, and now that the investigation is
complete, I am pleased that we can begin that process.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing
today.
And thank you to each of our witnesses for joining us this
morning.
Chairman Miller. I thank the gentleman.
I want to say that pursuant to committee rule 12, any
member may submit an opening statement in writing which will be
made part of the permanent record, and without objection, all
members will have 14 days to submit additional materials for
the hearing record.
I would just to comment on Mr. McKeon's statement. I
appreciate his recommendations and look forward to working with
him on those. I think it shows that the inspector general's
report has already had an impact and has provided some guidance
to us about what we can do to remedy the situation that is the
subject of this hearing. I appreciate his contribution in that
effort to start putting forth those reforms.
Before proceeding to introducing our witnesses, let me lay
out the process we will follow generally in investigative
hearings and specifically in this hearing.
An investigative hearing differs from a legislative or
oversight hearing in that investigations may involve
allegations of public officials acting in an official capacity
or private citizens or any of these who have engaged in certain
conduct that may suggest the need for legislative remedy.
Because of the importance of getting complete, full and
truthful testimony, witnesses in investigative hearings before
the committees of Congress are sworn in. Our witnesses will be
sworn in today.
I understand that some witnesses, as is their right, are
accompanied by counsel. While counsel are welcome to advise
their clients, they may not coach them or answer questions on
their behalf.
House rule 11(2)(k)(4) authorizes the chairman of the
committee to punish breaches or order, decorum or professional
ethics on part of counsel by censure or exclusion from the
hearings or the committee may cite offenders to the House for
contempt. I will not tolerate tactics designed to disrupt the
purposes of this hearing.
To ensure that we have ample opportunity to flesh out all
the relevant facts in the record, I am exercising my
prerogative as chair pursuant to committee rule (2)(b) to
extend the 5-minute rule for myself and Mr. McKeon. Following
the witnesses' testimony, we will each engage in two 15-minute
rounds of questioning, after which members may participate in
the 5-minute rule.
I would like now to introduce our panel of witnesses.
First is Mr. John P. Higgins. He is the inspector general
of the U.S. Department of Education. Mr. Higgins has served in
a number of senior management positions in the Department of
Education and its predecessor, the Department of Health and
Education and Welfare during more than 38 years of federal
service. He became the deputy inspector general of the
Department of Education in January 1996 and was nominated by
President Bush on September 18, 2002, to become inspector
general. He will be accompanied by Mr. Rasa, also of the
inspector general's office.
Mr. Edward Kame'enui--is it close?--currently serves as a
commissioner for special education research at the Institute of
Education Sciences at the Department of Education. Prior to
joining IES, Dr. Kame'enui worked at the University of Oregon
where he was a faculty member for 17 years. During his tenure
with the University of Oregon, he directed and co directed
numerous state research and training grants, including Oregon
Reading First Center and the Western Regional Reading First
Technical Assistance Center. He has served as a multitude of
national committees, review panels and research boards in
general and in special education, and has published
extensively. Mr. Kame'enui holds a bachelor's of arts at
Pacific University and holds a master's and Ph.D. in special
education from the University of Oregon.
Christopher Doherty worked for the U.S. Department of
Education from 2004 to 2006 as a program director for Reading
First. Prior to joining the department, Mr. Doherty served as
executive director of the Baltimore Curriculum Project, a
nonprofit organization that operates inner city public charter
schools.
Dr. Roland Good is currently an associate professor at the
University of Oregon. His focus includes early literacy
research, measurement statistics and research design. For the
past 19 years, he has led a program of research and development
culminating in the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy
Skills, known as DIBELS for the purposes of this hearing, and
the DIBELS data system. He is also the principal and co-founder
of Dynamic Measurement Group, an educational company that,
among other things, provides professional development on
DIBELS. Mr. Good holds a doctorate from Pennsylvania State
University.
Dr. Deborah Simmons is a professor of special education at
Texas A&M University. She was a speech pathologist and a
special educator in the public schools for 10 years prior to
earning her doctorate degree in special education and reading.
She conducts research to prevent and intercept reading
difficulties. Dr. Simmons has published extensively in her
areas of expertise.
Starr Lewis is the associate commissioner of the Office of
Teaching and Learning in the Kentucky Department of Education.
The Office of Teaching and Learning is responsible for
curriculum areas for early childhood through high school. As
associate commissioner, Ms. Lewis is responsible for leading
the state's efforts during the Reading First grant-writing
phase and implementation. Ms. Lewis has received a BA from the
University of Kentucky and her master's in teaching from the
University of Louisville. Before joining the Kentucky
Department of Education, Ms. Lewis taught English and
psychology for 17 years.
For those of you who have not testified here before, let me
explain the lighting system that will be on in front of you.
When you begin your testimony, the light will be green, and
when you see a yellow light, it means you have roughly 1 minute
to wrap up your remarks in that remaining time. When the light
turns red, your time has expired and you need to conclude your
testimony.
Please be certain, as you testify, to turn on and speak
into the microphone in front of you.
At this point, I would like each of you to stand and to
raise your right hand for the purpose of being sworn before the
committee. [Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Higgins, we will now hear from you. Welcome to the
committee, and thank you for your work.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN P. HIGGINS, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on the work of my
office.
Reading First is a $1-billion-per-year program that was
established to provide kindergarten through third grade reading
programs based on scientifically based reading research. The
goal of the program is to ensure that every student can read at
grade level or above by the end of the third grade.
In May of 2005, my office began receiving allegations about
Reading First. The allegations indicated that the department
was promoting and excluding specific programs and assessments,
as well as using consultants with ties to these programs and
assessments. As a result, we decided to perform a series of six
reviews. My comments today will focus on the work we performed
at the department.
To put our work in context, it is important to understand
that the Department of Education's Organization Act prohibits
department officials from exercising any control over the
curriculum of a school. In addition, the No Child Left Behind
Act includes a similar prohibition.
Through our work, we found that the department: one,
appeared to have inappropriately influenced the use of certain
programs and assessments; two, failed to comply with the
statutory requirements and its own guidance; three, obscured
the requirements of the statute; and four, created an
environment that allowed real and perceived conflicts of
interest.
First, with regard to the inappropriate influence, we found
that the department allowed certain activities that led, in
part, to a perception that there was an approved list of
reading programs and assessments. Let me highlight for you some
of the activities that led to this perception.
The department and the National Institute for Literacy
sponsored three Reading Leadership Academies. These academies
were designed to assist the states in preparing Reading First
applications. The department exercised control over the content
and the presenters for the academies.
Of 10 ``Theory to Practice'' presentations, six contained
information on the Direct Instruction Program.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Higgins, if I might, if you could pull
your microphone a little bit closer to you?
Mr. Higgins. Okay.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. Let's see. Where was I?
Of the 10 ``Theory to Practice'' presentations, six
contained information on the Direct Instruction Program. The
luncheon speaker for two of the academies also focused on
Direct Instruction. Some academy participants expressed
concerns about the content of the sessions. One participant
indicated, ``I felt like it was a Direct Instruction sales
pitch.''
The Reading First statute requires the use of reading
assessments. Each participant at the Reading Leadership
Academies was provided a handbook that included an article
featuring one reading assessment called DIBELS. Later, the
department published a guidebook, which also contains an
article featuring DIBELS.
While other assessment instruments were listed in the
handbook and the guide, only DIBELS was featured in an article
in both books. Not surprisingly, 43 states indicated that they
would use DIBELS as one of their assessments.
In addition, we found that the department inappropriately
arranged to have a report on assessments publicized. The
National Institute for Literacy contracted with the University
of Oregon to perform a review of assessments. Out of the
hundreds of assessments available for the review, the
University reviewed 29 and found 24 of them to be acceptable.
Seven of the 24 were tied directly to people working on the
review.
The National Institute for Literacy decided not to issue
their final report because it might appear as if they were
endorsing products. However, the department, without
coordinating with the National Institute for Literacy, directed
the author of the report, who worked at the University of
Oregon, to post it on the university's Web site.
We also identified instances where department officials
intervened with regard to reading programs and assessments
being selected by states. In some instances, department
officials and their representatives worked to influence states
to select specific programs or assessments. These instances of
intervention concerned Direct Instruction and DIBELS.
In other instances, the department officials worked to
influence states to not select specific programs. These
instances of intervention included programs such as Rigby,
Reading Recovery and Wright Group. However, the department
never documented its assertions that these programs were not
aligned with scientifically based reading research.
Second, we found that the department did not comply with
the Reading First statute or its own guidance. Again, let me
highlight for you the information that led us to this
conclusion.
The Reading First statute called for a balanced panel to
review applications. The department and three other
organizations were to each select at least three experts for
the panel. Senior department officials decided to use subpanels
for the review process and to create an advisory and oversight
panel'' with three representatives from each of the
organizations required by the statute.
However, the advisory and oversight panel concept was never
implemented. As a result, the process used by the department
was not in accordance with the requirements of the statute,
since none of the subpanels created by the department included
representation from each of the required organizations.
We also identified evidence that the Reading First director
personally nominated three individuals for sub-panels who had
professional connections to Direct Instruction. These three
individuals reviewed 23 state applications. In choosing
individuals to serve on the subpanels, the Reading First
director showed a strong bias for those he knew supported
Direct Instruction and a strong bias against those who favored
Reading Recovery.
We also found problems with how the department communicated
the panelists' comments. Although the panelists adequately
documented their reasons for stating that an application was
not ready for funding, this documentation was not provided to
the states as called for by the department's guidance. Instead,
the department created a document in which it changed
panelists' comments, left off comments and added comments of
its own. The new document was the only document that was
provided to the states.
Third, we found that the department obscured the
requirements of the statute by inappropriately including and
excluding standards in the application criteria. Emails from
the Reading First director indicated that this was done in
order to help the states understand what he wanted Reading
First classrooms to look like.
Finally, the department did not place an appropriate level
of emphasis on issues of conflict of interest. This can be seen
in two specific areas.
First, the screening process that the department created
for the subpanels that reviewed applications was not effective.
The department did not ask panelists about their impartiality.
In addition, the department did not review the panelists'
resumes for potential conflicts of interest.
Second, the department's contractor, RMC Research
Corporation, did not adequately address conflicts of interest.
The department used RMC to provide technical assistance to
states and to assist the states in preparing applications.
However, RMC did not ensure that the organizational conflict of
interest clauses were included in the agreements of the
consultants.
In addition, neither the department nor RMC adequately
vetted technical assistance consultants for potential biases.
As a result, we noted connections between individuals and
organizations that presented an appearance of impaired
objectivity.
In conclusion, our work showed that the department did not
comply with the Reading First statute regarding the composition
of the application review panel and the criteria for acceptable
programs. Further, the department's actions created an
appearance that it may have violated statutory provisions that
prohibit it from influencing the curriculum of schools.
However, because department officials often justified their
bias against particular programs by saying the programs were
not aligned with scientifically based reading research, I
cannot say with certainty that these statutes were violated
since we did not assess whether the particular programs were
based on scientifically based research or not.
Based on our work, we made a number of recommendations to
the department, which it accepted. We also suggest that the
department consider clarifying whether reading programs need to
have scientific evidence of effectiveness in order to be
eligible for funding under the Reading First Program and
clarifying conflict of interest requirements in federally
funded programs.
That concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer
any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Higgins follows:]
Prepared Statement of John P. Higgins, Jr., Inspector General,
U.S. Department of Education
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: thank you for the
opportunity to testify on the work of my office.
Reading First is a $1 billion per year program that was established
to provide kindergarten through third grade reading programs based on
scientifically based reading research. The goal of the program is to
ensure that every student can read at grade level or above by the end
of the third grade.
In May 2005, my office began receiving allegations about Reading
First. The allegations indicated that the Department was promoting and
excluding specific programs and assessments, as well as using
consultants with ties to these programs and assessments. As a result,
we decided to perform a series of six reviews. My comments today will
focus on the work we performed at the Department.
To put our work in context, it is important to understand that the
Department of Education's Organization Act prohibits Department
officials from exercising any control over the curriculum of a school.
In addition, the No Child Left Behind Act includes a similar
prohibition.
Through our work, we found that the Department:
1) appeared to inappropriately influence the use of certain
programs and assessments;
2) failed to comply with statutory requirements and its own
guidance;
3) obscured the requirements of the statute; and
4) created an environment that allowed real and perceived conflicts
of interest.
First, with regard to inappropriate influence, we found that the
Department allowed certain activities that led, in part, to a
perception that there was an approved list of reading programs and
assessments. Let me highlight for you some of the activities that led
to this perception:
The Department and the National Institute for Literacy sponsored
three Reading Leadership Academies. These Academies were designed to
assist the states in preparing Reading First applications. The
Department exercised control over the content and presenters for the
Academies. Of 10 ``Theory to Practice'' presentations, 6 contained
information on the Direct Instruction program. The luncheon speaker for
two of the Academies also focused on Direct Instruction. Some Academy
participants expressed concerns about the content of the sessions. One
commenter indicated, ``I felt like I was in a Direct Instruction sales
pitch all day.''
The Reading First statute requires the use of reading assessments.
Each participant at the Reading Leadership Academies was provided with
a Handbook that included an article featuring one reading assessment
called DIBELS. Later, the Department published a Guidebook, which also
contained the article featuring DIBELS. While other assessment
instruments were listed in the Handbook and Guidebook, only DIBELS was
featured in an article in both books. Not surprisingly, 43 states
indicated that they would use DIBELS as one of their assessments.
In addition, we found that the Department inappropriately arranged
to have a report on assessments publicized. The National Institute for
Literacy contracted with the University of Oregon to perform a review
of assessments. Out of the hundreds of assessments available for
review, the University reviewed 29 and found 24 of them to be
acceptable; 7 of the 24 were tied directly to people working on the
review. The National Institute for Literacy decided not to issue the
final report because it might appear as if it were endorsing specific
products. However, the Department, without coordinating with the
National Institute for Literacy, directed the author of the report, who
worked at the University of Oregon, to post it on the University's
website.
We also identified instances where Department officials intervened
with regard to reading programs and assessments being selected by
states. In some instances, Department officials and their
representatives worked to influence states to select a specific program
or assessment--these instances of intervention concerned Direct
Instruction and DIBELS. In other instances, Department officials worked
to influence states to not select specific programs--these instances of
intervention included programs such as Rigby, Reading Recovery, and
Wright Group. However, the Department never documented its assertions
that these programs were not aligned with scientifically based reading
research.
Second, we found that the Department did not comply with the
Reading First statute or its own guidance. Again, let me highlight for
you the information that led us to this conclusion:
The Reading First statute called for a balanced panel to review
applications. The Department and three other organizations were to each
select at least three experts for the panel. Senior Department
officials decided to use sub-panels for the review process and to
create an ``Advisory and Oversight Panel'' with three representatives
from each of the organizations required by the statute. However, the
Advisory and Oversight Panel concept was never implemented. As a
result, the process used by the Department was not in accordance with
the requirements of the statute, since none of the sub-panels created
by the Department included representation from each of the required
organizations.
We also identified evidence that the Reading First Director
personally nominated 3 individuals for the sub-panels who had
professional connections to Direct Instruction--these 3 individuals
reviewed 23 state applications. In choosing individuals to serve on the
sub-panels, the Reading First Director showed a strong bias for those
he knew supported Direct Instruction and a strong bias against those
who favored Reading Recovery.
We also found problems with how the Department communicated the
panelists' comments. Although the panelists adequately documented their
reasons for stating that an application was not ready for funding, this
documentation was not provided to the states, as called for by the
Department's guidance. Instead, the Department created a new document
in which it changed panelists' comments, left off comments, and added
comments of its own. This new document was the only document that was
provided to the states.
Third, we found that the Department obscured the requirements of
the statute by inappropriately including and excluding standards in the
application criteria. Emails from the Reading First Director indicated
that this was done in order to help the states understand what he
wanted Reading First classrooms to look like.
Finally, the Department did not place an appropriate level of
emphasis on the issue of conflict of interest. This can be seen in two
specific areas:
First, the screening process the Department created for the sub-
panels that reviewed applications was not effective. The Department did
not ask panelists about their impartiality. In addition, the Department
did not review the panelists' resumes for potential conflicts of
interest.
Second, the Department's contractor, RMC Research Corporation, did
not adequately address conflict of interest issues. The Department used
RMC to provide technical assistance to states and to assist the states
in preparing applications. However, RMC did not ensure that
organizational conflict of interest clauses were included in its
agreements with consultants. In addition, neither the Department nor
RMC adequately vetted technical assistance consultants for potential
bias. As a result, we noted connections between individuals and
organizations that presented the appearance of bias and impaired
objectivity.
In conclusion, our work showed that the Department did not comply
with the Reading First statute regarding the composition of the
application review panel and criteria for acceptable programs. Further,
the Department's actions created an appearance that it may have
violated statutory provisions that prohibit it from influencing the
curriculum of schools. However, because Department officials often
justified their bias against particular programs by saying the programs
were not aligned with scientifically based reading research, I cannot
say with certainty that these statutes were violated since we did not
assess whether particular programs were based on scientifically based
reading research.
Based on our work, we made a number of recommendations to the
Department, which it accepted. We also suggest that Congress consider
clarifying whether reading programs need to have scientific evidence of
effectiveness in order to be eligible for funding under Reading First
and clarifying conflict of interest requirements in federally funded
programs.
This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any
questions.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much for your statement.
And, again, as I said earlier, thank you very much for all of
your work and the work of your office and staff on the reports
that you did on Reading First.
Mr. Kame'enui, your statement?
TESTIMONY OF EDWARD KAME'ENUI, COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL
CENTER FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION RESEARCH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION
Mr. Kame'enui. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon,
distinguished members of the committee, I want to thank the
committee for asking me to testify today to explain my
involvement in the design and implementation of the Reading
First Program.
The Reading First legislation introduced a transforming
requirement. Instead of allowing states to receive funds based
solely on need, this law asked states to describe how they
would use evidence or scientifically based reading research to
mount a systematic and sustained effort to improve literacy in
the nation's most challenging schools.
This immense effort required clear and unflinching
leadership which it received because it asked states, districts
and schools to take inventory of their current efforts in
teaching beginning reading and, in doing so, either change or
modify what they were doing. It meant that states and school
districts competing for Reading First funds had to select and
implement reading assessments and curricula based on scientific
evidence.
This transformation from entitlement to scientific
accountability, akin to a Kuhnian paradigmatic shift, has been
difficult for everyone--teachers, administrators, school board
members and other stakeholders in states, districts and
schools, including the U.S. Department of Education.
After all, how were states to know what beginning reading
assessments were valid, reliable and scientifically based? How
were they to know which beginning reading programs were based
on the best available science? Whose science and what
evidentiary standards were education officials to use in
carrying out these basic teaching and administrative tasks?
To ensure the success of this initiative, it was imperative
that answers to these questions be provided in a short and
condensed period of time to comply with the timetable provided
in the legislation. As such, it was necessary to rely on
researchers from around the country who possessed the knowledge
and expertise to do the work.
With perfect hindsight and given the scope of the ongoing
inquiries it is now clear that more should have been required
by the U.S. Department of Education and others involved in the
program, including me, to prevent the issues that have arisen.
My involvement in the Reading First Program began in August
2001. At that time, I was asked by the Department of Education
through a colleague to put together a committee charged with
the responsibility of developing both a process and a product
that would provide assistance to state and local education
agencies in selecting reading assessment measures.
To respond to this request, I selected seven researchers to
develop and apply a process, criteria, decision rules and
procedures for identifying reading assessment instruments
designed for screening, diagnosis, progress monitoring and
outcome evaluation. In a period of 8 months, September 2001 to
May 2002, my colleagues and I completed this unforgiving task.
In doing so, the committee reviewed more than 100
assessment measures and selected 29 they judged to be the most
frequently used instruments and readily available for review.
In selecting some of the best experts in the country, it is not
surprising that those experts would also be authors of popular
and innovative assessment tools, which the committee as a whole
selected to review.
It is also important to note that it was our understanding
at the time that more assessment measures would be reviewed and
that technical assistance to support states in the continued
review and selection of assessment tools would be ongoing.
What lessons did we learn from this experience?
On the technical side of this experience, we learned that
if high and rigorous standards were maintained for judging
trustworthiness, very few tests would meet those standards.
Because so many tests failed to provide information about the
required technical features, the committee adopted a set of
minimum standards of trustworthiness with the goal of providing
the field with the best of what was available at the time.
On the non-technical side, I want to note that at the
outset we took steps to avoid any conflict of interest, even
though we received no guidance, explicit or implicit, from the
contractor or the U.S. Department of Education in this regard.
As researchers, we employed traditional academic standards in
reviewing and adjudicating the research and technical evidence.
The standards we used required each committee member to
disclose his or her proprietary interest in assessment
instruments and to not review those particular instruments.
Moreover, committee members did not discuss as a group the
ratings of any of the assessments. In addition, I would like to
note that neither I, nor any member of the committee that I
know of, violated the conflict of interest procedures that we
had established.
However, knowing now what various questions have been
raised about the appearance of conflicts, it is apparent that
we should have required a different set of standards than the
traditional academic standards, such as formalized procedures
for defining and identifying conflicts and even appearances of
conflicts.
In conclusion, it is my sincere hope that issues regarding
conflicts of interest procedures that have arisen in the
implementation of Reading First do not irreparably tarnish this
important and unprecedented federal program. These issues
should not diminish the supreme importance in continuing to use
rigorous, scientifically based evidence in making educational
decisions.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Kame'enui follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward J. Kame'enui, Professor,
College of Education, University of Oregon
I want to thank the Committee for asking me to testify today to
explain my involvement in the ``design and implementation of the
Reading First Program.'' I do so today with the genuine desire that my
testimony will assist this Committee both in learning the true facts
behind the development of some important aspects of this Program and in
instituting any necessary changes to ensure the continued viability of
this important and unprecedented federal program.
The Reading First legislation introduced a transforming
requirement, instead of allowing States to receive funds based solely
on need, for the very first time this law asked States to describe how
they would use evidence or ``scientifically based reading research'' to
mount a systematic and sustained effort to improve literacy in the
nation's most challenging schools. This immense effort required States,
districts and schools to take inventory of their current efforts in
teaching beginning reading, and in doing so, either change or modify
what they were doing. In some cases, this change occurred at an
unprecedented scale that provoked a transformation in the professional
and ideational culture of schools, districts and, in some cases,
states. It meant that states and school districts competing for Reading
First funds had to select and implement reading assessments and
curricula based on scientific evidence. This transformation from
entitlement to ``scientific'' accountability akin to a Kuhnian
paradigmatic shift, has been difficult for everyone--teachers,
administrators, school board members, and other stakeholders in States,
districts, and schools, including the U.S. Department of Education.
After all, how were States to know what beginning reading assessments
were valid, reliable and scientifically based? How were they to know
which beginning reading programs were based on the best available
science? Whose science and what evidentiary standards of science were
education officials to use in carrying out these basic teaching and
administrative tasks?
To ensure the success of this initiative, it was imperative that
answers to these questions be provided in a short and condensed period
of time to comply with the timetable provided in the legislation. As
such, it was necessary to rely on researchers from around the country
who possessed the knowledge and expertise to do the work. With perfect
hindsight, and given the scope of the ongoing inquiries, it is now
clear that more should have been required by the U. S. Department of
Education and others involved in the program, including me, to prevent
the issues that have arisen.
My involvement in the Reading First Program began in August 2001.
At that time, I was asked by the Department of Education, initially
through a colleague, to put together a committee charged with the
responsibility of developing both a process and a product that would
provide assistance to State and local educational agencies in selecting
``screening, diagnosis, and classroom-based instructional reading
assessments'' called for by the Reading First legislation. To respond
to this request, I selected seven researchers to develop and apply a
process, criteria, decision rules and procedures for identifying
reading assessment instruments designed for screening, diagnosis,
progress monitoring, and outcome evaluation. The need for such a
committee may strike those uninitiated to education as peculiar. After
all, one could ask, wasn't this information already established,
available and used widely? The short answer is no.
In a period of eight months (September, 2001 to May, 2002), my
colleagues and I developed operational definitions of the five
``essential components of reading instruction'' as specified in the
2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.\1\ These five essential
components are phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and
reading comprehension. We also developed operational definitions of the
four ways to evaluate how well children read, which include screening,
diagnosis, progress monitoring, and outcome evaluation. The five
essential components of reading instruction and the four purposes of
assessment also had to be considered in the context of four grade
levels--Kindergarten through Grade 3 (K-3). In addition, we developed a
34-page coding form that permitted independent reviewers to code the
technical information found in the test manuals of the reading
assessment measures. As an aside, the independent reviewers spent an
average of 6-12 hours coding the technical information for each of
these tests. Finally, using the coded information, six members of the
committee were paired into three teams to judge the ``trustworthiness''
or sufficiency of the technical information for each of the assessment
measures. To select the assessment measures, the Committee reviewed
more than a 100 assessment measures and selected 29 they judged to be
the most popular and frequently used instruments and readily available
for review. In selecting some of the best assessment experts in the
country, it is not surprising that those experts would also be authors
of popular and innovative assessment tools, which the committee as a
whole selected to review. It is also important to note that it was our
understanding at the time that more assessment measures would be
reviewed and that technical assistance to support states in the
continued review and selection of assessment tools would be ongoing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, 20
U.S.C. Sec. 6368 (2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What lessons did we learn from this experience? On the technical
side of this experience, we learned that if high and rigorous standards
were maintained for judging trustworthiness, very few tests would meet
those standards. Because so many tests failed to provide information
about the required technical features, the committee adopted a set of
minimum standards of trustworthiness with the goal of providing the
field with the best of what was available. Thus, measures were deemed
to be trustworthy if they provided relevant data that met the minimal
requirements.
