Reading First Lawbreakers Referred to U. S. Department of Justice

Today the House Committee on Education and Labor grilled some of the hacks and lead thug, Chris Doherty, who were on the front lines of the well-financed war on reading instruction since Reading First dumped its annual billion-dollar installment into the laps of Bush cronies in the ed industry.

. . . . All three of those former committee members - Roland Good, Ed Kame'enui, and Deborah Simmons - benefited financially either directly or indirectly from the sale of a specific assessment product called the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Learning Skills (DIBELS). Goode was a co-author of DIBELS; so far, a company in which he owns a 50 percent share has received more than $1.3 million in royalty and other payments from the sale of DIBELS.

Kame'enui and Simmons were co-authors of a reading intervention product used in Reading First, which was packaged and sold together with DIBELS. They both confirmed at today's hearing that they each have received approximately $150,000 in royalty payments in the last year for the sale of that intervention product.

The question remains as to when Congressman Miller will bring into the spotlight Reid Lyon and Doug Carnine, the kingpins in the conspiracy. Or will he interview Margaret Spellings, who was running the operation from her office in the White House before she became Secretary of Education:

. . . . At today's hearing, the U.S. Department of Education's Inspector General, John Higgins, also confirmed that his office has made a referral to the U.S. Justice Department in the wake of the scandal.

"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 government's effectiveness," said Miller. "Now it appears that we can add Reading First - on which we have spent roughly $6 billion since 2002 - to that long and growing list of instances of the administration operating outside the law, unaccountable to Congress and the American people."