Orange Jumpsuits for Reading First Mafia

At the top of the new Attorney General's list of immediate indictments should be the individuals who comprise the network of hacks and ideologues who turned Reading First into their own private financial empire, while irrevocably damaging the healthy development of children across the country. There is a drawer full of Congressional and OIG investigations to draw from, so the leg work should be quite minimal.

The saddest part, as pointed out in this letter from Ken Goodman circulating on the Web, is that the damage continues to accrue to this day:

The easiest, important educational item that the Obama administration could handle is to investigate the left over scandals of the Bush Administration. Reading First involved blatant conflicts of interest resulting in 6 billion dollars being diverted into the pockets of a small group of phonics fanatics and their greedy publishers (McGraw Hill, Scott, Foresman, Sopris West, Voyager). This is all documented by the Inspector General's reports and it is likely to lead into Secretary Spellings's office and the White House. Meanwhile Reading First has been demonstrated in a USDE study to be a failed program.
. . . .

Congress cut off all funding for Reading First, but the illegally negotiated state contracts are still in place with states and local districts still buying and using the illegally mandated texts and tests and the crooks still raking in the profits. Waiting a year to do any thing about this condemns another cohort of kindergarten children to being labeled as failures for flunking DIBELS and many more schools failing AYP.

Tell Congress and the new administration to cleanup this terrible mess.
Ken Goodman