On the non-technical side, I want to note at the outset that we
took steps to avoid any conflicts of interests, even though we received
no guidance (explicit or implicit) from the contractor or the U.S.
Department of Education in this regard. As researchers, we employed
traditional academic standards in reviewing and adjudicating the
research and technical evidence. The standards we used required each
committee member to disclose his or her proprietary interest in
assessment instruments, and to not review those particular instruments.
Moreover, committee members did not discuss as a group the ratings of
any of the assessment measures. In addition, I would like to note that
neither I, nor any member of the committee that I know of, violated the
conflicts of interests procedures that we had established. Instead,
each Committee member recognized the importance of this work and went
to extraordinary measures to ensure not only that the work was
conducted and completed with integrity in a very short period of time,
but that it was done without any conflicts of interests. However,
knowing now the various questions that have been raised about the
appearance of conflicts, it is apparent that we should have required a
different set of standards than the traditional academic standards.
There should have been more formalized procedures for defining and
identifying conflicts and even appearances of conflicts. Moreover, we
should have addressed those in as transparent a manner as possible to
ensure the integrity of the process.
In the future, to guard against the perception of conflicts of
interests, I recommend that an independent entity, such as the National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, be charged with
the oversight responsibility of this task. I further recommend that the
Review Panel be comprised of researchers and technical experts who do
not have any proprietary interests in any assessment tools, protocols,
and websites or test publishing companies. In addition, I recommend
that a clear and unambiguous set of guidelines with concrete examples
be provided on what constitutes conflicts of interests. Such a process
and guidance should ensure that real and perceived conflicts of
interests are not an issue.
In addition to my work on the Assessment Committee, I also served
as the Director of the Oregon Reading First Center from September 1,
2002 to July 1, 2005, a period of 2 years and 10 months, and Director
of the Western Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center
(WRRFTAC) from October 1, 2003 to July 1, 2005, a period of 1 year and
9 months. The Oregon Reading First Center was responsible for providing
technical assistance to the State of Oregon's Reading First grant
program. In contrast, the Western Regional Reading First Technical
Assistance Center was responsible for providing technical assistance to
the western states including, as I recall, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North
and South Dakota and American Samoa. As Director of these two technical
assistance centers, I was responsible for ensuring that States received
technical support that reflected the most current scientifically based
reading research available. Again, even in the absence of any explicit
or implicit guidance from the U.S. Department of Education or the
contractors on what constituted a conflict, we took traditional
academic steps to avoid any conflicts of interests in providing
technical assistance to States. For example, as an author of a reading
intervention program for Kindergarten children, I never promoted or
provided technical assistance on that program. Moreover, neither I, nor
any staff members that I know of, violated the conflicts of interests
standards that were common to our professional practice. Instead, staff
members took significant measures to ensure not only that the work was
conducted with respect and integrity, but also that it was done without
any conflicts of interests.
Much of the work of these technical assistance centers involves
translating research into practical and useable instructional practices
that teachers and administrators can implement immediately, and at
scale. There is no textbook or driver's manual for doing this work, and
doing it in a way that is accessible, sensible and engaging for
teachers and administrators who face the realities everyday of teaching
struggling readers to read. As such, my colleagues and I relied on our
knowledge of the reading research and the collective experience we had
gained from our previous work. Thus, for the record, I want to note the
experience that I brought to my role as Director of these two technical
assistance centers. For example, I was one of 17 members that served on
the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Prevention of
Reading Difficulties in Young Children, which produced the first
``consensus'' report on reading problems in 1998, a report that
pronounced, yet again, the importance of the teacher's role in teaching
children to read in an alphabetic writing system. In addition, my
colleague, Deb Simmons, and I wrote the Reading/Language Arts
Curriculum Framework K-12 for the State of California, which served as
a major influence at the time on publishers and other state reading
initiatives. I was also actively involved in the implementation of the
predecessors of Reading First, the Comprehensive School Reform Act, and
the Reading Excellence Act, which were hallmarks of the Clinton
Administration. Finally, some of the materials we used in our Reading
First work were developed as part of a 10-year technical assistance
center that I co-directed with my colleague, Dr. Douglas W. Carnine,
from 1991 to 2002. This center, called the National Center to Improve
the Tools of Educators (NCITE), was funded by the Office of Special
Education Programs and had as its primary mission working directly with
publishers and developers of reading, language arts and mathematics
curricula to ensure that the needs of students with disabilities and
low performers were considered in the design and architecture of these
materials.
In conclusion, it is my sincere hope that issues regarding
conflicts of interest procedures that have arisen in the implementation
of Reading First do not irreparably tarnish this important and
unprecedented federal program. Without doubt, these issues do not
diminish the supreme importance in continuing to use rigorous,
scientifically based evidence in making educational decisions so that
education can give all children, particularly those who struggle with
reading, a foundation in literacy to not just finish high school and
perform at a proficiency level on the nation's reading report card, but
to flourish as imaginative and productive citizens. I speak for myself
and I believe for my colleagues when I tell you that we had good
intentions and worked very hard, and we even put in place our own
standards for avoiding conflicts of interests. However, it is now clear
that good intentions and hard work are not enough. To prevent issues
like this from occurring in the future, rigorous evidence and stricter
internal controls must guide these good intentions and hard work.
The welfare of our children and our nation requires that we teach
our children to read in an alphabetic writing system; it will not come
naturally to them in the absence of good, scientifically based reading
instruction. Likewise, the stewardship of the Reading First program
must deliver on its promise to ensure that all children will become
readers at the end of Grade 3.
______
TESTIMONY OF CHRISTOPHER J. DOHERTY, FORMER PROGRAM DIRECTOR
FOR READING FIRST, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. Doherty. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon and
members of the committee, than you for the opportunity to
address you today about my role in the management and
implementation of Reading First.
I worked diligently for nearly 5 years to implement one of
the largest educational initiatives ever undertaken by the
federal government, and my sole motivation was to help the
children of this country learn how to read. Reading First
offers millions of our most disadvantaged children the benefit
of effective early reading instruction. I took my
responsibility toward these children seriously, and all my
decisions were based on compliance with the law and maximizing
Reading First's impact on children learning how to read.
That these efforts were successful is evidenced by the
performance of Reading First schools and in states'
satisfaction with the implementation of the program, documented
by multiple sources. Due to time constraints, I will not be
able to discuss all of these sources here. However, I submitted
a number of them with my written testimony.
These facts notwithstanding, a distorted story has been
written over the past few months based on the worst possible
interpretation of events that occurred during the early days of
Reading First. I am pleased to have the opportunity today to
offer a different view of the program.
The Reading First section of the No Child Left Behind law
placed very clear requirements on the instructional materials
that could be used. The statute details in numerous places that
all instructional materials must be based on scientifically
based reading research. This limitation was not added by the
department; it is very prominent in the legislation crafted by
this committee and authorized into law.
The requirements of the law recognized that some
instructional programs and materials are based on
scientifically based reading research and some are not. The
suggestion that has been put forth by some recently that it was
inappropriate to question grantees about programs that did not
appear to comply with the law is stunning. In fact, we were
questioned by congressional committees in 2003 and again in
2004 about what the department was doing to ensure that Reading
First funding was not going to programs that were not aligned
with the research.
We never directed which particular scientifically based
instructional materials states or districts must use. The point
was to comply with the law and maximize Reading First's impact
on children learning to read.
States did not have to identify programs in their
applications. They had only to identify the criteria they would
use to select programs. Clearly, states got this message. Only
three state educational agencies specifically identified the
core reading programs that their districts would use in their
Reading First applications.
I believe Reading First has worked well because we insisted
on faithful implementation of the law. It is making a real
difference for states, districts and schools and, most
importantly, children throughout the country. Reading First is
the only No Child Left Behind program to receive an effective
rating from the Office of Management and Budget. Only 17
percent of federal programs reviewed across the government have
received this highest rating.
The data from Reading First schools, which have been
painfully and surprisingly absent from this debate about the
program's administration, speak for themselves. Based on the
data available when I left the department and corroborated by
new data released by the department yesterday, Reading First
schools, which are, by definition, the most disadvantaged and
lowest-performing schools in their states and districts, have
shown dramatic gains on reading outcome measures across all
grades and across all disaggregated subgroups.
To give just one example of increases in state-level data,
Arizona announced that academic gains had ``skyrocketed,''
their word, in its Reading First schools, with students in all
grades K-3 making dramatic gains that far outpaced comparison
schools. Arizona has seen the achievement gap close, the entire
purpose of this historic No Child Left Behind Act. Ninety-seven
percent of white students, 96 percent of Hispanic students and
95 percent of Native American students in its Reading First
schools finished first grade at grade level.
Reports from both the Government Accountability Office and
the Center on Education Policy show the high level of
satisfaction that states had with the department's
implementation of Reading First. States have not been silent in
their criticism of many other components of No Child Left
Behind. However, they credit Reading First with improvements in
student achievement and have consistently spoken highly of the
department's management of Reading First.
I am proud of what the program has achieved and of my role
in its implementation. I respected the chain of command at the
Department of Education, receiving directives which I never had
reason to question and keeping superiors informed about this
high-profile, billion-dollar-a-year program which was under
scrutiny from its inception.
Did I take my responsibility for rigorous implementation of
Reading First seriously? I respectfully and proudly tell you
that yes, I did, because I wanted to ensure compliance with
this law and maximize Reading First's impact on children
learning how to read.
I sincerely thank you for your attention.
[The statement of Mr. Doherty follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christopher J. Doherty, Former Program Director
for Reading First, U.S. Department of Education
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeown and Members of the
Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to address you today about my
role in the management and implementation of the Reading First program.
I worked tirelessly for nearly five years to implement one of the
largest educational initiatives ever undertaken by the Federal
government, and my sole motivation was to help the children of this
country learn how to read. Too many of our nation's children are denied
the opportunity to achieve to their full potential because they do not
become proficient readers. The Reading First program offers millions of
our most disadvantaged children the benefit of effective early reading
instruction, and the limitless possibilities that come with being a
literate citizen.
I took my responsibility toward these children seriously every day,
and all decisions were based on compliance with the law and maximizing
the program's impact on children learning how to read. That these
efforts were successful is evidenced by the performance of Reading
First schools and in states' satisfaction with the implementation of
the program, documented by multiple sources. These facts
notwithstanding, a distorted story has been written over the past few
months based on the worst possible interpretation of events that
occurred during the early days of the Reading First program. I am
pleased to have the opportunity today to offer a different
interpretation of those events, the one that I know to be true.
The Reading First section of the No Child Left Behind law broke new
ground for Federal education programs. This landmark legislation placed
very clear requirements on the instructional materials that could be
used in connection with the Reading First program. The statute details
in numerous places that all instructional materials must be based on
scientifically based reading research. This limitation was not added by
the Department; it is very prominent in the legislation crafted by this
Committee and authorized into law.
Improving the quality of reading instruction in our nation's most
disadvantaged schools is what the law charged us to do. The
requirements of the law recognized that some instructional programs and
materials are based on scientifically based reading research and some
are not. The suggestion that has been put forth by some recently that
it was inappropriate to question grantees about programs that did not
appear to be based on scientifically based reading research is
stunning. In fact, we were questioned by Congressional committees in
2003 and again in 2004 about what the Department was doing to ensure
that Reading First funding was not going to programs that were not
aligned with the research.
We did monitor implementation, and we did question the use of
programs that did not appear to be based on scientifically based
research. The point in doing this was never to direct which particular
scientifically based instructional materials grantees or subgrantees
must use--the point was to comply with the law and maximize the
program's impact on children learning to read. The law was clear that
programs must align with the research, and the research is clear that
programs that are most effective in teaching children, especially
disadvantaged children, how to read feature explicit and systematic
instruction in five areas of phonemic awareness; phonics; fluency;
vocabulary and comprehension. The importance of explicit and systematic
instruction must be underscored--many vendors claim their programs are
aligned with the research because they include the instructional
components I just named. But a program is not aligned with the
scientific findings about how children learn how to read if it does not
include explicit and systematic instruction.
The Department worked hard to dispel the belief held by some that
there was a `secret' approved list of programs. It is asserted in the
Inspector General's report that a practitioner panel during the
Secretary's Reading Leadership Academies--one short session within a
multi-day event--convinced states that they could only use the handful
of programs identified during that panel. The Secretary's Academies
were held in the earliest days of the program and were an introduction
to scientifically based reading instruction. Although no mention is
made of this any of the Inspector General reports, the Academies were
followed by Writer's Workshops, attended by all the states, which were
specifically about the Reading First application. The point was made
repeatedly at the Writers' Workshops that there was no approved list of
programs, and that states did not have to identify programs in their
applications--they had only to identify the criteria they would use to
select programs.
There is clear evidence that states got this message--only three
state educational agencies--California, Michigan, and American Samoa--
specifically identified the core reading programs that their
subgrantees would use in their Reading First applications. It has been
repeatedly and falsely asserted that the approval of Michigan's
application sent a message to other states that they had to include
certain programs in their applications. The fact is Michigan was among
the first six states to receive its Reading First grant, and the other
five states did not identify programs. It has been similarly asserted
that the expert review panel tried to steer states toward certain
programs, and would not recommend applications for approval until this
occurred. The fact that only three states identified programs shows
this simply did not happen.
I believe much misunderstanding has arisen from confusion about the
timing of events. The first Inspector's General report, which purports
to be about the application review, includes events that occurred after
states had begun to implement their approved plans. As I noted earlier,
questioning of programs was done to ensure that grantees were complying
with the requirements of the law. But no one was ever told they must
use a certain program or programs instead of others.
Much has also been made of the fact that a technical assistance
provider appears to have become somewhat persistent in recommending a
particular instructional assessment on two occasions. Yes, this
occurred, and as the Inspector General's report shows, it was
immediately addressed by the program office. Technical assistance
providers had hundreds of contacts with states. That two isolated
incidents of this kind could be identified among hundred of contacts is
evidence of a very good track record of technical assistance, not a
pervasive pattern of inappropriate activity.
The same conclusions can be drawn about the Reading First program
as a whole: while not perfect in every detail, the program has a very
good track record. It has been well implemented and is making a real
difference for states, districts, schools, and most importantly,
children throughout the country. Reading First is one of only four
Department of Education programs to receive an effective rating from
the Office of Management and Budget--and the only program that is part
of the No Child Left Behind Act to receive this distinguished rating.
As you know, OMB's assessment is based on program performance and
management, and only 17% of Federal programs reviewed across the
government have received an effective rating.
The data from Reading First schools--which have been painfully and
surprisingly absent from this debate about the program's
administration--speak for themselves. Reading First is a very large
program--implemented in nearly six thousand schools--and despite its
size there is clear evidence of its positive impact. Based on the data
available when I left the Department, Reading First schools have shown
dramatic gains on reading outcome measures across all grades and across
all disaggregated subgroups. Sixty percent of third grade students in
Reading First schools were reading at the proficient level on measures
of reading comprehension--up from 28% when the program began, and as
you know, Reading First schools are by definition the most
disadvantaged and lowest performing schools in their districts and
states.
These impressive increases hold for all subgroups across the same
time period--third grade economically disadvantaged students have
increased from 20% to 58%; third grade English language learners from
13 to 59%; and students with disabilities from 12 to 33%. To give just
two of the many examples of increases in State level data--students in
Reading First schools doubled the gains of non-Reading First schools in
Washington State, despite the fact that the poverty rate in Reading
First schools is more than twice the rate in non-Reading First schools.
Arizona announced that academic gains had ``skyrocketed'' in its
Reading First schools, with students in all grades K-3 making dramatic
gains that far outpaced comparison schools. Arizona has also seen the
achievement gap close--the entire purpose of the historic No Child Left
Behind Act itself. 97% of white students, 96% of Hispanic students and
95% of Native American students in its Reading First schools finished
first grade at grade level. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs--which
serves some of the highest needs schools and students in the country--
saw the percentage of students at benchmark increase from 28% to 50% in
its first two years of Reading First implementation.
There is also clear evidence of the high level of satisfaction
states have with how Reading First has been implemented and its impact
on students. Reports from both the Government Accountability Office and
the Center on Education Policy show not only that the states credit
Reading First with improvements in student achievement, but that the
states were satisfied with the Department's implementation.
What is perhaps most incongruous about the present controversy is
that it has nothing to do with the success or failure of the program
for America's children. The complaints against the program were made by
a handful of vendors, not by the program's grantees or subgrantees. The
Inspector General launched several extensive audits of Reading First
based on these vendor complaints, and it became very clear early on
that the Inspector General's findings of mismanagement were a foregone
conclusion. I was presented with preliminary findings before I had a
single interview with the auditors. False findings of this kind are
perhaps unsurprising given the climate of mistrust that has afflicted
government service in recent decades. As Steve Kelman of Harvard
University noted in a recent Washington Post op-ed on the Inspector
General Process, there is a consistent focus on the negative, on
controls rather than creativity, and on documentation rather than
performance. Any shred of evidence that seems to support the
investigator's hypothesis--in this case a small number of regrettably
coarse emails--can be elevated to the status of gospel.
Let me conclude by returning to my original theme: Reading First
has been an extremely successful program and its achievements for the
nation's children did not happen by accident. They are a result of
faithful implementation of the law and a desire to maximize the
program's impact on children learning to read, both of which required
ensuring that only instructional materials based on scientifically
based reading research were used. I am proud of what the program has
achieved and of my role in its implementation. My career has been
devoted to public service--beginning in the foreign service, and then
working to improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged children
in Baltimore. This included being the first director of the Baraka
School in Kenya, the subject of the award-winning documentary ``The
Boys of Baraka.''
When I was asked to serve as director of Reading First, I was
honored and humbled by the importance and magnitude of the task. I
endeavored always to fulfill my role with integrity. I respected the
chain of command at the Department of Education, faithfully executing
orders from superiors, which I never had reason to question, and
keeping superiors informed about the program. The suggestion that
Reading First was mismanaged has deeply hurt me and my family and is
completely unfounded.
Did I take my responsibility for rigorous implementation of this
program seriously? I respectfully and proudly tell you that, yes, I
did, because I wanted to ensure compliance with the law, and maximize
the program's impact on children learning how to read. I am pleased to
report that the effort has been a success. I can only hope that more
children will learn to read as a result of this vitally important
program in the years ahead.
Thank you for your attention.
______
TESTIMONY OF ROLAND GOOD, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF
OREGON
Mr. Good. Chairman Miller and members of the committee,
thank you very much for the opportunity come here and
participate in clarifying the record about our involvement in
Reading First. I have submitted written testimony, and I would
like to summarize and elaborate on that today.
First, I think that Reading First has been a remarkable and
incredible bipartisan effort across Democrats and Republicans
to make a much needed change in reading outcomes for our
children and especially for the children who are most at risk,
our poor and children from diverse backgrounds.
I am a professor at the University of Oregon. For about the
last 20 years or so, I have been doing research and teaching
and presenting on reading with particular emphasis on reading
assessment, especially around the areas of early literacy and
of a prevention-oriented model to ensure that all of our
children are on track.
Very early in the Reading First process, I was invited to
participate on the assessment committee of the secretary's
Reading Leadership Academies. I was invited by Dr. Kame'enui
and had the opportunity to participate on a committee of
scientists and of researchers who in our field are without peer
with the highest scholarly credentials that we have. I was very
honored to be a part of that committee.
As a result of that committee work, we began a process of
establishing scientific standards and applying those standards
to assessments to be able to put into practice the words about
scientifically based reading research in evaluating
assessments. In doing that, we followed the highest standards
of avoidance of conflict of interest in the academy.
As a professor, we are not unfamiliar with conflict of
interest. Whenever we research, whenever we publish, there are
always issues of conflict of interest. We address those within
the university setting by first being public about what our
investment is. Second, we focus on evidence. It is not about
judgment, but it is about evidence, what science can we bring
to bear. And third, we avoid direct participation in any
evaluation of our own work or of our own product, and we have a
blind review process of things that we are involved in.
DIBELS was one of the 29 measures that was evaluated by
that committee. In every review of DIBELS, I recused myself
from any discussion and did not participate directly in any
discussion of DIBELS, and I do not know who did. Whoever
reviewed it is blind to me. That review encompassed DIBELS and
many others.
Subsequent to my involvement on the assessment committee, I
also was faculty on the Western Region Reading First Technical
Assistance Center for a period of time and participated in
presentations at the secretary's Leadership Academy and at
subsequent Reading First national conferences.
In that time, I would really championed the use of
assessment in a prevention oriented model. I have used DIBELS
as examples in those presentations. I have used other
assessment measures as examples as well.
Currently, I continue to do research and training around
early literacy assessment. I continue to consult with states
when I am requested to.
I would really like to see this important innovation
continue. I would really like to see the words ``scientifically
based reading research'' turned into practice in a way that can
be defended. I think we need to have a panel that is
continuing, that is charged with review of programs and review
of assessments, a panel and a process where it can be above
even the appearance of a conflict of interest and rigorously
supervised. All of that is very important to continue this
important landmark work that is Reading First.
This has been an opportunity to change in a very meaningful
way the lives of our children who are most at risk.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you
today. I would be very pleased to answer any questions you
have.
[The statement of Mr. Good follows:]
Prepared Statement of Roland H. Good III, Associate Professor,
University of Oregon
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, it is a pleasure and honor
to testify before you. For the past 19 years my colleague Ruth
Kaminski, myself, and a team of researchers and graduate students have
pursued a program of research expanding the measurement technology that
is the foundation for DIBELS 6th Edition. Our work builds on the
previous research begun initially by Professor Stan Deno and the team
of researchers at the Institutes for Research on Learning Disabilities
at the University of Minnesota and carried on today by many researchers
in Curriculum-Based Measurement of Reading, or CBM. CBM is a
measurement technology for developing brief, one-minute, repeatable,
fluency-based measures of reading proficiency. The measurement
technology has remarkable reliability and validity supported by over 30
years of research. Today that measurement technology is used in many
reading assessments including DIBELS 6th Edition.
Our research team has extended that measurement technology and
research base in two primary areas: (a) a downward extension of the
measures to the early literacy skills of phonemic awareness and phonics
in kindergarten and early first grade, and (b) the extension of a
decision-making model to general education settings with an emphasis on
early intervention and problem prevention.
Our research focus on early literacy assessment was motivated by a
crisis in our reading instruction and reading outcomes for our
children, especially our children from poor and diverse backgrounds. We
began with an exhaustive review of the existing research literature at
that time and identified core components of early literacy that should
form the content of instruction and the target of assessment. Those 5
core components were eventually identified by the National Reading
Panel as phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary development, and
reading comprehension. It is not a coincidence that we targeted very
early essentially the same skills identified by the National Reading
Panel: We were reading the same research.
Our most important work so far has been the articulation of a
prevention-oriented decision model supporting educators to use
assessment to inform instruction to change reading outcomes. In the
Outcomes Driven model, we recommend that educators use assessment to
(a) identify need for support, (b) validate need for support, (c) plan
and implement support, (d) evaluate and modify support, and (e) review
support. Essentially those decisions require that assessment be used
for the purposes of screening, diagnostic assessment, progress
monitoring, and evaluation of outcomes.
Those 5 core components and 4 purposes of assessment form the
backbone of Reading First assessment requirements. I believe Reading
First represents the state of the science about early literacy
assessment and instruction. We did not develop early literacy
assessment for Reading First, we have spent almost 20 years developing
early literacy assessments for the state of the science about reading
instruction. We arrived at essentially the same place as Reading First
through a convergence of paths.
Some see DIBELS 6th Edition as an extremely valuable measure that
has been instrumental in helping schools with very high educational
needs make dramatic changes in reading outcomes for their children.
However, DIBELS 6th Edition is just a set of simple, easy measures that
utilize public, readily available measurement technology. Others can
and have developed competing measures using that measurement
technology. The principle value of DIBELS 6th Edition is not in the
measures themselves, it is in the extensive program of longitudinal
research that documents the reliability, validity, and decision utility
of the measures. From that research we know what level of early skill
places a student at risk of not achieving later reading outcomes. We
know what levels of early literacy skills students need to achieve by
when in order to make adequate progress toward reading proficiency.
Most important, we can evaluate a student's progress toward goals on a
direct and frequent basis and know, within weeks, whether our
instruction is adequate or must be modified or enhanced on a student-
by-student basis.
Throughout our work with DIBELS 6th Edition and prior editions, we
have tried to maximize the impact of our work for children. We strive
to make this powerful measurement technology readily, easily,
inexpensively available for educators. A version of DIBELS 6th Edition
is easily available on the internet for free download and unlimited
photocopying for educational purposes. We are unconditionally committed
to continuing to have DIBELS future editions available for free
download and unlimited photocopying as long as there are users who need
it. We also have the same materials available in published form from
Sopris West, and Wireless Generation offers the same assessment on a
handheld Palm device. Ruth Kaminski and I developed a similar set of
measures called Voyager Indicators of Progress (VIP) embedded within
the Voyager Universal Literacy curriculum. Schools may choose to
download for free, or purchase version, or use the handheld Palm. Or
schools may choose to use the curriculum embedded version.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Dr. Simmons?
TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH C. SIMMONS, PROFESSOR OF SPECIAL
EDUCATION, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
Ms. Simmons. Mr. Miller and Mr. McKeon and members of the
committee, like Dr. Good, I have submitted written testimony,
and I will briefly summarize my involvement in Reading First
for you today. Thank you for this opportunity.
I have always told folks I had the most important and best
job in the world. I get to teach future teachers. I get to
observe in classrooms. I get to help solve school's problems.
And one of the biggest problems that Reading First is
addressing is the number of children that we have who are not
readers and who are not readers by the end of Grade 3, and we
know that if a child is not a reader by the end of first grade,
there is a very low probability that they will become a
successful reader, and that is where I have spent my life's
work.
I spent the first 10 years as a special educator in public
schools. The next 10 years, I worked with schools to try to
help them fix programs and reading programs. Asking teachers to
fix an ineffective program is like asking a pilot to fly and
build a plane at the same time. It is just physically
impossible. So good programs and scientifically based programs
are at the heart of what I do.
Regarding my involvement in Reading First, I was involved
in two primary areas. I worked as a member of the assessment
committee. As Dr. Good and Dr. Kame'enui have described, this
was an important work that helped establish assistance for
schools as they tried to implement Reading First. There
literally was no resource for schools to go to to help identify
assessments to use, and that was the purpose of the assessment
committee, was to provide some assistance to schools.
Members of that committee were the most professional
experts with whom I have ever worked. They never reviewed
assessments with which they were affiliated. I am not an author
of an assessment, but I can speak from participating in that
committee that the rigor was at the highest level on that
committee.
My second area of involvement was in the area of
presentations that I did. Two of those were at the Leadership
Academy. Those presentations involved components of effective
instruction, and at no point in those presentations did I
endorse or promote specific programs.
Though my involvement in Reading First was very limited and
largely constrained to 2001 and 2002, it was a time of great
excitement and great hope, and recently I have had
opportunities to be observing in schools that have been
involved in Reading First, and I can tell you that I see a big
difference in those schools.
I see children who at the beginning of kindergarten knew no
letters and no sounds reading sentences and writing words. I
see schools that look very differently than they would have
without this assistance from Reading First, and it has been a
privilege to participate in those activities.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Simmons follows:]
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Ms. Lewis?
TESTIMONY OF STARR LEWIS, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, KENTUCKY
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Ms. Lewis. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, and
honorable members of the committee, thank you for this
opportunity to share Kentucky's experience in Reading First.
I serve as the associate commissioner in the Kentucky
Department of Education's Office of Teaching and Learning, and
in this role, I led our efforts during the Reading First grant-
writing phase, and my office is responsible for the
implementation of the Kentucky Reading First plan.
I would like to begin my comments today by saying that
Kentucky's involvement in Reading First has been extremely
beneficial, allowing us to create a statewide support system
for beginning readers, their teachers and administrators.
I am extremely proud of the Kentucky schools involved in
this program and of the staff at the Kentucky Department of
Education who support their efforts. However, there were some
issues that we faced in Kentucky, issues the committee may want
to consider as they prepare for reauthorization of Reading
First.
Our introduction to Reading First was in February of 2002
when we attended the department's Reading Leadership Academy.
Using the knowledge we obtained from the academy and other
technical assistance provided, we drafted our proposal and
submitted it to the department's expert review panel for
approval in May of 2002.
Our commissioner at the time, Gene Wilhoit, reported to our
board of education that this proposal was the best thought-out
and well-written proposal he had seen. In short, we were
confident that we had put together an excellent proposal and
that it met all established criteria.
Unfortunately, this proposal was rejected by the
department's expert review panel, as were our second and third
proposals. It was only after our fourth submission that our
proposal was approved.
We had asked for but had not received the expert review
panel's actual comments. I must add that I did receive them
yesterday from staff. But the summary sent to us by the Reading
First director, Chris Doherty, repeatedly pointed to concerns
about one of our proposed assessments.
Our first two proposals did not include DIBELS. We were
hoping to build on our existing experience with another
assessment called Developmental Reading Assessment, or DRA. We
really felt that we had strong experience and evidence of
success from schools and districts using this assessment.
After the expert review panel rejected our first two
proposals, we contacted Mr. Doherty who referred us to RMC
Research Corporation to obtain technical assistance. During our
conversation with the RMC technical assistance team, we were
given advice about a number of issues related to our proposal,
but we were repeatedly advised to replace DRA with DIBELS.
I mentioned on a conference call with the RMC team that
endorsing DIBELS appeared to be a conflict of interest, given
the involvement of a number of individuals connected to DIBELS
who also served on the Reading First Academy assessment
committee. The RMC team acknowledged the connections, but
continued to say that our proposal would likely be viewed more
favorably if we included DIBELS. After this call, we learned
that one of the members of the technical assistance team, Joe
Dimino, was a DIBELS trainer.
Commissioner Wilhoit sent a letter to then-Secretary of
Education Rod Paige appealing that decision to deny Kentucky's
funding based on inconsistencies in expert review panel
decisions across states and on our concerns related to
potential conflicts of interest. We received a response from
Eugene Hickock, the former deputy secretary of education,
assuring us that there were no discrepancies between state
reviews and no conflicts of interest.
After receiving the response from Mr. Hickok, we
reorganized our proposal to more clearly and explicitly address
the concerns of our panel and resubmitted in December 2002. In
this second proposal, we addressed every concern identified in
the summary provided by Mr. Doherty and even added DIBELS, but
we did not drop DRA. On January the 8th, 2003, we received
notification that our expert panel had again rejected our
proposal.
In March of 2003, we had a conference call with Mr.
Doherty. We pointed out that we had been reviewing other state
approved plans and that at least one included DRA. He assured
us that the state in question had agreed to remove the
assessment even after approval. While Chris never actually said
the words, ``Kentucky will never be funded as long as it
includes DRA,'' we all left the discussion understanding that
to be the case.
We removed DRA, kept DIBELS, resubmitted our proposal in
March of 2003. We were approved for funding in the next month.
During the proposal phase, Kentucky did not experience
pressure concerning core programs or intervention programs. As
we described in our proposal, Kentucky has legislation that
gives all curriculum decision-making authority to school
councils and explicitly prohibits the Kentucky Department of
Education from mandating curriculum materials.
However, after we started implementing Reading First and
after our first federal monitoring visit, the monitoring team's
report raised concerns about Reading Recovery and Rigby as not
being sufficiently grounded in scientifically based reading
research. In the letter from Mr. Doherty accompanying the
report, he did not name the programs specifically, but raised
concerns.
Again, we had a conference call with him during which he
suggested that our funding might be in question if we continued
to allow schools to purchase these two programs. We asked Chris
to put in writing that we could not use Reading First funds for
Reading Recovery or Rigby, he refused, but he did invite us to
write a defense of the two programs. We did so and have never
received a response from the department.
Since the recent reports and the departure of Mr. Doherty
from the department, we have received e-mails, letters and
calls from new Reading First staff, but we have referred them
to the letter we sent to Secretary Paige, and we have requested
the names of our expert panel members and copies of their
responses. We got the responses yesterday but not the names,
and we had not received the information before then.
I want to repeat that Reading First has been a success in
Kentucky. I am here today to give feedback to the committee on
the problems we faced so that Reading First can go forward
stronger and continue to make a difference in classrooms across
Kentucky.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Lewis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Starr Lewis, Associate Commissioner,
Kentucky Department of Education
Chairman Miller, ranking member McKeon, and honorable members of
the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to share Kentucky's
experience in Reading First. My name is Starr Lewis and I serve as the
Associate Commissioner in the Kentucky Department of Education's Office
of Teaching and Learning. In this role, I led our efforts during the
Reading First grant-writing phase, and my office was and is responsible
for the implementation of the Kentucky Reading First plan.
I would like to begin my comments today by saying that Kentucky's
involvement in Reading First has been extremely beneficial to our
state. It has allowed us to create a statewide support system for
beginning readers, their teachers and administrators. Reading First has
shifted our focus onto struggling readers and provided Kentucky with
the resources to give teachers the skills and tools needed to help
these students. I am extremely proud of the Kentucky schools involved
in this program and of the staff at the Kentucky Department of
Education who support their efforts. However, there are some issues we
faced in Kentucky, which the Committee may want to consider as they
prepare for reauthorization of Reading First.
Our introduction to Reading First was in February of 2002 when we
attended the Department's Reading Leadership Academy. The purpose of
the Academy was to help states gear up for the implementation of
Reading First. Using the knowledge we obtained from the Reading
Leadership Academy and other technical assistance provided, we drafted
our proposal and submitted it to the Department's expert review panel
for approval in May of 2002. Our Commissioner at the time, Gene
Wilhoit, reported to our Board of Education that this proposal was the
best thought-out and well-written proposal he had seen. In short, we
were confident that we had put together an excellent proposal and that
it met the established criteria. We were excited about helping young
readers and expected to implement Reading First starting in the fall of
2002. Unfortunately, this proposal was rejected by the Department's
expert review panel, as were our second and third proposals. It was
only after our fourth submission that our proposal was approved.
While we have asked for but have not received the expert review
panel's actual comments, the Department's summary sent to us by the
Reading First Director, Chris Doherty, repeatedly pointed to concerns
about one of our proposed assessment tools. Our first two proposals did
not include the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills assessment
tool, which is now commonly referred to as DIBELS and which was
developed at the University of Oregon. Instead, we were hoping to build
on our existing experience with another reading assessment tool,
Diagnostic Reading Assessment (DRA). We felt that we had strong
experience and evidence of success from schools and districts using
DRA. After the expert review panel rejected our first two proposals, we
contacted Mr. Doherty who referred us to RMC Research Corporation, a
Department contractor, to obtain technical assistance. During our
conversations with the RMC technical assistance team, we were given
advice about a number of issues related to our proposal and we were
repeatedly advised to replace our current assessment tool with DIBELS.
I mentioned on a conference call with the RMC technical assistance team
that endorsing DIBELS appeared to be a conflict-of-interest given the
involvement of a number of individuals with connections to DIBELS and
who also played roles in the implementation of Reading First in that
they served on the Reading First Academy Assessment Committee. The RMC
technical assistance team acknowledged the connections, but continued
to say that our proposal would likely be viewed more favorably if we
included DIBELS. After the call we learned that one of the members of
the technical assistance team, Joe Dimino, was a DIBELS trainer.
Commissioner Wilhoit, sent a letter to then Secretary of Education,
Rod Paige, appealing the decision to deny Kentucky's funding based on
inconsistencies in expert review panel decisions across states and on
our concerns related to potential conflicts-of-interest. We received a
response from Eugene Hickock, the former Deputy Secretary of Education,
assuring us that there were no discrepancies between state reviews and
no conflicts-of-interest.
After receiving the response from Mr. Hickok, we worked with two
members of the RMC staff. After we had reorganized our proposal to more
clearly and explicitly address the concerns of our panel, we
resubmitted our proposal in December 2002. In this second proposal, we
addressed every concern identified in the summary provided by Mr.
Doherty and even included DIBELS, but we did not drop our current
assessment tool.
On January 8, 2003, we received notification that our expert panel
had again rejected our proposal.
In March of 2003, we had a conference call with Mr. Doherty. We
pointed out to Mr. Doherty that we had been reviewing other states'
approved plans and that at least one included the assessment tool we
wanted to use. Mr. Doherty assured us that the state in question had
agreed to remove the assessment tool even after approval. While Chris
never actually said the words, ``Kentucky will never be funded as long
as it includes DRA,'' we all left the discussion understanding this to
be the case. We removed the proposed assessment tool, included DIBELS
and resubmitted our proposal in March of 2003. We were approved for
funding in the next month.
During the proposal phase, Kentucky did not experience any pressure
concerning core reading programs or intervention programs. As we
described in our proposal, Kentucky has legislation that gives all
curriculum decision-making authority to school councils and explicitly
prohibits the Kentucky Department of Education from mandating
curriculum materials. However, after we started implementing Reading
First and after our first federal monitoring visit, the monitoring
team's report raised concerns about Reading Recovery and Rigby as not
being sufficiently grounded in scientific based reading research. In
the letter from Mr. Doherty accompanying our monitoring report, he did
not name the programs specifically but raised concerns. Again, we had a
conference call with Mr. Doherty, during which he suggested that our
funding might be in question if we continued to allow schools to
purchase these two programs with Reading First funds.
We asked Chris to put in writing that we could not use Reading
First funds for Reading Recovery or Rigby. Chris refused, but he did
invite us to send him a defense of the two programs. We did so, but we
never received a response from the Department.
Since the release of the recent OIG reports and the departure of
Mr. Doherty from the Department, we have received emails, letters, and
calls from new Reading First staff at the Department inviting us to
share any concerns. We have referred Department staff to the letter we
sent to Secretary Paige outlining our concerns. Also, we have requested
the names of our expert panel members and copies of their responses,
but we have not yet received that information.
In closing, I want to repeat that Reading First has been a success
in Kentucky. I am here today to give feedback to the Committee on
problems we faced in Kentucky so that these issues can be addressed.
Addressing these problems now will help ensure that Reading First will
be stronger going forward and that it will continue to make a
difference in classrooms across America.
Additional written testimony:
Preparing for this hearing gave me the opportunity to review the
responses of our expert panel sent to use from Chris Doherty and Sandi
Jacobs. In general I found the responses to be vague and not helpful,
and they led to very few substantive changes in our proposal. The
repeated rejections did lead to substantial delay in implementing our
programs. We were a full year behind in getting reading programs
implemented in our schools.
The most substantial change we made in our plan related to the
removal of our original proposed assessment and the addition of DIBELS.
The developers of DIBELS point out that the test is available for free
on the web. While this is the case, teachers have to print out the
assessment in paper version. This requires teachers to manipulate a
variety of tools at one time while at the same time listening to a
child's reading performance. In order to have DIBELS available in a
form that promotes ease of use and fast turnaround of results, teachers
need a handheld device with DIBELS software. In order to have this
version of the tests, we contract with Wireless Generation. Following
is a list of our contracts with Wireless Generation, totals that do not
include the cost of the handheld devices:
2004-2005--$244,700
2005-2006--$255,000
2006-2007--$225,000
I have been asked several times if we would switch to our original
assessment if given the opportunity. My answer is that we are now a
DIBELS state, and I would not want us to make a decision that would
cause that much change for teachers implementing this program.
I mentioned in my oral testimony that Kentucky's Reading First
schools have made gains in student achievement. Our Reading First
schools made a 15% gain on Group Reading Assessment for Diagnosis and
Evaluation (an additional assessment used in Reading First schools) in
the number of students scoring at the Kentucky benchmark from the end
of the 1st year of implementation to the end of the 2nd year. They are
also on pace to make another 10.5% gain this year from last year.
Schools have a higher percentage of students at the benchmark at every
grade level K-3.
Reading First schools made a 19% gain on DIBELS in the number of
students scoring at benchmark from the end of the 1st year of
implementation to the end of the 2nd year.
Reading First schools made better gains than the state average on
our state assessment.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much.
And thank you to all the panelists for your testimony and
again for your participation.
Mr. Higgins, as I understand it, we are currently funding
Reading First at a little over $1 billion--is that correct?--
and it has fluctuated somewhere between $900,000 and $1 billion
over the last 5 years.
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Chairman Miller. This is a very significant program within
No Child Left Behind.
Mr. Higgins. Definitely.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Higgins, looking at your final report,
in your Finding 1A, you say the department did not select an
expert review panel in compliance with the requirements of
NCLB.
You go on to point out that the law specifically described
the panel selection process and states that the secretary, in
consultation with the National Institute of Literacy, the
National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development--that people will be selected from
those panels, three people from each of those organizations--is
that correct?--and then the secretary will have selections. Is
that correct?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Chairman Miller. You go on to also point out that none of
the subpanels that were finally put together possessed adequate
representation from each of the organizations identified in the
law under No Child Left Behind. Is that correct?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Chairman Miller. You state--and if I could have Slide A--
that ``the department created a total of 16 subpanels to review
the state applications. A majority of the panels were nominated
by the department in 15 of the 16 panels, and seven of the 16
subpanels consisted entirely of department-selected
panelists.'' Is that correct?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Chairman Miller. So these panels, these 16 panels, in your
opinion, in your report, in matching them with the law, are out
of compliance?
Mr. Higgins. Correct.
Chairman Miller. So then prior to forming these subpanels,
you tell us that a department official expressed concern that
the use of the subpanels would not be in compliance with the
law.
Mr. Higgins. Correct.
Chairman Miller. And then the Office of the General Counsel
and high-level department officials, including the assistant
secretary, approved a plan for the department to create a 12-
member advisory oversight panel.
Mr. Higgins. Correct.
Chairman Miller. And, again, they were supposed to select
three individuals, almost in accordance with the law, from
NIFL, from NAS and from National Institute of Child Health and
Development. Is that correct?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Chairman Miller. And I guess this is to try to come into
compliance with the law.
Mr. Higgins. Correct.
Chairman Miller. But it is not in compliance with the law.
Mr. Higgins. No, it is not in compliance with the law
totally, but I think they thought that this would bring them
closer to being in compliance because the number of subpanels
that there were they could not do with the 12 people.
Chairman Miller. So the 16 subpanels on Slide A, in fact,
continue to be out of compliance with the law, and they are
used for the reviews that Ms. Lewis talked about. Is that
correct?
Mr. Higgins. Right, but they thought that the advisory
panel that they put that was supposed to have reviewed the
results of the subpanels would satisfy the law.
Chairman Miller. Okay. So you go on to say that the
advisory and oversight duties would include examining the
progress of the subpanels, reviewing the recommendations of the
subpanels, making final findings and recommendations for the
secretary, thus ensuring a common high level of quality and
consistency across the subpanels. That was the intent.
Mr. Higgins. That was the intent.
Chairman Miller. And you say, ``Although the assistant
secretary of OESE and the Office of General Counsel officials
agreed, the advisory and oversight panels were never created.''
Mr. Higgins. Correct.
Chairman Miller. So the panel that was supposed to cure the
original violations of the law was never, in fact, empanelled.
Mr. Higgins. Right.
Chairman Miller. So, Mr. Higgins, why all this interest in
the makeup of these panels and we essentially only end up with
your department nominees?
I am sorry. Mr. Doherty? Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. I beg your pardon, sir. I heard Mr. Higgins'
name.
Chairman Miller. Did you hear the question?
Mr. Doherty. Could you please repeat it?
Chairman Miller. Well, the question is, why do we have
these panels, contrary to the law, essentially ending up with
only department nominees as membership? And, as is pointed out
by the inspector general, we have 15 of the 16 panels with a
majority of members nominated by the department and we have a
number of panels with all members nominated by the department.
Mr. Doherty. The expert review panel process was very
complicated and very challenging.
We wanted to ensure that we had sufficient reviewers
available in the event that all states came in with their
applications at the same time. The funds were to become
available as early as July 1, 2002. The application was
released in April, and we prepared the panel so that if all
states or many states came in at the same time, we could
process that.
We modeled our review panel process on the Reading
Excellence Act, which is the closest precursor program that
exists to Reading First. We thought then and we think now that
our efforts did meet the law. We had subpanels that satisfied
the requirements of the statute, and we worked this process out
with the Office of General Counsel.
An advisory and oversight panel was suggested to us to
ensure even clearer accordance with the law. We, in fact, sent
out messages to a 12-member advisory and oversight panel, but,
in fact, we never convened that panel because we viewed it as
being necessary in the event that the subpanels did not come to
consensus.
So we certainly did not have the sense in 2002, 2003, 2004
and 2005 that we were not in accordance with the law. We really
did not.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Doherty, with all due respect, from
day one, you were out of compliance with the law by the makeup
of the panels. You made a decision not to include nominees from
the other three organizations.
Mr. Doherty. Sir, I disagree. We really had a logistics
issue, and we had nominees----
Chairman Miller. Mr. Doherty, we are talking about ethics.
So your logistics overrode the law.
Mr. Doherty. I respectfully disagree, sir.
Chairman Miller. Well, we asked you why this interest, and
noncompliance with the law is found by the inspector general,
and your answer is logistics.
Mr. Doherty. No, I was trying to give some context as to
how we put these panels together. First, we used the
structure----
Chairman Miller. The panels were out of compliance. Do you
agree to that?
Mr. Doherty. I am not sure. I----
Chairman Miller. Have you read the inspector general's
report? Have you read the law?
Mr. Doherty. Yes.
Chairman Miller. What is your answer again?
Mr. Doherty. My answer is that we thought the panel
configuration----
Chairman Miller. No, no. The question is: Were you in
compliance with the law?
Mr. Doherty. I believe that we were.
Chairman Miller. You believe that you were. Continue.
Mr. Doherty. As I say, we modeled our process after the
Reading Excellence Act. They had the same requirements to have
panels that satisfied various requirements. In our case, a
panel needed to have a psychometrician, someone familiar with
reliability and validity data. We needed to have an expert in
professional development. We needed to have someone with
classroom experience, and we had subpanels that reviewed these
things.
Chairman Miller. So, Mr. Doherty, out of a nation of 300
million people, you could not find the people for these panels.
I mean, this is like when the FDA said they could only find
people who were on retainers from conflicted interest, and then
when the law changed, they found out they could find people who
were not conflicted.
Mr. Doherty. We got----
Chairman Miller. Out of the entire education community and
all the researchers and all the people getting grants, from all
of the universities and people with all of the history, it is
only these people sitting at the table that can comply?
Mr. Doherty. The size of the original panel was over 70
people.
Chairman Miller. Yes.
Mr. Doherty. We received nominations from the agencies you
mentioned, and yet we did have more nominees from the
Department of Education for the reasons that we simply did not
have enough nominations from the other agencies to meet the
demand if all of the----
Chairman Miller. So you just went ahead and violated the
law.
Mr. Doherty. We did not think we violated the law. We
worked very closely with the Office of General Counsel in order
to satisfy the law.
Chairman Miller. We will come back to that in a moment.
Perhaps the IG has a better answer in his report when, on
page 17, he states, ``The Reading First director''--that would
be you--``took direct action to ensure that a particular
approach to reading instruction was represented on the expert
review panel. Direct Instruction is a model for teaching that
requires the use of Reading Mastery, a program published by
SRA/McGraw-Hill, to teach reading. The Reading First director
formerly served as the executive director of the Baltimore
Curriculum Project which implemented Direct Instruction in
Baltimore City Schools since 1996.
``The Reading First director personally nominated three
individuals who had significant professional connections to
Direct Instruction to serve on the expert review panel. The
Reading First director selected these selected these three
individuals to serve on a total of seven of the 16 subpanels,
and one of these individuals to serve as panel chair on five
subpanels. These three individuals were collectively involved
in reviewing a total of 23 state applications.''
And then, a subsequent response from the Reading First
director suggested his intention is to ensure a ``Direct
Instruction presence on the expert review panel: `Funny that
the Baltimore City Schools calls me to inform me that there are
some pro-Direct Instruction folks on my panel! Too rich!' he
says. The panelist then asked, `Does he know who you are? Past
and present?' The Reading First director''--that being you, Mr.
Doherty--``replied, `That is the funniest part. Yes! You know
the line from Casablanca, I am shocked, I am shocked that there
is gambling going on in this establishment? Well, I am shocked
that there are DI people on this panel.'
``Shortly before the exchange, the department employee
reported to the Reading First director that the department had
received a question from a member of the media about the panel
composition. The response by the Reading First director
suggests that he may indeed have stacked the expert review
panel. The employee stated, `The question is: Are we going to
stack the panel so that programs like Reading Recovery do not
get a fair shake?' The Reading First director''--that would be
you, Mr. Doherty--``responded, `Stack the panel? I have never
heard of such a thing.' ''
That sounds like a better answer that complies with the
facts, the laws as found by the inspector general.
Mr. Doherty. May I respond?
Chairman Miller. You certainly can.
Mr. Doherty. The suggestion that we did not screen for
conflicts of interest in the expert review panel is not
correct. It is pointed out in the IG's report that the Reading
First Program was not required to screen for conflicts of
interest, and yet we chose to screen for conflicts of interest
anyway using the strictest methods at the time which applied to
discretionary grant programs, not formula grants like Reading
First.
So, although we were not required to screen, as pointed out
by the inspector general himself, we chose to, and we worked
hand in glove with the Office of General Counsel to come up
with a screening process. We screened in accordance with the
strictest standard, and we reviewed every application when it
came in.
The standard that we used, the one that is on the books, is
direct financial involvement with a particular program. We
actively screened for that, and when every application came in,
circa 200 or more pages, we read through those applications to
make sure that no panel member who had a link with that program
would review that application.
Chairman Miller. I thank you.
Mr. Doherty. Were there people on the panels who were
familiar with Direct Instruction? Yes, there were because the
law requires subject matter expertise, and that is going to
manifest in professionals having knowledge of and some links
with programs, but not direct financial involvement, sir.
Chairman Miller. If I might respond, we understand there
obviously would be people who would be linked to these various
theories and programs, but the inspector general tells us, ``A
few days before the department publicly announced the panelists
it had chosen to serve, one of the department's nominated
panelists contacted the Reading First director and shared his
strong bias against Reading Recovery''--strong bias against
Reading Recovery--``and the strategy for responding to any
state that planned to include Reading Recovery in its
application. The Reading First director,'' Mr. Doherty,
``responded, `I really like the way you are viewing and
approaching this, not just because it matches my own approach--
I swear!'
