Reading First Program = Epic Fail

As if we all needed another reason to detest the risible No Child Left Behind Act — apparently the $6 billion Reading First program, mandated under the NCLB, is a total bust.

“It is a program that needs to be improved,” said Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the department’s research arm. “I don’t think anyone should be celebrating that the federal government has spent $6 billion on a reading program that has had no impact on reading comprehension.”

Also:

Reading First, though popular with educators, has been tarnished by allegations of conflicts of interest and mismanagement in recent years. Federal investigators have found that some people who helped oversee the program had financial ties to the publishers of Reading First materials.

Awesome!