``This individual later served as the panel chair of the
subpanel that reviewed Wisconsin's state application, and in
response to the state's plans to use Reading Recovery, he
included an 11-page negative review of Reading Recovery in his
official comments on the application.
``Around the same time, Reid Lyon''--I think he is the
president's guru on reading--``former chief of childhood
development and behavior at NICHD, advised the Reading First
director and the assistant secretary of OESE and the senior
advisor to the secretary that one of the panelists had been
actively working to undermine the National Reading Panel's
report on Reading First initiatives.
``Lyon further stated, `Chances are that other reviewers
can trump up a bias on her part.' In a written response to all
the people involved, the senior advisor said, `We cannot
uninvite her. We will just make that sure she is on a panel
with one of our barracuda types.' ''
Do you still think your panels are in compliance with the
law? Do you still think this was about evenly distributing
people who might support or believe in Direct Instruction or
any other kind and that is all you were doing, is evenly
distributing people?
Mr. Doherty. Yes, sir, I do. I note for the record that
when the 54 state applications came in, only three applications
even chose to write the names of core reading programs. So the
panels, which were screened appropriately, did not even know
the----
Chairman Miller. That is interesting. They did not know the
makeup of the panels.
Mr. Doherty. I beg your pardon?
Chairman Miller. They did not know how the panels were
created, and the question of whether they mentioned it or not
is not at issue here.
The question is: At the outset of this program, for the
panels that are supposed to screen the time and the effort of
people like Ms. Lewis in the state of Kentucky, they thought
that they were walking into a law that required evenly
distributed interests and knowledge and expertise and
experience on the part of all of the panelists. That is not
what they were talking into.
As Ms. Lewis's testimony points out, it is not all a matter
of the written record, and we will visit that in my next round
of questioning.
Mr. McKeon?
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Higgins, in your testimony, you outlined the ways in
which the department failed to follow the statute in creating
the peer review panel and subpanels. You also show that the
department might have sought to ensure that certain types of
products had advocates on those subpanels, while other types of
products did not.
If Congress took steps to grant the department explicit
authority to form subpanels but required those subpanels to
include representatives from each of the four entities
currently included in the statute and prohibited the subpanels
from being comprised of a majority of members from only one of
those entities, do you think that would help protect the
integrity of the peer review process?
Mr. Higgins. Yes, I do think that would help, but you might
also want to expand the group to more than four of the
organizations that are out there that are experts in the field.
That would be my only comment.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
You also talk about how the peer review panelists' comments
were not made available to the states.
If Congress took steps to require the department's guidance
for the peer review process to provide for publicly available
documentation to support the recommendations of the peer review
panels, do you think that would help create a more transparent
process?
Mr. Higgins. Definitely.
Mr. McKeon. One of the other suggestions that came out of
your reports was to provide opportunities to states to talk
directly with the peer review panel so the states could get a
clearer understanding of what revisions were needed in their
applications. Among other things, this would prevent department
officials from mischaracterizing or misinterpreting the
comments of the panels and thereby providing inaccurate
information back to the states.
If Congress required the department to provide states the
opportunity for direct interaction with the panels, do you
think that would create a stronger peer review process?
Mr. Higgins. Yes, I do.
Mr. McKeon. You discussed the weakness in the department's
efforts to screen for potential biases among the peer review
panelists. It is accurate, correct that the statute currently
does not require the department to screen panelists for
potential conflicts of interest?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. McKeon. If Congress amended the statute to require such
a review that included a review of panelists' financial
interests in reading products and other professional
connections to products or methodologies and included a
requirement that the conflict of interest review be designed to
prevent bias or the appearance of it, would that strengthen the
peer review process and provide it more credibility?
Mr. Higgins. Yes, it would.
Mr. McKeon. Clearly, we want to strengthen the peer review
process to ensure that these appearances of bias are avoided in
the future, and our bill, what I introduced yesterday, does
that.
But I do want to be clear on one point: In its response to
your report, the department responded that there were six
panelists who had connections to particular teaching programs.
Is that number accurate?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. McKeon. And that is six out of how many?
While they are looking at it, let me----
Mr. Higgins. Approximately 70.
Mr. McKeon. Six out of 70?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. McKeon. The department further claimed that the
inclusion of these six did not result in any, ``problematic
behavior or that any of these panelists review the state
application that included such a program.''
Did you find any evidence to support or refute this claim
by the department?
Mr. Higgins. No, we did not.
Mr. McKeon. Mr. Doherty, would you care to respond to that?
Mr. Doherty. Yes. Thank you.
From the beginning days of the program, we took conflicts
of interest very seriously, as evidenced by the fact that we
choose to do a rigorous screening for conflicts of interest,
even though we did not need to.
As I mentioned, the expert review panel members in only
three out of 54 cases even had an opportunity to see actual
program names in the application, and above and beyond that, we
screened incoming applications to make sure that no one was
presented with an application that had reference to a program
that they were involved with. The standard that we used was the
existing standard at the department, which was direct financial
interest.
As Mr. Higgins' last answer, that is also my belief, that
no members of the panel who even had a professional link with a
certain program, which was itself not the standard of the day,
was in a position to grant funds to that program. I do not
believe there were any real conflicts of interest, although I
regret any perception of conflicts of interest that may have
occurred.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins, your reports highlight a number of weaknesses
with the conflict of interest screening process within the
contracts between the department and RMC Research Corporation
and subcontracts entered into by RMC to provide technical
assistance.
If Congress included a screening process for these
situations that required a review of the potential financial
interests in and other connections to particular products for
each individual consultant hired under one of these contracts
and required the screening process to be designed to prevent
bias or the appearance of it, would that strengthen the
technical assistance process?
Mr. Higgins. Yes, it would.
Could I also correct a statement that I made before?
Mr. McKeon. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. It was not 70. It was 25.
Mr. McKeon. Six out of 25?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. That we reviewed.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Mr. Doherty. May I make an important clarification to agree
with Mr. Higgins?
My understanding is that as part of their review, the
inspector general reviewed 25 as a sample of the larger group
of about 70. So the six that were found to have this link,
which we do not perceive as a conflict of interest, was out of
the 25. That is not to say there were only 25 expert panel
members.
Thanks for letting me clarify that.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Beyond what Congress can do to address your specific
findings, Mr. Higgins, I do want to get into other aspects of
your reports.
We often hear complaints from grant applicants who think
the department--and other agencies, for that matter--include
requirements that are not perfectly defined in the statute. I
guess that is because we do not always pass perfect bills here
in Congress.
In your September 2006 report, you state that the
department included language in the application that was not
based on the statutory language, and as a result, states were
forced to meet standards that were not required by the statute.
As I read your report, these nonstatutory-based
requirements include having, ``coherent instructional design
that includes explicit instructional strategies, coordinated
instructional sequences, ample practice opportunities and
aligned student materials, protected dedicated block of time
and small group instruction as appropriate to meet student
needs with placement and movement base on ongoing assessment.''
These all sound reasonable to me, although I am not an
expert on reading instruction. Since you make a point of this
in your report, my question is: Is it your view that in order
to ask states to meet these types of conditions, Congress must
specifically put such conditions in the statute in order for
the application to be valid?''
Mr. Higgins. What we were talking about----
Mr. McKeon. Mic. Mic.
Mr. Higgins. I need the microphone.
What we were talking about was that there were specific
requirements added to the statute for the panels to be
reviewing. The requirement of requiring a 90-minute dedicated
block of reading time and the requirement to require small
groups of instruction, we believe, was designed to lock in
Direct Instruction. We also believe that conversely that to
eliminate requiring early intervention and reading----
Mr. McKeon. So you are not suggesting that we do put that
language in the statute?
Mr. Higgins. No. I am not. No.
Mr. McKeon. Mr. Doherty, would you care to respond to that?
Mr. Doherty. Yes, thank you.
From the time that No Child Left Behind was signed into
law, January 8, 2002, a great many people at the Department of
Education worked very hard and very quickly to turn that
excellent statute--and specifically, in my case, the portion
that applies to Reading First--into an application package that
states could respond to, fill out, be reviewed against, and
then be given their funds for their program.
Although I had never taken part in this exercise before, I
quickly learned that there are a number of judgment calls when
a team of people takes a guiding statute and turns it into a
much larger and much more comprehensive application package to
give to our states.
We worked in concert with the Hill on that process. We went
back and forth in rigorous discussions with both sides of the
aisle on what the application package would entail, and we
thought we faithfully and in a good manner translated--that is
probably not the right word--but we took the guiding statute
and made an application package out of it.
As far as the coherent instructional strategy of protected
dedicated block of time and small group instruction, we
thought--and think--that those components emanate directly from
the guiding research, and in no way was that designed to lock
in Direct Instruction. If I am not mistaken, Direct Instruction
today represents a very small percentage of Reading First
schools.
I do stress we did our best effort to determine an
excellent statute into an excellent application and in no way
made those decisions to lock in Direct Instruction.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Sticking with this issue, Mr. Higgins, I assume the
department's lawyers reviewed the application, made sure that
it conformed to the law. Is that accurate, and if so, do you
know why the department's lawyers signed off on the
application?
Mr. Higgins. I do not know that the general counsel did
review it, to be honest with you.
Mr. McKeon. Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. Yes. The Office of General Counsel, on a
complex a new program like this was involved in a very
collaborative and supportive way from day one and ongoing. So
we fully believe that the Office of General Counsel, along with
many other offices, approved this application.
Mr. McKeon. Mr. Doherty, I want to spend some time talking
about this influencing curriculum issue. I assume that you are
familiar with Section 9527 of the SEA and Section 103 of the
Department of Education Organization Act, both of which
prohibit the federal government from dictating local school
curriculum. How does the department define ``curriculum''?
Mr. Doherty. Actually, I cannot give a formal answer as to
how the department officially defines ``curriculum.''
Mr. McKeon. Maybe you could respond on that for the record,
if you could follow up later with that.
Mr. Doherty. Okay. I certainly will.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
What policies does the department have in place to ensure
this prohibition is not violated?
Mr. Doherty. I cannot speak authoritatively for the
department as a whole. I can say that as regards Reading First,
we from the first days felt what you might call a structural
tension between the very explicit requirement in Reading First
that all instructional materials must be based on
scientifically based research and our statutory duty to
undertake that obligation, that there is, I think, an
undeniable underlying tension between that very clear bright
line law and the sections of law that you mentioned earlier,
sir.
Mr. McKeon. Mr. Higgins, maybe I will ask you that same
question. What policies does the department have in place to
ensure that prohibition is not violated?
Mr. Higgins. Actually, we had asked the general counsel if
there was a definition of ``curriculum,'' and they told us that
there was not. So I do not think there are a lot of safeguards.
Mr. McKeon. No definition, so there is no reason----
Mr. Higgins. Exactly.
Mr. McKeon. So maybe that needs to be addressed.
How did the department's Office of General Counsel
communicate with department staff regarding these prohibitions
and the policies related to them, Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. I do not recall any particular conclusion that
the Office of General Counsel gave us as far as marching orders
other than to say we worked closely with the Office of General
Counsel, always aware that a new and different law, like
Reading First, which specifically required us to ensure that
all programs and materials were based on scientifically based
research, was something that the department needed to do by
law, and we never were told on any occasion that we were
violating either of those other sections of law that you cited.
Mr. McKeon. How many states included a specific list of
reading programs in their applications for funding?
Mr. Doherty. To the best of my recollection, three of the
54 state educational agencies mentioned core reading programs
by name in their applications to the expert review panel. The
others, sir, described the criteria with which they would go
forth and pick programs with their districts, and they were
approved based on those criteria.
Mr. McKeon. Of those three, how many were sent back for
revisions or were denied because of the programs included on
their list?
Mr. Doherty. Of the three states that cited programs? Sir,
is that your question?
Mr. McKeon. Yes.
Mr. Doherty. I do not recall how many times those three
state educational agencies had their programs reviewed, but I
do mention that there are 25 criteria which an application
needs to satisfy, and although we are focusing on programs
here, there are a great many other requirements as part of
Reading First. So it is quite possible that those states in
question might have had a round or two or three of review, and
it may or may not have had anything to do with the programs
that they cited in one part of their application.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Is my time expired, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Miller. Do you want to finish what you are asking.
Mr. McKeon. Well, I might have to submit some of these for
the record because there are more than I am sure I have time
for.
Chairman Miller. I thank the gentleman.
I am going to go ahead and start my second round of 15
minutes.
I want to advise the members of the committee I will
probably only take 5 minutes because we do have a vote on. It
is my understanding that we have nine. We have nine votes.
Some of you will have children and grandchildren before we
get back here. [Laughter.]
I am going to start and take 5 minutes, and then we will
recess for the votes. Then we will come back, I will finish,
and then Mr. McKeon gets his time.
I hate to be a stickler for the law, Mr. Doherty, but this
law, as the inspector general says a number of times, is pretty
explicit with respect to some guidelines for Reading First, and
it was written by the proponents of Reading First.
If I could look at Slide B in the guidance--and we will
come back to what the guidance was--you decide that the
guidance is fundamental, that is where you will put the law,
and you state in this e-mail that ``It has been suggested to me
that the guidance may be the most problematic place to put some
of your suggestions for increased boldness. Why? The guidance
is the official place where the state people with the closest
meaning to the law will go to see where Ed have overstepped the
law and let them say in remarks to groups or face to face in
meetings about what the review panel will or will not accept.
The opportunities for boldness and perhaps extralegal
requirements are many.''
So, according to the inspector general's report. The
guidance is going to be used to provide a written facade of
compliance with the law, but, in fact, what is going to take
place off the record is to some extent different.
The inspector general on page 15 goes on to say, ``The
assistant secretary''--Susan Newman I believe it is--``planned
for the Reading First guidance to include language that was not
in the statute and exclude language that was in the statute.
``After reviewing the revision of the department's draft on
the Reading First guidance, the assistant secretary for OESE,''
Ms. Newman ``wrote the Reading First director, `Under Reading
First plans, I would like not to say ``This must include early
intervention and reading remediation materials,'' which I think
could be read as ``reading recovery.'' Even if it is the law, I
would like it taken out.' ''
We go to the question of it being the law, twice in the
law, ``based on scientifically based reading research,
including early intervention and reading remediation materials,
programs and approaches.'' We say that twice in the law,
Section 120(d)(1) and 1203(b), and the secretary says she wants
that taken out of the law because it might let somebody capture
reading recovery, which many schools, districts, states and
others use, that somehow that might allow it to happen.
So we are back to your giving her the signal earlier on
that the opportunities for boldness and perhaps extralegal
requirements are many. And they are.
``The Reading First director illustrated this strategy by
providing the following examples in pre-reading notes
documents: Providing expanded opportunities to students.'' This
is Section F2 2(b) of the guidance. It says, ``Providing
expanded opportunities to students in kindergarten through
Grade 3 who are served by eligible local educational agencies
for receiving reading assistance from alternative providers.''
I do not know what that sentence says, but you say, ``We
make absolutely no mention of this opportunity in the
application because we do not like it and we do not want to
open the door to this, but it is in the law and it needs to be
addressed somewhere reasonably official--like the guidance--as
a best compromise.''
Then you go on to state another example. ``Are there any
required priorities for funds reserved to the states? Yes, a
state educational agency shall give priority to carrying out
the activities described in Question F2.''
You go on to say again, ``My belief is that this is a
potential back door through which some of the money could flow
to unwanted directions, and, therefore, required priorities for
funds reserved for the states element of the law is not--not--
in the application, but we do have to reflect it, as we know it
exists somewhere in the place, and that is the guidance.''
So you threw out the guidance to the states. Ms. Lewis and
others looked at this and said, ``This is the process by which
we are going to work,'' and back door on your BlackBerry, you
are undermining the integrity of the program. What was your
commitment to the law and your apology is what, that mistakes
were made, because that is kind of the mantra in the
administration?
Mr. Doherty. As the e-mail that you cited shows, I was
being pressured for not being bold enough. I was being
pressured in another e-mail that the inspector general cited
for not being bold enough. The directive that was given to me
was to take such-and-such out. I indicated, as you read, that
we were unable to do that.
Again, we worked with a team of people to decide which
parts of the statute would be reflected in application criteria
and which parts of the statute----
Chairman Miller. That pressure came from whom? You
mentioned that in your opening statement also.
Mr. Doherty. It is the woman that you mentioned.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Newman?
Mr. Doherty. Yes, sir.
Chairman Miller. The assistant secretary?
Mr. Doherty. Yes, sir.
Chairman Miller. So she was asking you to violate the law?
Mr. Doherty. Well, I was just commenting on the slide that
you put up there as far as ``I want such-and-such taken out,''
and my response, as I remember it, in that message was, you
know, ``We cannot do that. We need to address this,'' and as I
say, turning that statute into a program, into an application
and into guidance involves judgment calls as to what goes
where.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Doherty, maybe that is the way the
ethics standards in this program lapsed. You do not get to
override the law because you are turning the law into a
program.
Mr. Doherty. I did not mean to suggest that.
Chairman Miller. Agencies and departments and nonprofit
organizations and states struggle with this all the time, and
they do not just decide at some point, well, we will just
violate the law. You do not get to do that. You do not get to
do that.
In this case, as pointed out, twice in the law that
specific language is there. The department does not just get to
ignore that.
Mr. Doherty. I am sorry if I suggested that I thought we
were ignoring the law.
Chairman Miller. Well, you suggested that because of
logistics, because of the time frame, because you might get 50
applications all at one time--you have a whole litany of
reasons why you did not have to abide by the law.
Mr. Doherty. We thought then and think now that we did
abide by the law.
Chairman Miller. Okay. With that, I will reserve the
balance of time.
The committee will adjourn, and we will return promptly at
the end of the last vote. It will be a little while, so if
somebody wants to get a cup of coffee or something, feel free
to do so.
[Recess.]
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much. I apologize for the
interruption here. This was supposed to be, when we scheduled
this, a light day on the floor. It turned out to be a multiple-
vote day on the floor.
The meeting will reconvene.
Ms. Lewis, you have listened to this conversation, and the
inspector general spent some time on Kentucky. You, in your
opening statement, went through some of the difficulties you
have. I just wondered if you might have something you want to
add in light of what you have heard back and forth here.
Ms. Lewis. Well, I have been a bit curious about the panel
review process from the beginning. We asked early on in the
denials of funding to find out who was on our expert review
panel, and we were told that we could not know who was on the
panel.
As we looked at the summary of the reviews from the panel,
we often found that the information we were given was vague,
not very helpful. It would say things like, ``There are pieces
in this that are not sufficiently scientifically based,'' but
the panel review did not really give us specific information
about what it was that was problematic in terms of our
scientific basis.
I guess what I would want to say about the overall process
is when I look at our first proposal and I look at our fourth
proposal, I do not see anything really substantially different
in terms of our plan. We had really hoped to have Reading First
in our schools in the fall of 2002, which is why we really
scrambled to put together a proposal in May of 2002. Of course,
with the delays that we had, being denied three times, it put
us a year behind in implementation.
Chairman Miller. Did you have any awareness--or your team--
or when you talked to others, since a lot of states were making
application, that, in fact, the panel review had been
intercepted, if you will, that what you saw was not reflective
of the panel review? Did you assume what you were seeing was
the panel review?
Ms. Lewis. I assumed that what I saw in the comments from
the summaries from the department that they reflected the panel
reviews. As I mentioned earlier, I was given yesterday----
Chairman Miller. When did you learn there were two
versions?
Ms. Lewis. Yesterday. I was----
Chairman Miller. Mr. Higgins, that would not be unusual?
Mr. Higgins. That is what we found also.
Chairman Miller. You say in your report to us, ``While the
panel chair summaries''--I guess which were supposed to be sent
to the states, correct?--``provide constructive comments, the
impact of the expert panel review's comments on the state
revisions is uncertain because of actions taken by the
department's Reading First office. After the panel chair
submitted the panel chair summaries to the Reading First
office, the Reading First director and his assistant created
what they called expert review team reports.''
That is what you saw. Is that correct, Ms. Lewis?
Ms. Lewis. That is what I saw.
Chairman Miller. ``This was provided to the states. No
other documents reflecting the expert review panel's comments
were provided to the states. The department did not explain
this practice in the review or guidance or in the Reading First
guidance.''
So, in fact, there was a misrepresentation being made to
the states, and in your report--I do not know if this is
exhaustive or not--you cite the state of Nevada, the state of
New York and the state of Georgia where sort of back-channel,
off-the-record actions are taken and/or the information just
does not comport with the initial panel reviews.
Mr. Higgins. Right. Correct. We found that there were cases
where the comments were changed, comments were left out, and
there were additional comments added.
Chairman Miller. Is that allowed in the law? Is that
discretionary, or is it allowed?
Mr. Higgins. I would not think it would be allowed, but I
do not know if----
Chairman Miller. The panel reviews had specific duties
under the law, as I understand it. Is that correct?
Mr. Higgins. Yes, but I do not think it got that specific
about what was allowed and what was not allowed, but I
certainly----
Chairman Miller. Well, Mr. Doherty could have created this
panel and not violated the law. He could have created this----
Mr. Higgins. Yes, definitely.
Chairman Miller. He just created a fraud in terms of the
states because they--I am not asking you to comment--got a
misrepresentation of what the panels concluded or thought about
their program.
Mr. Higgins. They did not get what the panelists said.
Chairman Miller. So you had to go through, what, four
submissions? Three submissions?
Ms. Lewis. The fourth submission was funded.
Chairman Miller. Well, it is interesting because we have
the appearance again in the guidance and others of the law
being followed, but there is this off-the-books activity by Mr.
Doherty and others, and Kentucky was the recipient of some of
that activity, but, apparently, you are tougher than you look
because when you decided that you wanted him to put it in
writing, you never heard back.
Ms. Lewis. Never heard back, no.
Chairman Miller. And you were funded.
Ms. Lewis. What we asked him to put in writing was to say
that we could not use the two programs.
Chairman Miller. The inconsistency. Yes, yes.
Well, thank you very much. And, again, I am sorry that it
went like that for the state in terms of the delay and the
rest.
Excuse me one second. The inspector general--again Mr.
Higgins--cited on page 19 that the ``department intervened to
release an assessment review document without the permission of
the entity that contracted with the development.''
Again, there was a process for an assessment review
document to be created. I think this was prior even to the law,
was it not?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Chairman Miller. And that was to do what? That was to
advise the states?
Mr. Higgins. Well, it was a review of the assessments, and
what happened was that NIFL was uncomfortable with the results
of the assessment, and they were not going to approve it. Mr.
Doherty asked Mr. Kame'enui to put it on the Web site of the
University of Oregon without the permission of NIFL.
Chairman Miller. And if you wanted to see what assessment
tools had been reviewed--in theory by the department--that was
the presentation--the only place that this existed was on this
Web site, was it not?
Mr. Higgins. The University of Oregon's Web site. And NIFL
did not know it was on that.
Chairman Miller. NIFL was supposed to create this. Were
they not responsible for it?
Mr. Higgins. The assessment committee was to produce it
under contract for NIFL.
Chairman Miller. So, Mr. Kame'enui, how did you get this on
the Web site without NIFL's approval?
Mr. Kame'enui. I received an e-mail from Mr. Doherty to
post our findings from the Reading First assessment committee.
Chairman Miller. And you assumed what, that he was speaking
for the department?
Mr. Kame'enui. Yes.
Chairman Miller. And so, as far as you were concerned, this
was the official posting of these assessment tools.
Mr. Kame'enui. That is correct. I was not aware of NIFL's
involvement in the support of the Reading First assessment at
that time. That became evident later, not at the time.
Chairman Miller. But, Mr. Good, you were aware of this?
Mr. Good. I was aware of what?
Chairman Miller. The troubles with posting this? Were you
involved in the creating of the assessment committee?
Mr. Good. I was not involved in the creation of the
committee or the decision to post or not post on the Web site.
Chairman Miller. Do you sit on the assessment committee?
Mr. Good. Yes.
Chairman Miller. And the assessment committee selected a
group determined sufficient for Reading First? You looked at
29--is that right?--and you selected 24.
Mr. Good. We examined 29. Weren't there 27 that had
evidence of support?
Chairman Miller. There were seven that were directly tied
to members of the committee. Maybe that is the seven you are
thinking of.
If we can look at Slide D, then I will try to conclude
this. I do not think anybody is there. But what it points out
is that you had 29 tools subject to review, I believe, again,
18 of which were personally recommended by assessment committee
members, and then I think the remainder were taken off the list
from the Southeast Education Lab, or one of those
organizations. Then the assessment committee members then
reviewed these, and they found 24 of them sufficient for
Reading First, and we have seven of those sufficient tied
directly to assessment committee members.
Mr. Good. That sounds about accurate.
Chairman Miller. So yes. Does ``conflict of interest''
cross your mind at all when you hear that?
Mr. Good. As I say, we followed the standards of the
academy in looking at that issue of conflict of interest.
Chairman Miller. What academy?
Mr. Good. By that, I mean sort of the university world. If,
for example, we are publishing a paper, that paper would be
peer reviewed by other experts who know about it. We do not
know that peer review group, and the person who does the review
is not directly involved in the paper. So we followed really
those standards as best that we could.
Chairman Miller. What about when the people reviewing each
other's papers know one another?
Mr. Good. This is frequently the case in the university
world.
Chairman Miller. The academy may want to review it as a
potential conflict of interest.
Mr. Good. The person who has authored the paper never knows
who the reviewers are.
Chairman Miller. Yes. So you are suggesting that the
members of the assessment committee did not know one another?
Mr. Good. We knew each other, but we did not----
Chairman Miller. You did not know one another's products?
Mr. Good. And we knew each other's products. We were very
public about that. But I do not know who reviewed DIBELS on
that committee. So the specific people are blind to me, and for
their products----
Chairman Miller. I am out of time. We will have to come
back to this.
I want to yield to Mr. McKeon.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield 15 minutes to Mr. Castle, the subcommittee ranking
member.
Mr. Castle. I thank both the Chairman for holding this
hearing and the senior Republican for his interest in what we
are doing here as well.
I have read the full notebook that was prepared for us, I
have read your testimony, and I have listened to you here, and
it is hard for me to conclude anything other than the fact that
there were some conflicts of interest. There were ethical
lapses here. I do not know if they were violations of the law
or not. That is beyond my prerogative at this point. And I do
not know if some of these things happened because of political
or ideological or financial reasons or some combination of all
of the above, but it all concerns me.
But there is a certain irony to all this, and that is that
virtually all of you--and my own state of Delaware in an
opening statement which I submitted--basically praise this
program of Reading First. We hear a lot of negatives about No
Child Left Behind, but this is one program which we hear
virtually all positives.
So, hopefully, with the legislation that Mr. McKeon's
introduced which I have cosponsored, working with Mr. Miller,
we can straighten out some of these problems and put forth a
program which generally does what all of you have indicated,
which is to help the children of this country be able to read
sooner and better.
I am going to start with--this is a very dangerous
practice--a question I am going to ask all of you to answer.
So, hopefully, you can be fairly brief in your answers.
We have heard a lot today about improper procedures and
biases against certain reading programs, notably Reading
Recovery and DRA, Diagnostic Reading Assessment. On the other
hand, we know Congress's mandate to the department was to only
fund scientifically based reading programs and assessments. In
other words, the department was required to be biased against
some programs. I do not think we can fairly answer the question
whether the department was appropriately or inappropriately
biased unless we know whether the programs were scientifically
based or not.
Why was there a perception that certain programs, such as
Reading Recovery and DRA, were not scientifically based, and
were those perceptions accurate? Now some of you may feel you
cannot answer that, but I want you all to take a stab at it.
Ms. Lewis, I would like to start with you and work that
direction. Kentucky seems to have been hurt or biased against
or whatever, but you may not know the answer to that particular
question. I would be interested in your views.
Ms. Lewis. I can tell you how we tried to approach it. We
went to technical assistance sessions with the U.S. Department
of Education and the Reading First staff. As I point out in my
testimony, we went to every technical assistance session, and
one of them was on assessments.
We were trying to learn what the program staff meant when
they talked about scientifically based reading research. We
felt that it was our job to take on learning what that meant
and share that information with our schools.
We looked into all the different assessments that we were
considering using. We looked into their technical manuals. We
looked into the information about their efficacy. We did lots
of research with other states in terms of what kinds of
assessments they were using and how effective they were. We
also looked at the research on Reading Recovery.
Now sometimes when I look at scientifically based reading
research, it almost sounds like it is in the eye of the
beholder, and I am going to give you an example of this. The
department has a Web site called The What Works Clearinghouse.
Now I would assume that The What Works Clearinghouse would care
about scientifically based research programs.
There are very few programs that make it on to The What
Works Clearinghouse. Reading Recovery was just added to that
list. It is a very narrow list, and I would assume that there
are strong standards, high standards that programs would have
to match.
So my confusion about scientifically based reading research
is: How does one determine that? Is it based on real concrete
criteria, or is there room for opinions and thoughts about a
particular program?
Mr. Castle. Maybe we will get the answer.
Ms. Lewis. We did our best in applying what we understood
about scientifically based reading research.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Dr. Simmons?
Ms. Simmons. I am not familiar with the Diagnostic Reading
Assessment, the DRA, so I cannot speak to that one.
But my knowledge as a reading researcher on Reading
Recovery is based on a synthesis of research that was one in
about 5 years ago that was published in the Educational
Researcher that indicated that it was effective in some
conditions, but I cannot recall the specifics of that.
But, overall, the conclusion was that after a summary of
research and a review of that that it was not as effective as
has been documented.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Dr. Good?
Mr. Good. I have not conducted a review of Reading Recovery
or of DRA, and I have not done research on them. I am not
qualified to say that they are or are not scientifically based.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. On the issue of the Diagnostic Reading
Assessment and whether that particular assessment is valid and
reliable--and in the case of Kentucky, the DRA was put forth
for application--I can just say that from my memory four
different psychometricians, four different folks extremely well
versed and trained in determining whether assessments are valid
and reliable, across six different panels came back to the
department and said that the DRA was not valid and reliable for
the purposes that had been suggested in the states. Not being a
psychometrician myself, but requiring to have them on the
panels, we in turn took that feedback and gave it back to the
states; in one case, to Ms. Lewis in Kentucky.
As far as Reading Recovery is concerned, I do not have
anything to add to Dr. Simmons' answer.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Dr. Kame'enui?
Mr. Kame'enui. Well, I think you posed the right question
about how do we define scientifically based reading research,
and I think it is fair to say that in educational research we
have such an immature science, it is still formalizing, still
developing, as Ms. Lewis noted.
The What Works Clearinghouse, which utilizes the highest
rigorous standards--randomized control trials, quasi-
experimental trials--to look at the reading research, just
basically noted that Reading Recovery met the highest
standards.
But prior to that, I think you noted it. It is very
difficult to define scientifically based reading research. Up
to the most current review of the research, Reading Recovery,
the assessment, at least the judgment in the field, was that it
did not meet the most rigorous standards, and there were other
issues--the cost of it, the fact that it focused on individual
students as opposed to groups of students and so on.
So I think we still have a lot to learn about that.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins, I was going to skip over you because I think
it is beyond your prerogative. If you have something quickly
you want to add, I would be happy to hear it.
Mr. Higgins. No, I do not have anything to add. I do not
think our office really has the expertise.
Mr. Castle. I did not think so either, sir.
Dr. Kame'enui, you stated during the assessment committee
process, you never received guidance from the department or the
contractor regarding conflicts of interest. Did the department
or the contractor ever express any concerns about ensuring the
impartiality of the committee's report or ask you what you were
doing to ensure impartiality?
Mr. Kame'enui. No, it did not.
Mr. Castle. Let me ask Mr. Higgins then. Who has the
responsibility to ensure that the contractors address these
conflicts?
Mr. Higgins. Well, I think the department had a
responsibility in its oversight capacity, but I do believe that
this was contract with NIFL. Are you specifically talking about
the RLAs?
Mr. Castle. Actually, I was asking more generally than
that.
Mr. Higgins. Well, I think the department has a
responsibility to monitor it.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Dr. Simmons, the inspector general's report highlighted
your role in working with Maryland to develop their list of
core reading programs. Could you tell us about that process and
how you came to be involved in it, and were you then connected
in any way to any of the programs ultimately chosen by
Maryland, particularly Reading Mastery?
Ms. Simmons. I was actually surprised when I was reading
the inspector general's report to see my name mentioned because
I honestly had no recollection of that involvement. I do not
have the e-mail documents that were referenced in that report,
so I do not recall making recommendations to Maryland.
However, if I did, I was referring Maryland to the Oregon
review of programs, and the Oregon Reading First Center
conducted a review of core reading programs that included
conflicts of interest and no one associated with the program
was involved in that review.
And, no, I have no affiliation with Reading Mastery.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Let me ask this question, I think, of Mr. Doherty. From
what we have heard, schools need a database system to go with
DIBELS for the purpose of scoring the assessment and reporting
the data. To what degree are you involved with the DIBELS
database system operated out of the University of Oregon and
how much are schools charged for that service and where does
that revenue go?
Actually, I am going to ask that question to several
people.
Mr. Doherty. Do you want me to start, sir?
Mr. Castle. Well, you can start, yes.
Mr. Doherty. Okay. If the first part of the question is
whether I have any personal or professional connection to
DIBELS itself, I do not. I do not now, and I never have in the
past.
For the rest, well, there are DIBELS experts on either side
of me, but my understanding is that DIBELS, because you asked
about the cost, I think, is free to those who want to use it
and download it from the Web.
Mr. Castle. Yes. Well, that is true, but there are also
explanations of why that is complicated and why you need to
subscribe rather than download it from the Web from reading the
background on it.
Mr. Doherty. I defer to those who created DIBELS for a much
better answer.
Mr. Castle. Let me go to Dr. Kame'enui then, if I may, on
that question.
Mr. Kame'enui. Yes. My involvement with DIBELS is not as an
author, not as a creator. At the time, I was director of the
Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement, which
is a research entity at the University of Oregon, and we
developed, with support from the university, the database
system that supports DIBELS.
As a result, schools can get access to that data system,
use the data system. They can input children's data from DIBELS
and get reports back in about 30 seconds. The charge for the
service of that is $1 per kid per year, primarily for the use
of that data system.
The revenues go to the university. I do not profit from the
data system at all, and because DIBELS is a unique and
innovative kind of assessment tool, it takes about a minute to
use to assess and evaluate a child's reading performance on
different types of reading skills.
So schools are attracted to it because they can use it in a
minute, get access to results in about a minute and a half from
the data system and then use that information to make timely
decisions about instruction that is required for children.
Mr. Castle. Dr. Good, your involvement with DIBELS?
Mr. Good. Thank you.
I have been involved with DIBELS data system from its
inception. In fact, the prototype version of it was run by
myself on my computer with research partners.
We have, with DIBELS, made public all of the decision rules
and all of the procedures, and there is nothing unique about
DIBELS data system in creating those reports or using those
decision rules. In fact, we do strongly recommend a database to
use with DIBELS, but there are very many different options of
database that are available.
There is the AIMSweb data system which uses that
information from our reports to report on DIBELS. There is the
PMRN data system from Florida. There is the First Track----
Mr. Castle. I do not mean to cut you off, but I am going to
move on, if I can, because I need to go through some other
questions. Please sum up quickly.
Mr. Good. Okay. And also many school districts create their
own data system using those public decision rules. So there are
lots of choices. DIBELS data system is only one.
Mr. Castle. Dr. Simmons, what is your DIBELS involvement,
if any?
Ms. Simmons. I am not an author of DIBELS, and like Dr.
Kame'enui, I was at the University of Oregon at the time. Any
revenues that were created by schools' choice to use the data
system were always returned for the analysis and reports that
were sent back to schools, and I made no profit from that.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Let me ask you a follow-up question, Dr. Good. The Reading
Leadership Academies have attracted a great deal of attention,
as we know. The inspector general found that DIBELS may have
inappropriately endorsed at those academies.
What role did you play at those academies? Did you ever
speak with your faculty colleagues or people at the department
about having a role at the academies or how you could
disseminate information about DIBELS through those academies?
Mr. Good. I participated in the development of the
assessment module for the academy and presented that module, I
think in Washington and in San Francisco. That presentation was
vetted. I turned over that presentation to Department of Ed,
and they reviewed it and the contents, gave feedback. I
modified consistent with that and made that presentation.
Mr. Castle. My time is up, I think. May I ask one more
question, Mr. Chairman?
One very last question to Mr. Doherty on DIBELS, and it
relates to sort of where your testimony began. The assessment
committee gave its stamp of approval to 24 different
assessments. Why is it that DIBELS has faired so well in these
stamps of approval?
Mr. Good. I----
Mr. Castle. Actually, that is to Mr. Doherty.
Mr. Doherty. My take on why DIBELS has faired so well has
to do with the fact that, like the law itself, DIBELS looks at
the things that are important to assess as the five components
of reading--phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension
and vocabulary--and it had assessments for K, 1, 2 and 3.
So when the states were presented with the rather daunting
task of needing to have valid and reliable assessments for all
five components in four grades, they were really scrambling,
and DIBELS looked at the reading assessment world in a similar
manner, and it was ready to go.
Second, there was another program that is highly regarded,
the Texas Primary Reading Inventory. At the time the law came
about, TPRI, as it is known, did not have its third-grade
portion completed. So, when states chose to go with DIBELS,
they essentially got a lot of the assessment burden covered by
that one instrument.
And lastly, although I understand that there is a $1-per-
kid-per-year fee for the database service, it is also my
understanding that it is free if you want it without the
database service, and, frankly, I think that that also made it
very attractive to states who are always trying to maximize
their use of funds for something that seemed to fit so well and
was free to them.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Without objection, I am going to ask for
10 additional minutes just to follow up on that point, and I
probably will not use all of my own time. With no objection.
Thank you.
Like a lot of questions, there is more than one answer. Mr.
Doherty has one answer, and the inspector general has another,
and in this case, the answer to Mr. Castle's question, in
Finding 2, the inspector general says that the ``secretary's
Reading Leadership Academy handbook and guidebook appeared to
promote DIBELS.'' I am shorthanding, skills assessment test.
``The Reading First statute required the use of screening
diagnostics, and we found the department appeared to promote by
including articles featured in the handbook and the
guidebook.''
Mr. Inspector General, Mr. Higgins, this was the only
article that was included in the guidebooks and the handbooks
that were handed out to the states and at these training
sessions. Is that correct? This 29-page article was the only
one that was included on DIBELS?
Mr. Higgins. Correct. On both the handbook and the
guidebook.
Chairman Miller. So DIBELS was approved by that original
committee where they are reviewing one another's products
before the law was passed where there were 29 products, 24 were
found sufficient and seven were linked to the members of the
committee who knew they were reviewing one another's works.
Mr. Higgins. Right.
Chairman Miller. And then on the assessment committees, we
have Mr. Kame'enui--is that right?--Ms. Simmons, Mr. Good, who
are on those committees. Is that correct? And Mr. Kame'enui's
school is getting royalties from DIBELS, Mr. Good is getting
royalties from DIBELS, and Ms. Simmons is getting royalties
from DIBELS, correct? You are not getting----
Ms. Simmons. No. There were no royalties from DIBELS. The
dollars for the services went back to the University of Oregon.
Chairman Miller. But in your publishing with Mr. Kame'enui
where you have DIBELS included in your textbook, I guess, I
would say you are publishing now with DIBELS in your product.
Is that correct?
Ms. Simmons. I am not aware of that.
Chairman Miller. It is not a part of--what is the textbook
that you put together with Mr. Kame'enui? What is the name of
it?
Ms. Simmons. The intervention program?
Chairman Miller. Yes.
Ms. Simmons. It is called the Early Reading Intervention
Program.
Chairman Miller. And that is packaged with DIBELS. Is that
correct?
Ms. Simmons. It is not.
Chairman Miller. It is not packaged with DIBELS.
Ms. Simmons. No.
Chairman Miller. Is that right, Mr. Kame'enui?
Mr. Kame'enui. I do not think it is, sir, but I have been
away from the University of Oregon and from the publishing
world for about 3 years. So, at the time, it was not.
Chairman Miller. This is the product by Scott Foresman?
Mr. Kame'enui. The Early Reading Intervention is published
by Pearson/Scott Foresman. That is right.
Chairman Miller. And this is Early Reading Intervention. Is
that the product?
Ms. Simmons. That is the kindergarten intervention, yes.
Chairman Miller. Yes. And you were negotiating with Scott
Foresman while you were on the committee?
Ms. Simmons. While I was on the assessment committee?
Chairman Miller. Yes.
Ms. Simmons. I was working with Scott Foresman, yes, but
not on anything related to DIBELS.
Chairman Miller. Well, you were working on Early Reading
Intervention, which is published with DIBELS.
Ms. Simmons. No, sir. Early Reading Intervention does not
have DIBELS.
Chairman Miller. Well, I may be wrong, but that is the
publisher.
Ms. Simmons. The Early Reading Intervention does not have
DIBELS. You may be speaking of the Scott Foresman program which
was published in 2006 that I am now an author of.
Chairman Miller. Which is what?
Ms. Simmons. It is a reading program that was published in
2006 that is a kindergarten through Grade 3 reading program.
Chairman Miller. What is the name of it?
Ms. Simmons. It is Scott Foresman. The name of it is
Reading Street.
Chairman Miller. Okay.
Ms. Simmons. Yes. It was published in 2006.
Chairman Miller. So you were negotiating with Scott
Foresman when you were on the assessment committee?
Ms. Simmons. No, sir. Not about that.
Chairman Miller. Not about that?
Ms. Simmons. No.
Chairman Miller. So you are receiving no royalties from
DIBELS?
Ms. Simmons. No, sir.
Chairman Miller. But, Mr. Kame'enui, are you?
Mr. Kame'enui. I do not receive any royalties from DIBELS.
Chairman Miller. The center does?
Mr. Kame'enui. I am sorry.
Chairman Miller. Does the center at Oregon?
Mr. Kame'enui. The center receives support from the
university to continue to support the database system.
Chairman Miller. And, Mr. Good, you do. You receive
royalties. Is that correct?
Mr. Good. Yes. I am with Dynamic Measurement Group, and
Dynamic Measurement Group is paid royalty fees from Sopris West
for the published version of DIBELS.
Chairman Miller. Which you benefit from.
Mr. Good. I do not benefit directly from those fees. Those
fees are held in trust, and we spend them on sort of
redevelopment of DIBELS, research on DIBELS. Those fees do not
go directly to----
Chairman Miller. And that is the organization you work for.
Mr. Good. But they do go to the organization I work for,
correct.
Chairman Miller. So you work for what? What is it called?
Mr. Good. Dynamic Measurement Group. It is DMG.
Chairman Miller. Do you work for them?
Mr. Good. Yes.
Chairman Miller. Are you a shareholder?
Mr. Good. Yes, I am a 50 percent shareholder.
Chairman Miller. Oh, I like to work for those kind of
companies.
Well, maybe that adds something to the question of why
DIBELS is so pervasive across this Reading First Program. When
we see the extent to which through almost every step that was
critical to the states making decisions, we either have a
conflict of interest or we see where the individuals
responsible for running the program simply decided not to obey
the law, and it has led to this situation.
With that, I would like to yield to Mr. Yarmuth. Is he
here?
How much money comes into DMG from DIBELS?
Mr. Good. Actually, I might have to pull that out.
Chairman Miller. While you are looking for that
information, Mr. Yarmuth is here.
Mr. Yarmuth, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It gives me particular pleasure to welcome Ms. Lewis, a
constituent of mine and someone who has worked very diligently
to improve education in our state.
Ms. Lewis, when you heard Mr. Doherty talking about the
types of things that they considered in applications and the
emphasis on criteria and the mention that there was never a
need to mention individual program providers, what was your
reaction to that? Did that seem consistent with your
experience?
Ms. Lewis. It is consistent with our experience in terms of
reading programs, and it is true that we did not name any
reading programs or any intervention programs in our proposal.
We did, however, name the assessments. Again, this has been
awhile, but I do not know why we would have named the
assessments, had we not been required to do so.
We felt that we had legislative cover, so to speak, in
terms of not listing core reading instructional programs, but
we did not feel that we had any kind of opt-out situation in
terms of the assessments. We went to all the technical
assistance workshops. We went to the ones on assessments. We
put together what we felt was required, and we did name the
assessment programs in our proposal.
Mr. Yarmuth. And to reinforce and to clarify what you had
said earlier, you made three applications which were rejected
and then a fourth that was accepted, and you said that there
was nothing substantially different from the first one to the
fourth one. What about from the third one to the fourth one?
Ms. Lewis. In the third one, we did include DIBELS. That is
when we started the inclusion of DIBELS in that process. And
then in the fourth one, we removed DRA. Those were our big
changes in terms of our proposal.
Mr. Yarmuth. And in terms of the criteria and all the other
factors related to the Reading First Program in Kentucky, those
were the only two significant changes.
Ms. Lewis. We had questions along the way about our
professional development plans. We were guided by our technical
assistance team from RMC to name particular individuals from
particular universities. In fact, we were encouraged to include
presenters in our professional development from the University
of Oregon and from Texas.
At first, in our first couple of proposals, we were trying
to make the argument that we have many people in Kentucky that
meet the criteria that were stated for the professional
development providers in terms of their experience with
scientifically based reading research.
If you look at our last proposal, I believe we did add
information that we would contact other individuals, and, in
fact, when I got the reviewer notes from yesterday, the
reviewers were quite happy to see that we had named particular
individuals from those particular universities.
Mr. Yarmuth. So is it safe to say that, in your opinion,
the pivotal factor in the ultimate acceptance of your proposal
was the fact that you had included DIBELS and dropped DRA?
Ms. Lewis. Yes.
Mr. Yarmuth. And that was the only significant factor?
Ms. Lewis. Yes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you.
Mr. Doherty, we have talked today a lot about conflicts of
interest concerning the screening panel. Can you tell me
whether you had any conflicts of interest in this process at
all?
Mr. Doherty. In this process?
Mr. Yarmuth. Yes.
Mr. Doherty. My wife is a part-time consultant for an
organization that is involved with Direct Instruction, and I
made the department aware of that. She has never worked in a
Reading First school. She only works part-time in Baltimore,
Maryland. So, in my opinion, I did not have and do not have now
any conflicts of interest.
Mr. Yarmuth. But isn't it true that in 2002 you listed her
in terms of the required conflict of interest disclosure
because she had received income above a certain threshold from
DI?
Mr. Doherty. That is correct. I did fill out paperwork that
indicated my wife's employer and how much she made.
Mr. Yarmuth. But you did not include that in subsequent
years. Was there a change in the situation?
Mr. Doherty. There was no change in the situation. The
subsequent years was an oversight on my part, but in no way
changed the fact that I had declared my wife and her part-time
employment and had an official memo on the file to that effect.
Mr. Yarmuth. Looking back over this whole process, Mr.
Doherty, is there anything that after listening to the
discussion today that you would have done differently, that we
should take as instruction as to what we should do differently
in terms of a person in your position in the process that you
supervised?
Mr. Doherty. Yes. I think that, although we endeavored from
the first days to follow the conflicts of interest protocols
and worked with the Office of General Counsel to do so, we
obviously did not do a very good job of keeping the perception
of conflicts of interest from taking root and, frankly, dogging
the program from the beginning.
So I think it is very clear that we and I did not do the
kind of job we wanted to, although we endeavored to do so and
followed the rules as they were written.
But your point is well made. I definitely think to keep
these kinds of impressions from dogging a very successful
program, we should change and improve our procedures, yes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Will the gentleman yield? Will the
gentleman yield?
Mr. Yarmuth. I will yield.
Chairman Miller. In response to this question, you filled
out the form about your wife's employment on the advice of the
general counsel. Is that correct?
Mr. Doherty. Yes. When I originally filled out the form and
sent it in, shortly thereafter, I was contacted by the Office
of General Counsel and asked, ``Do you have any spousal
employment?'' and I said, ``Yes, I do.'' They said, ``Well, you
need to add that to the form.'' I verbally over the phone with
this person talked about my wife's employment. It was added----
Chairman Miller. This is an annual form? This is a
department form?
Mr. Doherty. It is an annual form.
Chairman Miller. So then you did not fill it out after
that?
Mr. Doherty. To the best of my recollection, 15 months
after this conversation with the Office of General Counsel, I
filled out the next form, and I proceeded to make the same
innocent mistake that I had made on the first one, which is to
very carefully list my mutual funds and other things, and I----
Chairman Miller. So, after you were advised by the general
counsel, you made an innocent mistake again to not list it?
Mr. Doherty. That is correct. It was an oversight on my
part.
Chairman Miller. You are looking at people here that have
to fill these forms out every year. I mean, it is just amazing,
your image of the law.
Mr. McKeon?
Mr. McKeon. Mr. Castle? Five minutes for Mr. Castle.
Mr. Castle. Well, thank you, Mr. McKeon.
To Dr. Good, you mentioned that DIBELS is available for
free on the Internet or could be bought through Sopris West.
How do you say it? Sopris West? And since it is available for
free, why would schools pay for it at all through Sopris West?
Mr. Good. I do not have exact numbers of the numbers of
schools who are using DIBELS because it is freely downloaded. A
lot of people do it, and we do not have a record of it.
Mr. Castle. Do you know how many are paying for it?
Mr. Good. I have too many papers going around, but, for
last year, there were about 800,000 students who had been
tested with DIBELS using a paid version of it. I think we are
tracking probably close to about three millions students now in
DIBELS data system. I think there is probably at least another
800,000 in PMRN and other data systems. So I think maybe a
third to one-quarter are using a published version as opposed
to a freely downloaded version. It is a very rough kind of
guestimate of it.
Mr. Castle. When schools use DIBELS, they must also find a
way to collect and report the data. I am told that you are
involved with a company called Wireless Generation that
provides those services. Is that correct?
Mr. Good. Yes. Wireless----
Mr. Castle. And if so, what is the nature of that
relationship?
Mr. Good. I am not sure of our initial date for working
with Wireless Generation, I would have to look that up, but we
have a contract, an alliance agreement, with Wireless
Generation.
Mr. Castle. You say we. Who is we?
Mr. Good. Dynamic Measurement Group. Dynamic Measurement
Group has a relationship with Wireless Generation.
Mr. Castle. And there an economic part of that contract?
Mr. Good. Yes, there is.
Mr. Castle. And can you explain briefly how that works?
Mr. Good. Wireless Generation makes a payment to the
Dynamic Measurement Group of 40 cents per child that they are
doing as an alliance payment.
Mr. Castle. Okay. What steps did you take to avoid any
conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts? That has
been a major underlying theme here. Did the Western Technical
Assistance Center, the RMC Research Corporation or the
department ever request formal disclosures from you or
otherwise screen your involvement for conflicts of interest?
Did the university require you to disclose conflicts of
interest before being hired by their center?
Mr. Good. No.
Mr. Castle. No to all of the above?
Mr. Good. No to all of the above. I have always been public
about my role in DIBELS and involvement in DIBELS throughout
all of these steps. I have not been particularly concerned
about a conflict of interest in that regard in part because I
have been very public about my role in DIBELS, but also in part
because we have offered the assessment for free on the
Internet, and we have always done so, and we are committed to
continuing to do so.
Mr. Castle. This is just a comment. There seems to be sort
of a loose interpretation of these conflicts or a difference
between government agents, employees and academics in this
field based on some of the best language I have heard here
today.
Let me turn to a question for Dr. Simmons and Dr.
Kame'enui.
Dr. Simmons, you mentioned in your written statement a
document you co-authorized with Dr. Kame'enui called ``A
Consumer's Guide to Evaluating Core Reading Programs, Grades K-
3.'' That document has received significant attention, and the
inspector general highlighted a few cases where states were
referred to in this document.
How is it that this document came to be viewed as the
Reading First document containing a federally approved list of
programs? Did you or anyone else that you are aware of ever use
their involvement in Reading First to push this guide into
programs included in it?
I will ask both of you that question.
Ms. Simmons. The Consumer's Guide was a document that was
created and published in 2000, and it was created to help
schools identify criteria that are important in a research
phase that should be part of reading programs. It was never
developed for Reading First.
I remember being asked by a colleague at the University of
Oregon if we had any tools that could help evaluate reading
programs, and I reminded him of the Consumer's Guide, and I had
no idea it was going to be used in Reading First, and I never
encouraged or asked it to be used as a Reading First document.
Mr. Castle. Dr. Kame'enui, can you shed any further light
on that issue?
Mr. Kame'enui. I do not think I can. I think Dr. Simmons is
right. This is a development. This is an instrument, a tool, an
evaluation tool that we developed at a center that we had from
1991 to 2002. We did a lot of work with publishers at the time.
We created this tool, and it was adopted by Reading First
Program. It is probably one of the few tools available to
evaluate reading programs, and there is no proprietary interest
or profit from that particular tool.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Kildee?
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Inspector General, aside from a possible referral to the
Department of Justice and in addition to your responses to Mr.
McKeon on possible changes in No Child Left Behind, do you have
other ideas where we could change No Child Left Behind that
would minimize these problems?
Mr. Higgins. Not at this time. All of the recommendations
that we have are in our reports.
Mr. Kildee. Is there any thought of referring some of these
matters to the Department of Justice?
Mr. Higgins. We have referred some of these matters to the
Department of Justice.
Mr. Kildee. You have referred some?
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. Kildee. So some of these matters are before the
Department of Justice at this time.
Mr. Higgins. Yes.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you very much.
Inspector General, Mr. Doherty has testified that the
inspector general's findings of mismanagement were a foregone
conclusion. Your office has spent a great deal of time on this
matter, putting out six or seven reports.
Can you comment on Mr. Doherty's suggestion that your
office did not conduct an impartial investigation?
Mr. Higgins. Well, I do not agree with him. We have
safeguards in place. We have standards that we have to follow.
I just do not agree with it. May I also point out that the
department agreed with our reports?
Mr. Kildee. The department did agree with your reports.
Mr. Higgins. They also adopted all of our recommendations
and have acted swiftly to put most of them in place already.
Mr. Kildee. Okay. So they, in a sense, validated your
report then.
Mr. Higgins. Well, that is my position, yes.
Mr. Kildee. Okay. Do you use the same basic standards that
you always use as inspector general when you are investigating
this area?
Mr. Higgins. No. We use standards put out by the General
Accounting Office for the audits, and we use standards put out
by the president's Council on Efficiency and Effectiveness for
the inspections, with the one inspection.
Mr. Kildee. Mr. Doherty, did you voluntarily resign from
the department, or were you asked to resign?
Mr. Doherty. I would say it was strongly suggested to me
that I ought to resign.
Mr. Kildee. All right. Who else resigned at that time, and
did they resign voluntarily or were they strongly suggested to
terminate their employment?
Mr. Doherty. Sir, is your question who else voluntarily
resigned at the time?
Mr. Kildee. Yes. At the time.
Mr. Doherty. At the time that I did?
Mr. Kildee. Yes, yes.
Mr. Doherty. I do not recall anyone resigning along with me
at about the same time, sir.
Mr. Kildee. Not Assistant Secretary Newman?
Mr. Doherty. No, sir. She left the department in January of
2003 or December of 2002, as best as I can recall.
Mr. Kildee. Okay. So, when these matters broke, you were
strongly suggested, as you put, that you terminate your
employment?
Mr. Doherty. Yes, sir, that is the impression that I got,
that it was suggested to me that I resign or else I might be
fired.
Mr. Kildee. I thank you.
And I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McKeon. I yield 5 minutes to Mr. Castle.
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. McKeon.
Ms. Lewis, let me go back to you. Let me, first of all you,
thank you for being here. You have had a great deal of
influence, I think, in our thinking here, and I am glad to hear
that Reading First really has had a positive impact on your
state in spite of some of the problems we have heard today. I
keep hearing that throughout all this testimony. I think all of
us are troubled by your experiences.
You mentioned this, so I am not sure I understood where we
are with this. Did you ever receive any feedback as to why DRA
was not viewed as an acceptable assessment by the peer review
team or the department?
Ms. Lewis. No. In the summaries that were sent to us by
department staff, it was simply stated that DRA was not
sufficiently valid and reliable, but there was no explanation
as to why.
Mr. Castle. Okay. Thank you.
To you again, Ms. Lewis, if Congress created a more
transparent peer review process that provided states the
opportunity for direct interaction with the peer reviewers, do
you think that would help prevent any repeats of what you and
perhaps others have experienced?
Ms. Lewis. Yes. I think that we would have heard what the
concerns were. We would have been able to get greater detail
about their concerns and their guidance. But as it was in many
cases, we were simply guessing about what the problems were.
But I think had we been able to communicate with the panelists,
we would have had a greater understanding and been able to make
the changes we needed to make.
Mr. Castle. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins, let me go to you finally. I know you have made
in your reports a lot of suggestions. I also know the
department either willingly or begrudgingly has agreed to many
of the suggestions which you have made. Do you have any other
suggestions or anything else you want to highlight that should
be done?
As you know, Mr. McKeon has introduced legislation. I think
all of us on this committee want to resolve this problem. We
believe in Reading First, but we believe in running these
programs correctly, and I was just wondering if you have
anything you want to feature or anything beyond anything you
have already said that you want to bring up to us.
Mr. Higgins. Not at this time, but I would like the
opportunity to think about it and follow up.
Mr. Castle. Okay. You can submit further testimony in
writing, and we can certainly submit a question to you.
Mr. Higgins. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Castle. I would be personally very interested in
hearing that myself. I think it is important.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doherty, I was intrigued when you said you were not
required to screen for conflicts of interest because it was not
specifically mentioned in the law. Do we need to put that in
the law? I mean, most people would think that that would be
just kind of perfunctory that you had checked for conflicts of
interest? People with conflicts of interest just would not be
qualified to serve on these committees. Is that optional?
Mr. Doherty. I agree with you that most people would assume
that conflicts of interest screening would be done, and that is
why we did it with Reading First, even though it was not
required. I think perhaps making it required would be a good
change, yes.
Mr. Scott. Well, some of us would think it would be so
inherently expected that we would not have to put it in
writing, but with some I guess it may be so.
You have indicated that these panels complied with the law.
Was it your understanding that the law required these panels to
have balanced representation from four sources--the Department
of Education, National Institute for Literacy, National
Research Council, the National Academy of Science and the
National Institute for Child Health and Human Development? Is
that your understanding, that the law required these panels to
have balanced representation?
Mr. Doherty. My understanding of the law was that those
four agencies must all nominate individuals to the panel.
Mr. Scott. The law did not require the panels to be
balanced?
Mr. Doherty. Off the top of my head, sir, I do not know
whether that word was part of the statute, but I do know that
all agencies needed to nominate members. We got nominees----
Mr. Scott. Based on what when you read the law, you thought
you were in compliance?
Mr. Doherty. Yes.
Mr. Scott. We have talked about conflicts of interest, and
we asked Dr. Good how much money he was receiving.
Mr. Higgins, did you go through to find out how much money
was being generated by these decisions?
Mr. Higgins. No, we did not.
Mr. Scott. How much money the University of Oregon was
getting when they apparently had an interest?
Mr. Higgins. No, we did not look into the financial aspects
of this.
Mr. Scott. Did you look to see if anyone was getting
campaign contributions as a result of any of these decisions?
Mr. Higgins. No, we did not.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Doherty, how much money was involved in
these decisions and was anyone getting campaign contributions
as a result?
Mr. Doherty. I am sorry. How much money was involved in
which decision, sir?
Mr. Scott. Well, if you are helping one organization,
DIBELS, did the University of Oregon get some money and another
partnership was getting some money? How much money are we
talking about?
Mr. Doherty. Like the others, I have never heard and do not
have a sense of how much money is involved in these particular
decisions, and I do not know of any campaign contributions.
Mr. Scott. Does anybody on the panel know of any campaign
contributions that were affected or potentially affected or
people giving money that might have influenced any of the
decisions?
Ms. Lewis, did I understand your testimony to say that you
did not see any substantive difference between your application
when it did not have DIBELS as the sole provider and when it
did have DIBELS as the sole provider? There was not any other
substantive difference?
Ms. Lewis. We do have other assessments in our proposal.
Mr. Scott. Did that seem to make the difference? Was there
any other substantive difference where they could have
legitimately turned down the first couple of applications and
approved the fourth, other than----
Ms. Lewis. We felt we were ready to roll in May of 2002 and
go forward with implementing Reading First in our schools.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Higgins, if someone is inappropriately
denied, is there any remedy?
Mr. Higgins. Well, I guess there would be appeal to the
secretary. You mean a district was----
Mr. Scott. Well, after the fact. I mean, didn't Kentucky
lose a year of funding?
Mr. Higgins. I do not know that there is any remedy.
Mr. Scott. Not yet.
Mr. Higgins. Correct.
Mr. Scott. And, Mr. Higgins, can you indicate whether or
not the Department of Education has changed its policy to
prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future?
Mr. Higgins. Well, like I said previously, we made a series
of recommendations. They very quickly accepted them, and we
have seen them take a lot of the actions already. We have not
evaluated the actions yet, and we plan to follow up on that.
Mr. Scott. Have they taken action to avoid conflicts of
interest in the future? Are you aware of anything?
Mr. Higgins. Specifically, I do not know on that one.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Hare?
Mr. Hare. Mr. Doherty, I am deeply troubled by a couple of
the e-mails that you sent.
I wonder if we could put Slide E up.
In this, it says, ``We want to beat the `expletive deleted'
out of them in a way that will stand up to any level of legal
and whole language apologist scrutiny, hit them over and over
with the definitive evidence that they are not SBRR, never have
been and never will be. They are trying to crash our party, and
we need to beat the `expletive deleted' 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 dirt bags.''
My two questions are: Could you tell the committee who are
the party crashers and the dirt bags are?
Mr. Doherty. First, please allow me to say that I deeply
regret the coarse language I used in that e-mail. It was
written to a close colleague, and it was unprofessional, and I
deeply regret it.
When I referred, regrettably, to the crashing of the party,
the party I was referring to was the statutorily required fact
that only scientifically based instructional materials could be
funded by Reading First.
So, in this regrettable image that I have created, we were
trying to energetically enforce that law and keep programs that
were not aligned with research from getting into the program
where we feel the program would have been watered down and
would have become like so many other programs.
We feel the program has been successful because of our
energetic implementation of this good law.
Mr. Hare. Well, I would concur that I think your e-mail
really went over the line.
If I could maybe have Slide C up for the other e-mail,
please.
It says, ``This confidential update comes after a direct
call I made to Maryland after a suggestion from Silbert. This
clarification represents a marked shift from their earlier
comments and, although not settled completely yet, bodes well
for DI in Baltimore. Who knows Michael Coyne, the assistant
professor at the University of Connecticut? Well, we need to
ensure that when Maryland does do its application of Consumer
Guide that Reading Mastery, a DI reading program published by
McGraw-Hill, is not relegated to supplemental status, which
would be horrible for so many schools in Baltimore.''
My two questions to you, Mr. Doherty, are: Who is Mr.
Carnine and who is Mr. Silbert, and why were they getting
updated from you, and why should they be involved in this whole
selection process by Maryland?
And my second part to that question, it is my understanding
that prior to working at Reading First, you were the executive
director of Baltimore Curriculum Project which implemented
Direct Instruction beginning in 1996. So can you explain what
Direct Instruction is and why you are advocating for Reading
Mastery, a Direct Instruction project?
Mr. Doherty. Yes. First, Mr. Carnine and Mr. Silbert are
affiliated with the University of Oregon and also affiliated
with the Direct Instruction Program which is a family of
different programs of which Reading Mastery is one.
That particular e-mail came after the state of Maryland, as
I recall from 2002 or 2003, had decided that Reading Mastery
was one of their scientifically based programs. They were
entering a follow-on decision as to whether that scientifically
based program was a core comprehensive program or a
supplemental program.
In my experience with Direct Instruction, it is a core
comprehensive program and I did send, you know, that e-mail in
order to help ensure that a program that the state of Maryland
had already chosen would be reviewed so as to classify it
correctly.
Mr. Hare. So you do not have any problem with the e-mail
then?
Mr. Doherty. Certainly now, as I look back at this e-mail
and what has ensued, I certainly wish I had not sent that e-
mail, but I did not think then and do not think now that I was
pushing this program on Maryland because they had already made
their decision to include Reading Mastery. As I say, they were
making a follow-on decision as to whether this program was a
core comprehensive program or a supplemental program.
Chairman Miller. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Hare. Yes, I certainly would.
Chairman Miller. I am using your time.
But it is just kind of interesting in response to your
question, the one law you decided to strictly enforce was the
law you could use to keep party crashers from participating in
this process.
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Hare. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Shea-Porter?
Oh, excuse me, Lynn. I did not know you came back.
Ms. Woolsey. You can go ahead.
Chairman Miller. Okay.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Thank you, Congresswoman.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have to say, first of all, Mr. Doherty, that I am very,
very concerned about the tone of paternalism and heavy-
handedness that comes from you. And I am concerned because,
being familiar with education myself and knowing how states
sometimes view the federal government and the Department of
Education, this reflects very poorly on the department because
it does look as if everything was orchestrated from the
department, but, apparently, it was orchestrated in large
measure by you, and I am deeply disturbed by this.
What we have been able to do with federal funds is improve
children's ability to read, and we do not want the American
public to lose confidence in this, and by doing something like
this, they do lose confidence. They wonder if they are fully
represented. You have had complaints from other programs that
thought it was a fair, level playing field, and it was not, and
I find that very, very disturbing.
My questions are for Mr. Good, though.
Dr. Good, your written statement for the record highlights
many years of research on DIBELS, and I am assuming that
federal grant funds may have been involved at some point during
your research. If so, can you tell me how much and what it was
used for?
Mr. Good. DIBELS has really been sort of a loose research
effort for a number of years and formally published under the
name DIBELS starting in about 2003, is when the published
version was first available. Prior editions of DIBELS were
known under CBM Pre-Reading, under Primary Prevention of Early
Academic Problems and under Individual Growth and Development
Indicators.
Federal funds were used to support the initial research and
development on the measurement technology. DIBELS 4th edition
was based largely on prototype measures that were developed
with federal funds and also other measures that had been
developed for research purposes under other projects. DIBELS
5th edition was a mixture of those prototype measures developed
with federal funding and also measures that were developed with
personal and private funds.
DIBELS 6th edition then was reinventioned using the
technology but not using any federal funds to develop the
measures. All of the items were developed anew. All of the
forms were developed anew. So no federal funds went into the
development of DIBELS 6th edition.
Ms. Shea-Porter. But federal funds did go into the previous
ones.
Mr. Good. Federal funds did go into the development of the
measurement technology, and that measurement technology is used
then by other test publishers as well and other tests are
available with that.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Well, I would like to point out the good
work, first of all, that federal funds can do in gathering some
research that is helpful to America. However, I am concerned
about that because if federal grant money was involved in
development of what is now DIBELS--and how many people were
involved in its creation?--how did you wind up with the DIBELS
copyright?
Mr. Good. We reinvented DIBELS off campus with our own
personal and private funds, in part so that we could control
the copyright and continue to maintain a free version of DIBELS
available on the Web.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Dr. Good, could you rephrase that for me,
please? You used federal funds in the research.
Chairman Miller. On campus.
Mr. Good. We did use----
Ms. Shea-Porter. To gather the research.
Mr. Good. We used federal funds for research and
development of the technology that goes into the assessment.
For example, federal funds developed the technology for Oral
Reading Fluency as well, and we have built upon that technology
as we implemented DIBELS.
Ms. Shea-Porter. So, in other words, it was federal money,
taxpayers' money, that created the base upon which you created
your company.
Mr. Good. Yes. Federal funds created the knowledge base,
the technology that we used to apply to develop the specific
form that is DIBELS 6th edition. The federal funds supported
the knowledge building, but they did not support this specific
edition, DIBELS 6th edition.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Okay. Well, let me ask you then. You could
not have created DIBELS without taxpayers' money for the
research. You had to have the research in order to create your
final product.
Mr. Good. We had to have the knowledge base and the
technology to develop this final product.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Then may I ask you why you own it instead
of the American people?
Mr. Good. Why I what?
Ms. Shea-Porter. Why your company is yours instead of
belonging to those who paid for it, why you did not keep it
inside the university or inside a setting that would give
access and continue to develop it based on the fact that the
American people paid for this?
Mr. Good. The American people paid for the development of
the knowledge. We created that knowledge, and we made that
freely and publicly available for people to use, and others are
using that knowledge as well.
We created Dynamic Measurement Group in part to protect our
ability to give the measures away for free. When we talked with
the University of Oregon and about our desire to have control
over publication of it, they were not interested in making that
assurance. So we reinvented and we redeveloped the measures
separate from the University of Oregon so that we could give
them away for free.
Ms. Shea-Porter. Once again, I would like to mention I am
disturbed by this, and also that I do not believe it is totally
for free because I have been looking at what they are paying to
have the handheld wireless set. So it is actually not for free.
If they really want to maximize its use and have it make some
kind of context, then they need the rest of the technology that
you are selling.
Thank you.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Woolsey?
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is quite a
hearing. Thank you.
So here is what I am getting out of it before I ask my
questions. It seems like you are telling us, some of you up
there, that there is only a very small group of experts in this
country that would be qualified to write the rules, provide the
overview of the program, train to review, recommend, and
possibly profit from this very positive No Child Left Behind-
mandated program.
I mean, this is a huge country of wonderfully educated
people. I am having the hardest time thinking that there is
only a small group that can do all of this and that there was
no room for any independent oversight, that there were no
experts out there that did not have their, for lack of a better
way to say it, finger in the pie in one way or another.
Mr. Kame'enui--I do not think I got it--I think you are one
of that very small group. What reading products did the state
of Oregon select for Reading First?
Mr. Kame'enui. I am sorry. What reading products?
Ms. Woolsey. What reading products?
Mr. Kame'enui. I cannot tell you what reading products the
state of Oregon selected for Reading First. I imagine they made
available a number of products that school districts could
select from.
Ms. Woolsey. So, in your capacity, did you refer anyone to
the Oregon list of approved products while you were part of the
Reading First initiative or involved with the Reading First
initiative.
Mr. Kame'enui. Yes. If people asked, I referred them to the
curriculum review that the state of Oregon, the Oregon Reading
First Center, conducted to evaluate a range of reading
programs. That is right. I did refer them.
Ms. Woolsey. And did you have any financial interest in the
outcome of any of the programs that you recommended?
Mr. Kame'enui. At the time that I was director of the
Oregon Reading First Center, I had an interest in the Early
Reading Intervention Program that was published by Pearson/
Scott Foresman in 2002.
Ms. Woolsey. And how far did that get in the process?
Mr. Kame'enui. Well, there were two different processes.
There are curriculum programs that are designed for children K
through 6, and there is another process that reviews programs
that are called intervention or supplemental programs that try
to target a particular skill. So the Early Reading Intervention
Program is designed for struggling readers at kindergarten.
Ms. Woolsey. And they were accepted or you recommended
them?
Mr. Kame'enui. It was reviewed. Again, I think the Oregon
curriculum review was conducted in a way that would meet the
appropriate standards for conflict of interest. They were
reviewed independently by two to three different independent
reviewers, and then the results were made public.
Ms. Woolsey. And they were aware that it was one of your
programs, that you had a part of that?
Chairman Miller. Would the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. Woolsey. Yes, sir.
Chairman Miller. Early Reading Intervention.
Mr. Kame'enui. Yes.
Chairman Miller. You received revenues from that?
Mr. Kame'enui. I did.
Chairman Miller. So you get royalties from that?
Mr. Kame'enui. I do, yes.
Chairman Miller. And that is the program you developed with
Ms. Simmons?
Mr. Kame'enui. That is right.
Chairman Miller. Okay.
Ms. Woolsey. All right. Thank you. I have obviously missed
the big piece of what has been going on while I was on the
floor earlier. I am sorry.
All right. Then I am going to change and ask Ms. Lewis a
question. And I think you were asked this before, but I need to
hear it, the name of the program that originally was the
Kentucky program. What was that program before?
Ms. Lewis. It was the Developmental Reading Assessment that
we had originally included in our proposal.
Ms. Woolsey. So were you given reasons and rationale why it
was not considered appropriate instead of DIBELS?
Ms. Lewis. Our panel summary said that it was not
sufficiently scientifically based, reliable and valid, but they
did not explain why.
Ms. Woolsey. Ever?
Ms. Lewis. No.
Ms. Woolsey. So what happens to that company when they get
that kind of an assessment without any explanation?
Ms. Lewis. I have had no conversation with DRA. I do not
know how they responded.
Ms. Woolsey. Okay.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Susan Davis?
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here.
I wanted to go back, I guess, to Dr. Good. Did you have any
role in the criteria that was developed to try and establish
which programs were used? I was interested in the fact that you
did not call out a number of programs in, I guess, what I would
call an RFP of sorts for state education agencies.
But I am trying to understand who actually played a role in
putting that criteria together. Were you on the commission at
that time, and did the commission actually play a role in that?
Mr. Good. I was on the assessment committee, and we played
a role in describing the criteria that we would an assessment
to meet to be considered as scientifically based reading
research supported assessment.
Mrs. Davis of California. Was DIBELS fully developed at
that time? Were you aware that they would meet the criteria, or
did you know that if you established that criteria and then set
out to be certain that it met that criteria that there would be
some relationship there?
Mr. Good. DIBELS 5th edition was available at that time.
The criteria were really very standard criteria that are
publicly available to evaluate assessments--reliability,
decision utility, validity of the assessment--and we created a
coding form to do that.
Mrs. Davis of California. If I could, I am sorry, I just
wanted to just turn to Ms. Lewis.
Were you under the understanding that, in fact, a Kentucky
program answered that criteria and did it have an evaluation K
through 3?
Ms. Lewis. Yes. In our opinion and application of the
criteria, we felt that the assessment we selected met the
established criteria.
Mrs. Davis of California. And I have no knowledge or
whether or not it would have or not. I am just trying to
understand how that chain of assumptions, if you will, or
involvement was.
When you were working with this criteria, did you have any
knowledge of any other companies that would be putting forth
proposals and what their basic fundamentals were specific to
this kind of a program? Did you have any knowledge of any other
programs around the country at that time?
Mr. Good. I would have a general knowledge of assessments
that are available, but not specific knowledge of their intent
or what proposal they would put forward. These are general
criteria that any assessment should meet.
Mrs. Davis of California. Were any of the individuals from
the company that Kentucky had worked with on the panels in any
way?
Mr. Good. Not that I know of.
Mrs. Davis of California. Mr. Doherty, I am trying to
understand. In some ways, I think part of what we are confused
with is why an individual--and it just happens to be you, Dr.
Good. It could have been somebody else, I guess--would have
been instrumental in developing the criteria and also
instrumental in working with the company that seemed to have
answered that criteria so well. Do you know why you were asked
to be on the commission?
Mr. Good. I believe I was asked to be on that commission
because of my expertise in reading and reading assessment. The
most important work that I have done is not actually DIBELS. It
is a decision model for how to use assessment generally to
change outcomes for children.
Mrs. Davis of California. Are you planning to take that
into Spanish language?
Mr. Good. Yes, we have a Spanish version that is a
reinvention of DIBELS in Spanish.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you very much. I appreciate
it.
Mr. Good. You are welcome.
Mrs. Davis of California. Mr. Doherty, how is it that Dr.
Good became a commissioner?
Mr. Doherty. First, I agree with Dr. Good's general answer
that due to his expertise in reading and reading assessment,
that is what led to his being asked to be on the assessment
committee, although, as Dr. Kame'enui pointed out, that
committee was started on or about August of 2001. I joined the
department in January of 2002, so I do not know the specifics
other than the people on the panel had the requisite research
and experience background.
Mrs. Davis of California. I guess to Dr. Kame'enui, did you
ever ask about the ethical concerns or the conflicts of
interest? Did you inquire about that and to whom did you
inquire?
Mr. Kame'enui. Not only did I ask about it, we established
conflict of interest procedures, and we put them in place to
ensure that members of the committee who had proprietary
interest in an instrument would not review their own
instrument. We did not receive any guidance, explicit or
implicit guidance, from the Department of Education on how to
go about on that conflict of interest. So we put in place our
own.
Mrs. Davis of California. Dr. Good, as well, did you make
inquiries about conflicts of interest? You had mentioned
earlier that it just seemed kind of nebulous to you a little
bit.
Mr. Good. In my participation on the assessment committee,
one of the very first things that I did was acknowledge my role
and involvement in DIBELS, although DIBELS at that time was not
published and was not generating any revenue at that time.
But I was very public and said, ``Is that going to be a
concern?'' and we talked about what procedures would be in
place, notably that I would not be involved in any discussion
of DIBELS or participate in any way in the review of DIBELS.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
But you did participate in reviews of other programs?
Mr. Good. Yes, I did participate in reviews of other
programs.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Tierney?
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to use my time probably more for a
statement than for questions. But I want to just sort of recap
some of the reasons why I think people are concerned starting
with where Ms. Davis left off with the conflict of interest.
Mr. Doherty, you had specific recommendations from your
ethics counsel to what questions to use with respect to ethics,
and you left out just one of those questions, the one question
you left off was ``Are you aware of any other circumstances
that might cause someone to question your impartiality in
serving as a reviewer for this competition?'' That was designed
to exclude individuals who had financial connections to
products or programs, and you left that out, the only one you
left out.
You also did not bother to look at any resumes. The
inspector general went through and said, you know, of over 25
resumes he looked through, six of them identified significant
professional connections. We are concerned because that just
seems a little too convenient.
We are concerned that the department did not select the
expert review panel in compliance with the requirements of No
Child Left Behind because, as the inspector general says,
probably then none of the applications that were approved are
in compliance with the law. That should concern you also,
although apparently it does not.
We are concerned that the peer review process was not
followed. The local state education groups were not given an
opportunity to address issues and concerns by the expert panel
reviewers. In fact, you then substituted your report without
even telling them that you had done that. That should be of
concern for you. Apparently, it is not.
We are concerned that you set conditions that were not
included in the statute. In fact, it seems that very little was
taken from the statutes in some of those situations, and in
your own language, some of it was extralegal. That is of
concern and should be of concern to you.
We are concerned that in implementing the program, you
obscured the statutory process on that and the requirements. In
fact, we are also concerned that after people had been
approved--and this directly affects Massachusetts--you then
meddled into it--or intervened, in the words of the inspector
general--and tried to unwind some of the programs.
In Massachusetts, you went in and you made a call after the
process had been approved. I am going to go right to the page
on that for you. I think it is page 25 if you want to see the
inspector's report. ``In Massachusetts, the Reading First
director''--that would be you--``raised questions about the
SBRR qualifications of programs in four districts.'' This is
after the application had already been approved and they had
been allowed to develop their own guide by the LEAs.
This concern was raised in that situation, and the
districts were using Wright Group, Rigby, Literacy
Collaborative and Harcourt Collections, and basically, only the
group that was using Wright Group elected not to change their
program, and that is the one whose funding you stopped. That
should be of concern to everybody here.
Clearly, you had an agenda. The agenda is phonics, the
agenda may be some people that you were associated with, and it
goes right down the line. What is the difference, Mr. Doherty,
between Wright Group--what is the one thing that differentiates
that--from the other programs that you accepted? One was
phonics, and one was whole language, correct?
Mr. Doherty. Our agenda was the scientifically based
reading research.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, right. Now, just to interrupt for a
second, because my time is limited, the difference between
Wright and the others was that Wright was a whole language and
the others were phonics, correct?
Mr. Doherty. One aligned with the statute and one,
apparently, did not.
Mr. Tierney. I mean, you are a big educator, so I assume
you understand English. One was phonics, and one was whole
language. Am I correct?
Mr. Doherty. To say that a program is phonics, the law
requires five components of----
Mr. Tierney. All right. Never mind. Thank you, Mr. Doherty.
I think we understand where you are from.
Let me just read some statements and close out on this, Mr.
Chairman, if I might, about why we are concerned here.
And you folks can stop me at any point of time you think
that this is inaccurate on that.
When the department needed reviewers to evaluate reading
assessment programs, they contacted the University of Oregon
team that was led by Edward Kame'enui, Roland Good and Deborah
Simmons. Mr. Good had developed an assessment called DIBELS,
and Mr. Kame'enui, Good and Simmons had all served on the
design team for Voyager Passport, which is a remedial program
built around DIBELS. Ultimately, DIBELS was the only assessment
used in Reading First, and Voyager was the most popular
supplemental program.
Then the department steered states to just three providers
of professional development services--Kame'enui and Simmons of
Oregon, Ms. Moats, and a Sharon Vaughn of the University of
Texas. Ms. Vaughn, of course, was the other member of the
Voyager Passport design team and one of four chairmen of the
secretary's Reading Literature Academy. That exerted a
tremendous influence over Reading First, but the other chairmen
were Moats, Kame'enui and his Oregon colleague, Mr. Carnine.
Mr. Kame'enui and Simmons also wrote the Consumer's Guide
that most states use and agree to use to evaluate the Reading
First Programs and ran one of Reading First's three technical
assistance centers in Oregon. Mr. Simmons and Kame'enui co-
wrote another book, and Mr. Kame'enui earned more than $100,000
last year for royalties of another, according to his own
financial disclosure statement.
You can see the pattern here, Mr. Doherty, about what is
going on.
I will just close out with Elaine Garan who wrote a book in
2004 entitled ``In Defense of Our Children: When Politics,
Profit and Education Collide'' She recalled that when she was
writing a book, she color coded the various financial
connections that were running through Reading First. She said,
``When it came to Mr. Kame'enui, I ran out of colors.''
I think we ran out of colors on a lot of these connections,
and we ran out of colors to figure out how many ways you tried
to interfere with the absolute implementation of that statute
as it was written.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield my time
to the distinguished ranking Republican, Mr. McKeon.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Castle.
Mr. Doherty, another state that has gotten attention that
we have not talked about here today is Nevada. The inspector
general's report stated that although the panel chair summary
for the Nevada's application referred them to A Consumer's
Guide to Evaluate a Core Reading Program, the expert review
team report that you prepared omitted these comments. Why was
that?
Mr. Doherty. If any comments that the state needed to hear
from the expert review panel summary were omitted, it was by
mistake an omission. We produced those summary reports in an
effort to be helpful and focused for the states. In no way did
we attempt to change the substance of what the expert review
panel members were saying. We genuinely thought and we are
aware of no prohibition against making a summary report.
I cannot say that every single report--and there were
probably a couple of hundred--did not omit something by
mistake, but we tried extremely hard to streamline and
standardize the kinds of feedback that a state would receive
pegged directly to the criteria of the application. As far as a
particular omission in Nevada's report, I am unaware of that
right now.
Mr. McKeon. You know, given the benefit of hindsight,
should you have been given better and more support from the
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of
the General Counsel, especially when it came to examining
possible conflicts of interest and establishing the peer review
panels?
Mr. Doherty. I think it is safe to say that we all agree
that, given what we know now, we would have different
procedures. At the same time, at the time, we were all on the
same page--the Office of General Counsel, the Office of
Elementary and Secondary Ed, the Office of the Secretary. We
worked together as a team, and we were on the same page.
I cannot imagine that any members of those groups would
disagree with the suggestion that when people do it again that
they take the learning from this process and make sure that
such a large and regrettable distraction from the program does
not happen again.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Dr. Kame'enui, do you have any response to the previous
questions?
Mr. Kame'enui. I appreciate the premise that in hindsight
we would do things differently. We absolutely would do things
differently.
I think I would recommend, as others have noted, an
independent panel where there is no proprietary interest from
any member of that panel to review, vet curriculum materials,
assessment materials and so on. I think that would be wise.
At the same time, I think it is important to appreciate the
context in which the Reading First assessment committee did its
work. It was very early on. We were asked to do it in 4 months.
We delivered in 8 months a product that I am still proud of,
and had we been informed of conflict of interest criteria, we
would have certainly implemented those and followed those by
the book.
We created our own that I thought and I still do think that
it meets the academic standards that are in place today, and I
regret the perception of conflict of interest, but there was
no, as I noted in my testimony and wrote, real conflict of
interest that we engaged in at any time, either in the review
of the Reading First assessment materials or the review of the
curriculum materials that we conducted.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
And another one for Mr. Doherty, if you read all of the
various reports, your head starts to spin after a while if you
try to determine exactly what the reaction to Reading First has
been in states and local school districts.
On the one hand, we have the inspector general's report
that clearly indicates that some states felt like they were
unfairly pushed toward certain programs, Kentucky being one of
these. The GAO report backs up that claim.
On the other hand, we have the Center on Education
Policies' 2006 report and that same GAO report stating that
most folks are happy with the way the Reading First Program has
been implemented and feel like it is having a good impact.
When you left the department, what was your overall
impression of how states were reacting to Reading First and has
that impression changed as a result of the inspector general's
reports?
Mr. Doherty. I think it is hard to overstate the contrast
between the controversy about Reading First here in Washington
and the appreciation and support of Reading First in the vast
majority of states across the country.
Reading First was and will probably remain the highlight of
my professional career. The respect and affection that I have
for the state directors and the people who work in the
districts is something that I cannot express.
I think that the net effect of these six reports is to have
mined thousands and thousands of e-mails and documents and come
up with a very unrepresentative picture of a program that is
very successful. I know that some state directors wanted to
testify at this hearing today and offer a more positive
opinion, and they were told that the panel is not interested in
positive information about Reading First.
I think the Reading First Program is successful because of
the good law that was implemented faithfully by people who love
the program. I do think that across the nation, Reading First
is widely embraced, and I sincerely hope that it will only
continue to improve in coming years.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you.
Chairman Miller. I appreciate your side, Mr. Doherty,
except the problem is you are looking at a panel here that
supports Reading First. That is why we are concerned about the
integrity in the program from one end of this panel to the
other, one of the authors. That is why we are concerned.
Mr. Sarbanes?
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting the
hearing and bringing scrutiny to this issue.
The stakes are very high on this stuff, and there are many
reasons. There are two in particular I would cite. The first
is, as we have heard a little bit about already, there are
these reading wars that have been going on for some time, and
there are true believers in these wars, and they can be
overzealous when it comes time to implement these programs. For
that reason, it is incredibly important that whatever the
review process is that is in place be balanced and neutral.
The second reason the stakes are so high is that every
school system in this country and just about every
instructional professional is focused like a laser on the need
to increase proficiency in math and reading by the year 2013,
2014, and everybody is under a lot of pressure to achieve that,
and so when you get to the question of scientifically based
research and what it supports in terms of reading programs, it
is hard to overstate how important it is to be balanced and
fair.
I am concerned and alarmed at evidence of tipping the
scales that we have heard today. It particularly offends me,
the appearance that that occurred, vis-a-vis the state
department of education in Maryland, as we heard Mr. Hare, I
think, refer to.
The potential for this to interfere with professional
judgment that people are trying to exercise reminds me a little
bit, particularly because we are talking about scientifically
based research, of a hearing, Mr. Chairman, we had in the
Oversight and Government Committee on the administration's
interference with the science on global warming. I mean, it
seems to reflect a pattern and an impulse.
Mr. Doherty, I guess what disappoints me is given your
relationship to Direct Instruction, I would have thought you
would have gone out of your way to ensure that the review
process and the composition of these panels and so forth was
done in a way that would make it absolutely clear that it was
balanced and that there was no bias, and I wonder if you could
just, looking back, tell me if you think you could have done a
lot more to ensure that in the process.
Mr. Doherty. Yes, I think that we could have done more to
ensure that. I do want to point out that we did screen, and the
screening that we did for Direct Instruction was consistent
with the screening that was one at the department at the time,
and none of those individuals that are cited had or have direct
financial connections to the Direct Instruction program.
These were people who had implemented the program,
principals of schools who had used the program, but none of
those properly screened people had direct financial involvement
with Direct Instruction or, to my knowledge, have since joined
in any financial way with Direct Instruction. But I absolutely
agree that this whole day is evidence of how much better we
could have done to have avoided the perception of conflicts of
interest.
Mr. Sarbanes. See, the financial interest is just one
aspect of the conflict of interest that, I think, we have
touched on here. The other is just, as I say, this notion of
true believers on these things that are very, very important.
So I am as concerned about that aspect of it because we are
talking about what are the best practices to ensure that
children will learn and learn to read and do it under this
timeline for proficiency expectations that has been imposed by
No Child Left Behind.
I am sorry that Ms. Lewis is not at the table any longer. I
was going to ask her to reflect or to discuss or describe what
she thinks the impact is on morale in the field when people
work their best to exercise professional judgment to determine
what the best kinds of programs are, make good faith
presentations of that to their superiors and those who are in a
position to exercise a lot of influence and then feel like the
scales are being tipped and like there is an imbalance, and I
certainly regret the impact that that must have had on people
in the field.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is directed to Dr. Roland Good. Since
DIBELS is offered in Spanish, which you answered the question
from Congresswoman Susan Davis, do you have plans to offer it
to other countries, to offer it for sale to other countries?
Mr. Good. Currently, the Spanish version of DIBELS--it is
called IDEL--is really designed for use in the U.S. for English
language learners or for children who are learning to read in
Spanish in the U.S. I think it would be something that would be
valuable in other Spanish-speaking countries for children
learning to read in Spanish. However, we would have to do that
research in that context first before we felt comfortable
offering that in other settings.
Mr. Hinojosa. Will the DIBELS data system ever leave the
University of Oregon and become part of your company, DMG?
Mr. Good. I do not see a viable way in which DIBELS data
system would leave the University of Oregon.
Mr. Hinojosa. What does it cost to become a DIBELS-
certified trainer?
Mr. Good. We would ask DIBELS-certified trainers to attend
our DIBELS trainers' institute. I think the fee for that
institute is $900, and it is a 4-day trainers' institute.
Mr. Hinojosa. Are you seeing a lot of people taking that up
and going for the training?
Mr. Good. Not very many. Instead what we see is most DIBELS
trainers have not attended that institute. May I elaborate just
a minute?
Mr. Hinojosa. Yes.
Mr. Good. There is a very large number of people who are
DIBELS trainers. Only a very small number of DIBELS trainers
have any financial relationship with Dynamic Measurement Group
or with DIBELS. Most of the DIBELS trainers are reading experts
who have developed that expertise in DIBELS training, and they
provide that through their own system.
Mr. Hinojosa. In your testimony, you seem to always lead us
to believe that you are not making money from all of this that
we have discussed that you have created. Please tell me when
was DIBELS made available for sale?
Mr. Good. Our first royalties from DIBELS were in 2003.
Mr. Hinojosa. Was your compensation at the University of
Oregon based on revenues generated by DIBELS?
Mr. Good. No.
Mr. Hinojosa. Not at all?
Mr. Good. No.
Mr. Hinojosa. My question to Jack Higgins, where does the
OIG go from here after today's hearing?
Mr. Higgins. Well, the first thing we will be doing is
following up on the recommendations that we made to the
department to see if they do them, which we believe they are
doing, and look at the effectiveness of the way they are
implementing the recommendations. There are a few things that
came up here today that we are going to follow up with, and if
you have any suggestions for areas that you think we need to
look at, we will be more than glad to hear what they are.
Mr. Hinojosa. Well, it leads to a lot of concerns, and this
has been a very interesting hearing. I have to say that the
findings from this hearing need to go out throughout the
country because we may be able to get additional information to
this committee on facts that would impact the actions that you
would have to take.
I am concerned that much of the information that Mr.
Doherty gave us leads us to want to search and find out more
because it seems that $1 billion worth of federal investment in
this program indicates that there could have been people who
were benefiting from it being that they did not name all of the
panelists that could have and should have been named.
So I am pleased to have been able to listen to the
testimony and to the many questions that were asked by my
colleagues here as members of Congress.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Good, I had asked you about how much
money your company had made.
Mr. Good. Yes. Prior to 2003, there was no company and no
revenue generated. From 2003----
Chairman Miller. There would not be any money going to the
company if there was no company and no revenue. Okay.
Mr. Good. From 2003 through 2006, we have received royalty
payments in the amount of about $1,291,333.79.
Chairman Miller. And you are a 50 percent shareholder.
Mr. Good. I am a 50 percent shareholder. May I elaborate?
Chairman Miller. Yes.
Mr. Good. Through 2005, we made contributions to the
University of Oregon foundation to support----
Chairman Miller. Mr. Good, I appreciate that.
How long do these royalties continue?
Mr. Good. Pardon?
Chairman Miller. How long will these royalties continue?
Mr. Good. These royalties will continue while DIBELS is a
published measure.
Chairman Miller. This company receives royalties off of the
handheld?
Mr. Good. We have an alliance agreement with Wireless
Generation that we----
Chairman Miller. So you get royalties off of that. You get
40 percent of each student that is tested off the handheld. Is
that correct.
Mr. Good. Forty cents for each student.
Chairman Miller. That is one student per annum?
Mr. Good. Pardon?
Chairman Miller. One student per year?
Mr. Good. Yes.
Chairman Miller. Okay. And you expect that to continue? I
mean, that is not a time-limited royalty agreement?
Mr. Good. I think it is time limited for a few more years.
Chairman Miller. But you own the intellectual property, or
would that be the end of it? Could they go ahead without you?
Mr. Good. I do not think so. It would have to be----
Chairman Miller. I bet they do not.
Mr. Good, is it correct that you and Mr. Kame'enui and Ms.
Simmons co-authored this 29-page article that was put into
these--Mr. Higgins, what were they called?
Mr. Higgins. Handbook and the guide.
Chairman Miller. The handbook and the guide.
Mr. Good. Yes.
Chairman Miller. So who put them in the handbook and the
guide?
Mr. Good. I do not know.
Chairman Miller. Ms. Simmons?
Ms. Simmons. I do not know.
Chairman Miller. I am sorry?
Ms. Simmons. I am sorry, sir. This is the first time I was
made aware that that article was in the guide, was in the
handbook.
Chairman Miller. Is that right?
Ms. Simmons. Is it a DIBELS assessment?
Chairman Miller. It is an article that you authored.
Ms. Simmons. I have written articles with Dr. Good for
sure, but I was not aware that it was in the handbook.
Chairman Miller. Dr. Kame'enui?
Mr. Kame'enui. I was not involved in the preparation of the
handbook or the selection of the materials or the inclusion of
materials, if it is the handbook that you are referring to as
the guidance.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Doherty?
Mr. Doherty. If you are referring to the binder that went
out during the secretary's----
Chairman Miller. I am referring to the handbook and the
guide that is referenced in the inspector general's report. It
had a 29-page article in it on DIBELS.
Mr. Doherty. Right. My understanding is that is the
materials that were handed out at the secretary's Reading
Leadership Academies. Those materials were put together in the
second half of 2001 prior to my joining the department. To the
extent that it was a NIFL contract, perhaps it was NIFL.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Higgins, do you know?
Mr. Higgins. No, I do not know. But I know the document
says, yes, Department of Education on the back of it. So
somebody at the department had to approve it being put in
there.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Kame'enui, I asked you this earlier,
and I think your answer was yes. You are currently receiving
royalties from Early Reading Intervention?
Mr. Kame'enui. I am.
Chairman Miller. According to the publisher, that is
packaged with DIBELS.
Mr. Kame'enui. At the time that I signed my royalty
agreement, I did not know that that could be a marketing
extension at this point in time, but, as I noted, I have been
away from working with Pearson/Scott Foresman for 2 years. That
could be, but I have no knowledge of that, sir.
Chairman Miller. And, Ms. Simmons, you are receiving
royalties for Early Reading Intervention?
Ms. Simmons. I do, sir, but----
Chairman Miller. So, at the time you were serving on these
panels, you were negotiating with people who had a Reading
First product?
Ms. Simmons. May I clarify, sir? The Early Reading
Assessment Intervention does not have a DIBELS component to it.
Chairman Miller. Well, according to the publisher, it does.
It is packaged with DIBELS. It is sold as a package with
DIBELS.
Ms. Simmons. I was not aware of that.
Chairman Miller. Were you aware that you were negotiating
with Scott Foresman during the time you were on the panel?
Ms. Simmons. On the assessment panel, sir?
Chairman Miller. Yes.
Ms. Simmons. Yes. I was negotiating with Scott Foresman
about a reading program, but not an assessment component.
Chairman Miller. You were negotiating with Scott Foresman
about a Reading First product. Is that correct?
Ms. Simmons. About a reading program that is used in
Reading First.
Chairman Miller. In Reading First, yes. And you have
received what in royalties for that so far?
Ms. Simmons. I cannot give you specific figures, but I
could give you estimates of what those are.
Chairman Miller. Why don't you go ahead and do that?
Ms. Simmons. Last year, it was about $150,000.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Kame'enui, is that consistent with
your royalties you have received from that product?
Mr. Kame'enui. Yes, yes.
Chairman Miller. So let me see. That was in 2002. So you
have received royalties for 3 years?
Ms. Simmons. About 3 years. Yes, sir.
Chairman Miller. So about the same amount?
Ms. Simmons. No, no. They have----
Chairman Miller. It has grown?
Ms. Simmons. It has grown over a period of time.
Chairman Miller. Same situation with you, Mr. Kame'enui?
Mr. Kame'enui. Yes.
Chairman Miller. Is that consistent, Mr. Higgins, with what
you know?
Mr. Higgins. We did not look into the financial aspects.
Chairman Miller. You did not look into the royalties.
So nobody knows how this DIBELS article, the only article
on an assessment tool, got into the official documents that
were given to states and others to look and decide on how to
make these decisions?
Mr. Rasa, do you know?
Mr. Rasa. No, I do not.
Chairman Miller. See, I hoped he brought you along so you
could tell us. [Laughter.]
There you are.
Mr. Rasa. I do know that 29 pages are in the----
Chairman Miller. I am sorry. You need your microphone.
Mr. Rasa. I do know that the 29-page article is in both
documents, and it covers DIBELS.
Chairman Miller. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. McKeon?
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Are we wrapping up now?
Chairman Miller. Yes. Go ahead.
Mr. McKeon. This has been very, very interesting to me. I
have been here in Congress now for about 15 years, and we have
passed legislation during that time that has started some new
programs.
One of them that kind of sticks out in my mind in my first
term was AmeriCorps, and I opposed the program, but it was
passed. It was started, and it was funded at less than half of
the level of the program that we are talking about.
I remember after a few years, we had a hearing. I remember
we had the director of the program here, and at the time, we
had tried to do an audit and they could not even tell us were
the money was. They could not tell us how much money they had,
they could not tell us how it was spent, and we could not get
any kind of substantive idea of how the program was working.
I think it has improved now, I think, considerably.
Chairman Miller. I hope.
Mr. McKeon. Yes. I am still not real excited about it.
But the point is I have thought about this, you know,
during our question-and-answer period and then while we were
over voting. I have thought about this quite a bit. It seems to
me you start a new program--and $1 billion is a lot of money--
and you say, ``Here. You are going to be responsible for this,
and we want you to spend $1 billion this year and $1 billion
next year and $1 billion the next year, and we want you to use
that money to help the young children who really need the help
to learn to read.''
I think we have pointed out flaws in the implementation and
how it has been done and maybe some people have made some money
off of it--you know, people make money a lot of different ways,
for a lot of different reasons--and I guess we can look at
things as the glass is half empty or half full, and we can
question people's motives. There are all kinds of things, but I
think the bottom line, as I have seen it today, is the program
has been very beneficial for a lot of young people, and it has
worked very well.
Let me just cite a couple of statistics.
In Reading First schools, the percentage of first graders
meeting or exceeding proficiency on Reading First fluency
outcome measures increased by 14 percentage points, from 43 to
57 percent, from 2004 to 2006.
In Reading First schools, the percentage of third graders
meeting or exceeding proficiency on Reading First fluency
increased by 7 percentage points, from 36 to 43 percent, during
the same period of time.
On average, the 16 states with baseline data increased the
percentage of students meeting or exceeding proficiency on
fluency outcome measures by 16 percent for first graders, 14
percent for second graders and 15 percent for third graders.
Looking at these statistics, it seems to me that, as I
said, the program has benefited a lot of young people. I think
it has been a very good program, and I hope with all of this
discussion there is no detraction from the program and that we
can take what we have seen here today--I think everybody agrees
that some things could have been done differently, and the bill
that I introduced yesterday will address most of those issues
as have been brought out by the inspector general's report--
and, hopefully, we will learn from this. We will take those
things, incorporate them into the law and move to make the
program better.
I still feel when you introduce a program at the federal
level and you have to come up with spending a lot of money in a
very short period of time and put together all of the different
components of that that all of you who have been involved in
this to look at these kind of results must feel pretty good
about that.
I know there has been some discussion about agendas,
phonics versus whole language. I was on a school board for 9
years before I came to Congress, and I was involved in some of
those fights, and I know there was a period of time where
reading really declined. Then there was this fight in our state
about phonics versus whole language, and phonics was brought
back into the process and reading did improve.
I no way profess to be any kind of an expert in any of
this, but I just hope that you can feel that you have been part
of a good process, that it has done a lot of good for a lot of
young people, that we can take what we have learned here today
and make the law better as we go forward in the reauthorization
process.
And I want to thank you for your service. You know, I have
been here now almost 15 years, and I see a lot of people in
this town get crucified, and I am just really getting sick of
it. So thank you for what you have done--all of you--and I
hope, as I said, that we make this a positive experience.
Chairman Miller. I thank the gentleman, and I thank him for
his participation and again for his suggestions that we will
work with him for changes in this program as a result of the
IG's report.
I am a little concerned. You talked about people getting
crucified. I am a little concerned--more than a little
concerned--about the evidence that has been presented to us in
the inspector general's report, and I am a little concerned
that Mr. Doherty, in my opinion--that is my opinion--finds the
law something to be worked around rather than worked with,
except in the case of where we saw one e-mail where he used it
to his or his friends' advantage.
The answer to violating the law is not that people are
happy with you. That is not a justification in the law. If e-
mail will tell you what a wonderful person you are, it is of
little value compared to the law. You know, a lot of people go
to a pizza parlor and they love the pizza, and it is produced
by a criminal enterprise. It does not tell you anything about
the enterprise. It tells you they love the pizza.
We agree. We are fans of the program. But this
implementation is very worrisome because I think you are very
close to a criminal enterprise here.
Have you made any criminal referrals, Mr. Higgins?
Microphone. I cannot hear you. You have to do two things.
You have to pull it closer, and then you have to turn it on.
Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. I am a slow learner.
We have made referrals to the Department of Justice, and we
are pursuing them.
Chairman Miller. Well, I have to tell you that that just
does not surprise me at all because I think that this process
was cooked from the very beginning.
Mr. Good, I know you are proud to be on the assessments
committee, and I know you were picked for your expertise, but
the report you produced the assistant secretary thought about
junking it. You could not find an official sponsor for it. The
e-mails are going back and forth about how you are going to
represent this and how you are going to respond if somebody
asks you questions, has it been reviewed and is it ready yet
and all of these things.
And finally it ends up posted out on the Web site at the
University of Hawaii on the assessments, right, Mr. Kame'enui--
Oregon. Excuse me. Oregon. Hawaiian name, Oregon resident.
So, apparently, it was not quite the crystal clear work in
a lot of people's minds, but there was enough subterfuge--and
it is outlined very clearly, if you want to read the trail, in
the inspector general's report, the process that was used--to
get it up and get it running, and it carries, again, conflicted
recommendations because of the people's financial interests and
personal interests and intellectual interests in the
assessments that they were reviewing.
On the expert review panels, the inspector general makes it
very clear, that Congress was very clear about the kind of
participation they expected and the impartiality that they
expected. That was completely overridden, and even when it was
brought to your attention, Mr. Doherty, and you somehow figured
to set up your independent review of that which never came into
place, it went forward. So then we had conflicted review
panels.
When it was suggested to you that there was an ethical
problem, you did not take the advice of the general counsel's
office. You went your own way. So you did not ask people that
question that would have revealed. You did not look at their
resumes to see whether or not you had conflicted individuals on
these panels that were making determinations about other
people's intellectual property, about other people's work,
about determinations by school districts and others about those
products. You chose to violate the law.
You do not get to do that in this country because people
rely on the law. School districts rely on the law. Families
rely on the law. That is what people do, and you do not get to
override that, but the fact of the matter is that you did.
Then when the guidance was produced, the guidance, as we
now see, was a front. It was a front for your little inside
game. If you went to the guidance, it looked like it was on the
level. If you went the other way, what you saw is that
districts and individuals were being bashed off the record.
Over and over and over again, they were being bullied. They
were being bullied until they came into compliance with your
vision of what Reading First should be.
You know, we were very particular when we wrote this law
because we understood the history of what somebody referred to
as the reading wars. You were on the school board at about the
time it almost engulfed our entire state. So we knew what was
at stake. That is why we asked for that kind of broad
participating and impartiality. That is why the law was there,
for that exact reason, so zealots would not run off with this
and destroy the program. That is why the law was there.
I think you have to understand that, that we did not see
that the academies were interested parties, were going out with
guidebooks from the official government that carried one puff
piece in it--one puff piece--authored by three people sitting
at this table, three people who are getting royalties from some
part of that work, three people who will continue to get
royalties because some of this is in as many as 40 states. That
sounds like a criminal enterprise to me. That sounds like an
inside job.
Fortunately, I think maybe Reading First has survived that,
but, again, that is not the test. That is not the test for this
committee. It is not the test for the IG. It is not the test
for the department. The question is whether or not this program
has been operated within the law. The IG suggested it has not
been and strongly suggested it has not been. I think that when
we put this evidence together, we may join you in those
criminal referrals because something is very wrong here.
Something is very, very wrong when a small group of people
can direct and engage in the activities that were engaged here
on behalf of a few programs and browbeat states and browbeat
educational officers in those states and even go in after plans
were approved and get people to give up programs or to change
all in the name of some kind of intellectual adherence to the
scientifically based reading programs, that that was the test
that would be used.
Yet we see even those who complied, if they were not part
of the party, actions were taken against them, and then we see
those who were excluded are now in The What Works list.
Something is very wrong here.
As to the suggestion that somehow this was all evidence
driven, that this was all scientifically studied and that was
the only concern, I have to think the IG has given us a record
that suggests very strongly that pocketbooks and self-interests
and future interests overwhelm the idea that this was to be
somehow just scientifically based.
You know, we took a lot of ridicule from people because we
put that term in the law so many times because, you now, we
knew what we were doing in changing the direction, we knew it
was without controversy, and then we come along and see the
very adherents of this program--from Mr. Lyons on down and
tragically, I think, up into the department--we see the very
adherents of that effort, that change, that, ``reform'' in your
mind that somehow took it and prostituted it in its
implementation beyond all recognition.
Yes, the outcomes apparently are going to be okay, but I
dare say this is not how in the land of laws you get to that
result, and, I cannot tell you how dismaying this is. This was
a huge decision by the Congress to dedicate this level of
resources for this particular purpose, essentially a $1 billion
rifle shot year after year, trying to meet the desires and the
hopes of this nation that our children would reach reading
proficiency at an early age, and to see that program scrambled
in the manner in which you have done here is just unbelievable.
I want to thank all of the members of the committee for
their participation. It has been a long day.
I want to thank Mr. McKeon and his staff for their help
during the preparation for this hearing, and as I said earlier,
I look forward to working with you on the changes that need to
be made in the law.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing.
Members will have 14 days to insert comments into the
hearing record, and with that, the committee will stand
adjourned.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Altmire follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jason Altmire, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Pennsylvania
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this important hearing on the
mismanagement of and potential conflicts of interest in the Reading
First program.
As members of the committee know, Reading First is a $1 billion a
year program designed to ensure that all students are able to read at
grade level by the end of third grade. Unfortunately, funds from the
program were not used in an entirely appropriate manner and I am deeply
concerned about how this mismanagement came about.
A large part of the problem stems from a lack of Congressional
oversight from this committee over the past six years. Without review,
Reading First was mismanaged for much longer than would have been
allowed to had appropriate Congressional oversight been occurring. That
is why I am pleased with Chairman Miller's leadership and applaud him
for making oversight of programs in the Department of Education a
priority of this committee. By doing so, he has brought the issues of
Reading First to light.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on this issue. I
yield back the balance of my time.
______
[Responses from Mr. Higgins to questions posed by Mr.
Miller follow:]
Office of the Inspector General,
U.S. Department of Education,
Washington, DC.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Education and Labor Committee, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: Thank you and your colleagues on the
Committee on Education and Labor for inviting me to participate in the
April hearing on the Reading First program. I appreciated the
opportunity to discuss the work my office has conducted in this area.
Below you will find my office's responses to the questions posed by
Committee members in response to my testimony and that of the other
hearing participants. Please know that my staff and I are available if
you have any additional questions, or require more information.
(1) Should more than four groups be involved in the expert review
panel?
We believe that identifying more groups to be involved in the
expert review panel would improve the process, because it would provide
a broader base from which to select panel members without affiliations
or connections to the matters that would come before them. It is also
critical that the U.S. Department of Education (Department) abide by
the law's requirement to involve identified groups in the process.
(2) Does the statute require more stringent language regarding
conflict of interest?
We believe the conflict of interest language proposed in HR 1939
adequately addresses the screening concern; however, it does not
adequately provide an approach for resolving identified conflicts of
interest for staff and contractors.
(3) Who in the Department approved the final printing of the
guidebook/handbook?
We reviewed our records, inquired with the contractor and the
Department and found that Susan Neuman, in her capacity as the
Assistant Secretary of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
(OESE), oversaw the review and approval process for the final printing
of the handbook and guidebook. Further, during the course of our work,
we interviewed Ms. Neuman, who indicated that she was the ultimate
arbiter for decisions made concerning the presentations at the Reading
Leadership Academies, which formed the basis of the materials included
in the handbook and guidebook.
(4) Does OIG have any other suggestions for amending the Reading
First statute?
In addition to the conflict of interest language proposed in HR
1939, we suggest that the Congress clarify whether individual reading
programs need to show scientific evidence of effectiveness in order to
be eligible for funding under Reading First.
(5) Mr. Doherty stated in his written statement and in his oral
testimony that he was only following the direction of his superiors and
that he did nothing without their knowing.
What is the official/unofficial chain of command? Who were
Doherty's superiors and what role did they play in directing Doherty?
The chain of command at the time of the Reading Leadership
Academies appears to be listed on a page in the back of the Handbook
which reads as follows: Secretary Rod Paige; Counsel to the Secretary
Susan Schlafani; Senior Advisor to the Secretary Beth Ann Bryan;
Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary Mike Petrilli; Assistant
Secretary of OESE Susan Neuman; Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Joe
Conaty; Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Tom Corwin; Chief of Staff to
the Deputy Secretary Carolyn Snowbarger; Special Assistant Kerri
Briggs; Reading First Director Chris Doherty; Reading First Senior
Program Specialist Sandy Jacobs; and the remaining staff that assisted
them. I have attached a copy of the Handbook page for your review.
Subsequent to the Reading Leadership Academies, Susan Neuman
resigned from the Department and Mr. Doherty reported to Ray Simon in
his capacity as Assistant Secretary of OESE before Mr. Simon became
Deputy Secretary. When Ray Simon became Deputy Secretary and Henry
Johnson replaced him as Assistant Secretary of OESE, Doherty reported
to both Mr. Simon and Mr. Johnson.
As for the role of and direction given to Mr. Doherty by his
superiors, this is a question that is more appropriate for the
Department to address, as we do not have this information.
(6) Inspector General Higgins mentioned that the OIG made referrals
to DOJ. We are aware of the Doherty referral, but request the number
and names for other referrals resulting from the OIG's work leading up
to the hearing.
As this information is confidential, I can, here, only confirm the
statement I made during the testimony that my office has made more than
one referral. We have provided more detailed information to Committee
staff in a confidential discussion.
Thank you again for convening the hearing on this very important
issue.
Sincerely,
John P. Higgins, Jr.
______
[Internet address to Department of Education IG report,
``The Reading First Program's Grant Application Process, Final
Inspection Report'' (Microsoft Word document) follows:]
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/aireports/i13f0017.doc
[Internet address to Department of Education IG report,
``RMC Research Corporation's Administration of the Reading
First Program Contracts, Final Audit Report'' (Microsoft Word
document) follows:]
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/a03f0022.doc
[Internet address to Department of Education IG report,
``The Department's Administration of Selected Aspects of the
Reading First Program, Final Audit Report'' (Microsoft Word
document) follows:]
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/a03g0006.doc
[Internet address to Department of Education IG report in
the form of a letter, dated January 18, 2007, ``Review of the
Georgia Reading First Program--Final Audit Report'' (Microsoft
Word document) follows:]
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/a04g0003.doc
[Internet address to Department of Education IG report,
``Audit of New York State Education Department's Reading First
Program, Final Audit Report'' (Editor's Note: very large
Microsoft Word document) follows:]
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/a02g0002.doc
[Internet address to Department of Education IG report in
the form of a letter, dated October 20, 2006, ``Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction's Reading First Program--Final
Audit Report'' (Microsoft Word document) follows:]
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/a05g0011.doc
______
[Questions submitted to witnesses by Mr. Scott follow:]
Committee on Education and Labor,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC, April 30, 2007.
Christopher J. Doherty,
Baltimore, MD.
Deborah C. Simmons,
Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, College
Station, TX.
Edward J. Kame'enui,
Commissioner, National Center for Special Education Research,
Washington, DC.
Roland Good,
College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.
Dear Mr. Doherty, Dr. Simmons, Dr. Kame'enui, Dr. Good: Thank you
for testifying at the April 20, 2007 full Committee hearing titled
``Mismanagement and Conflicts of Interest in the Reading First
Program.''
Representative Robert Scott (D-VA), has asked that you respond in
writing to the following questions:
1) How much money, directly or indirectly, have you, your
employers, your business partners, or your family members received from
the DIBELS assessment system, including, but not limited to, the costs
of scoring tests and the purchasing of DIBELS-related technology?
2) Are you aware of any political contributions made by you, your
employer, your business partners, or your family members since 2001? If
so, please list such contributions.
Please send an electronic version of your written response to the
question to Sarah Dyson of the Committee staff at
[email protected], by COB on Friday, May 4--the date on which
the hearing record will close. If you have any questions, please
contact Sarah at (202)226-9403. Once again, we greatly appreciated your
testimony at this hearing.
Sincerely,
George Miller,
Chairman.
______
[Responses to Mr. Scott's questions from Mr. Doherty
follow:]
Responses to Congressman Scott's Questions From Mr. Doherty
Response to Question 1
Neither I nor any family members have received any money, directly
or indirectly, from any aspect of the DIBELS assessment system. My
employer from 2002-2006 was the Federal government. Neither my employer
in 2001 nor my current employer received or currently receive any money
from the DIBELS assessment system. I do not have any business partners.
Response to Question 2
To the best of my recollection, I personally have made four
political contributions from 2001-2006. They are: two contributions to
George W. Bush, for an approximate total of several hundred dollars;
one contribution to Connecticut representative Rob Simmons for one
hundred dollars; and one contribution to a candidate for the Maryland
House of Delegates, Andy Smarick, for fifty dollars.
These figures are to the best of my memory; in order to meet your
deadline of Friday, May 4th I am submitting these now but I have not
located the exact records to fully corroborate these figures.
No member of my immediate family member has made any political
contributions from 2001 to the present. My employer from 2002-2006 was
the Federal government. My employer in 2001 made no political
contributions. My current employer is a philanthropic foundation and,
to the best of my knowledge, does not make and cannot make any
political contributions. I have not had any business partners from 2001
to the present.
______
[Responses to Mr. Scott's questions from Dr. Kame'enui
follow:]
May 4, 2007.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Miller: In this letter, I provide my responses in
writing to the questions from Representative Robert Scott (D-VA) that
you posed in your letter dated April 30, 2007. Each question and my
responses are provided below.
Question #1:
1. How much money, directly or indirectly, have you, your
employers, your business partners, or your family members received from
the DIBELS assessment system, including, but not limited to, the costs
of scoring tests and the purchasing of DIBELS related technology?
Response:
Neither I nor any members of my family have received any money,
directly or indirectly, from the DIBELS assessment system, including,
but not limited to the costs of scoring tests and the purchasing of
DIBELS related technology. I do not own a business, and thus, do not
have a business partner. If, however, the question relates to
individuals with whom I have had scholarly partnerships with, then that
would include Deborah Simmons and Roland Good. I do not have any
personal knowledge about whether either has received money from the
DIBELS assessment system. Because of his role in developing DIBELS, I
do know that Dr. Good receives royalties but I do not know the
specifics of any such arrangements.
My employer is the University of Oregon (Oregon University System).
The University of Oregon (UO) operates a web-based data system designed
to analyze the DIBELS assessment data via the internet. School
officials (typically teachers) enter the data obtained from the DIBELS
assessment battery into a website. Once the data are entered, school
officials choose an array of reports that automatically analyzes the
DIBELS data for each child and tells school officials who needs reading
support and why. The charge for this service is $1.00 per child per
year. All revenues obtained from what is typically referred to as the
``DIBELS Data System,'' are received and managed for the UO through the
Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement (IDEA). I have
served as Director of IDEA since 1995. As Director, I do not receive
any income, revenue or financial support from the DIBELS Data System or
from IDEA. At all times I only received my normal salary as a tenured
professor at the University.
Question #2:
2. Are you aware of any political contributions made by you, your
employer, your business partners, or your family members since 2001? If
so, please list your contributions.
Response:
To the best of my recollection, I made a contribution in 2002 of
approximately $100 to Ted Kulongoski's Democratic gubernatorial
campaign. Since 2001, my former wife, Brenda Johnson Kame'enui, has
contributed $60 a year to the Oregon Education Association's political
action committee. In 2005, she contributed $75 to Dollars for
Democrats. I am not aware of any other political contributions that my
employer (the University of Oregon and the Oregon University System),
my family members or I have made since 2001.
Sincerely,
Edward J. Kame'enui.
______
[Responses to Mr. Scott's questions from Dr. Simmons
follow:]
College Station, TX, May 4, 2007.
Hon. George Miller, Chairman,
Education and Labor Committee, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Re: Response to Committee's Request dated April 30, 2007.
Dear Chairman Miller: The correspondence for Chairman George Miller
requested the following information and I respond as follows:
1. How much money, directly or indirectly, have you. your
employers, your business partners. or your family members received from
the DIBELS assessment system including, but not limited to, the costs
of scoring tests and the purchasing of DIBELS related technology?
Response: Neither I nor family members have received income from
the DIBELS assessment system. I do not have information to be able to
answer this question about other individuals or entities. I am not an
author of DIBELs and earn no royalties from DIBELS.
2. Are you aware of any political contributions made by you, your
employer, your business partners, or your family members since 2001? lf
so, please list such contributions.
Response: Neither I nor family members have made political
contributions since 2001 and am not aware of campaign contributions of
other individuals and entities listed in your request.
Sincerely,
Deborah C. Simmons.
______
[Committee letters to witnesses follow:]
[Transcript edits received from Dr. Kame'enui follow:]
[Transcript edits received from Dr. Simmons follow:]
------
[Follow-up testimony from Ms. Lewis follows:]
Follow-Up Testimony of Starr Lewis, Associate Commissioner,
Office of Teaching and Learning, Kentucky Department of Education
As I mentioned during my testimony on April 20, 2007, I had not
seen any of our Expert Panel review forms until I received them from
Ryan Holden on April 19, 2007. I had requested to speak with our Expert
Panel members or to see their comments during our application process,
but I was told by Chris Doherty that we would not be allowed to speak
to panel members or know their identities and that we could not see
their actual reviews. On April 19, 2007 I received two forms labeled
Reading First Panel Chair Summary Forms and three forms labeled
Technical Review Form Summary Sheets. Attached is a chart that compares
the information included in the five forms with the three Expert Review
Team Reports we received from Reading First staff.
As one can see from the chart, there are discrepancies between the
information on the Expert Panel forms and the staff summaries.
Furthermore, it is impossible to know which form applies to a
particular submission. In any case, if there were four members to each
panel, we should have received four Technical Review Forms per
submission and one Reading First Panel Chair Summary Form per
submission. The forms provided by staff represent only a fraction of
the documentation that should be available.
Also, the discrepancies between the panel members' forms and the
staff summaries might suggest that there was some discussion between
staff and panel members, but again, one would reasonably expect some
documentation of those discussions.
Since I had to leave before the end of the hearing, I would like to
take this opportunity to respond to Representative Sarbanes' question
that he said he would have liked to ask me. He said he would ask me to
reflect on and discuss the impact on morale in the field since we had
made a ``good faith presentation'' not realizing the impact of the
process on funding decisions. I must say that it was discouraging at
the time because so much effort and time went into the repeated
revisions and resubmissions. My staff members and I spent an inordinate
amount of time and talent on this process, time and competence that
could have spent on more productive work.
After seeing the discrepancies between the panel member comments
and the staff summaries, I am even more discouraged. I would ask
members to give particular attention to the Technical Review Form
Summary Sheet with Review Code C4. On that form, eight ratings were
changed, by whom I have no way of knowing. Six ratings were changed
from ``Meets Standard'' to ``Does Not Meet.'' One was changed from
``Meets Standard'' to ``Exemplary.'' One was changed from ``Meets
Standard'' to ``Does Not Meet Standard.'' I would also ask members to
notice that the original rating from C4 on the standard related to
Instructional Assessments, the standard that repeated caused us not to
receive funding, was ``Meets Standard.''
Much of the discussion during the hearing was focused on how to
improve the process in the future. My hope is that the process will be
transparent and open and that states will have access to panel members.
Again, I thank the Committee for the opportunity to share
Kentucky's experience related to Reading First.
During the Reading First application process starting in June 2002
through final approval of the application in April 2003,the Kentucky
Department of Education received three Reading First State Application
Review-Kentucky Expert Review Team Reports. In the chart below, a
comparison of discrepant statements found in those reports and the
technical review panel and panel chair summary sheets provided to the
Kentucky Department of Education in April 2007.
It is important to note that in April 2007 only two Reading First
Panel Chair Summary Forms were provided and only the final review was
stamped with a date and time (April 10, 2003 12:03). Therefore, it is
difficult to determine which Kentucky Reading First submission is
reflected in the comments on the Technical Review Form Summary Sheets
because no date is recorded. All comments on the three summary sheets
appear to reflect only the first or second submission. One other note
of interest is that on the front of all forms provided (both Panel
Chair Summary Forms and Technical Review Forms) a typed notation (b)(6)
was entered into a small box where the Panel Chair or Reviewer was to
provide a signature. No explanation of this notation was provided, but
page 6, item b states ``Providing evidence that assessments are valid
and reliable and are aligned with the instructional program.''
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading First Panel Chair Summary Form 4A
Reading First State Application Review- and 4 (fourth review and the Technical
Section/Criterion Kentucky Expert Review Team Report provided Review Form Summary Sheet (Identified as
to KDE by Chris Doherty and Sandy Jacobs Reviewer Codes C4, 4D, and 4E)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I. Improving Reading First Submission Criteria for evaluation of content were
Instruction--District ``* * * the proposal does not provide not a part of the rubric for this
and School Based criteria for evaluation the content of section, and the comment was not
Professional district and school based professional reflected in the summary statements.
Development-- development plans * * *''
State Outline and Second Submission Reviewer Code 4E stated ``quotes concepts
Rationale for Using Concern about independent reading-comments that are not supportive of SBRR"-no
Scientifically Based that the Reading Panel meant repeated oral specific examples were provided
Reading Research reading with feedback and guidance-not
independent reading
Instructional Second Submission Found no reference by reviewers or panel
Strategies and ``The review team noted that these two sets chair to these two sets of standards.
Programs of standards [IRA Standards and the No comments from reviewers or panel chair
Children's Literacy Rights] are more mentioned submission of a sub-grant in
global, resulting in a disconnect * * *'' this criterion. However, the panel chair
Second Submission (4A) states in the Instructional
``The review team encourages the State to Materials criterion ``Require sub-grant
consider submitting a draft sub-grant selection procedure to indicate how * *
application. The team is aware that this *'' and Reviewer Code 4E indicated,
is not a requirement, but feels it may ``selection of programs-matrix needs
help to demonstrate how the sub-grant criteria.''
selection process will result in selected It is worth noting that the criterion
schools meeting the requirements related related to sub-grants always met standard
to instructional strategies and programs, and Reviewer Code 4D indicated the
which is necessary to satisfy this process is ``clear and concise--very easy
criterion.'' to understand.''
Instructional Materials Second Submission No reference to decodable texts found in
``The team also noted that the matrix does any of the comments.
not include decodable texts.''
District and School Second Submission Reviewer Code C4 states in the
Based Professional ``* * * the review team found the criteria Instructional Materials criterion, ``TA
Development the State will expect to see in sub grant will be needed to understand how to layer
applications to lack an intense focus on programs and determine how they work
scientifically based reading research and together to meet the needs of diverse
expressed concern that training in learners.''
scientifically based reading instruction Reviewer Code 4D noted ``? bii (SBRR)'' as
will be layered on top of existing a comment. Bii refers to the rubric
programs.'' statement at the top of page 10 * * *
``The content is not entirely focused on implementing scientifically based
the five essential components and instructional materials, programs, and
scientifically based materials, programs strategies. However, no specific topics
and strategies, as topics such as were offered as examples on this reviewer
literature circles and leveled text are comment page or any other reviewer
also included.'' comments.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. State Leadership ........................................... ..........................................
and Management
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. State Reporting All reports reflect all criteria to the ..........................................
and Evaluation State's reporting and evaluation
strategies met standards.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV. Classroom Level Second Submission The terms ``decodable text, predicting,
Impact ``* * * the review team still found a context clues'' are not found in any
Key Reading First disconnect between classroom instructional comment. Reviewer Code C4 states, ``The
Classroom activities and scientifically based summary provided under phonics for
Characteristics reading research in the table that Kentucky RF classrooms describes a
connects grade expectations, program of practice that SBRR indicates is not the
studies and core content for assessment. most effective way to teach phonics.''
The benchmarks are appropriate, but do not
appear to match with all of the
corresponding activities. For example,
there is no mention of decodable text. The
focus is on predicting and using context
clues.''
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
______
[Whereupon, at 2:19 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]