Multibillion dollar textbook scandal reaches Congress

[babylonsister]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-04-15-textbooks-congress_N.htm

Multibillion dollar textbook scandal reaches Congress

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

A slow-motion scandal surrounding a federal multibillion-dollar reading program has its first congressional hearing this week, but it remains to be seen whether the scrutiny will shed any new light on a complex, contradictory tale of textbooks, tests and allegations of federal arm-twisting.

A key part of President Bush's efforts to remake public education, Reading First was launched in 2002, giving schools $1 billion a year to improve reading in early elementary grades. Five years later, early evidence suggests that it may be helping. But investigators say a handful of advisers have railroaded schools into buying textbooks and other materials that they and associates developed.

The result: a conflict-of-interest case that took two years to jell as investigators in the Education Department connected the dots. To date, no criminal charges have been filed, but Democrats, now in control of Congress, promise to give the case a full airing.

"The purpose of Reading First is to help schoolchildren learn to read, not feather the nests of a select group of well-connected individuals and organizations," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., are conducting probes. Kennedy plans hearings later this spring.

Miller will preside at the first hearing Friday, which brings together Chris Doherty, the program's former director, and three top advisers.

Atop the witness list: John Higgins, the Education Department's inspector general, who has issued six reports detailing how Reading First leaders and contractors looked the other way at possible conflicts of interest among advisers and others — several of whom authored textbooks. He also found that Doherty and others strong-armed states and school districts into choosing from a small selection of materials that stress phonics.

In one e-mail Higgins cited, Doherty said of a publisher whose books downplayed phonics, "They are trying to crash our party, and we need to beat the (expletive) out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags."

Doherty quit in September after the report's release.

more...

[Sapere aude]

1. Wing nut radio use to push some reading thing that stressed phonics I think.

I can't remember the name but it was a game that the kids play and they learn to read better. It seemed to go along with home schooling I think. I have nothing against phonics. That's how I learned to read but I fear the right puts their ideology in the reading material also.

[PurgedVoter]

7. Hooked on Republican Lies?

Hooked on Oxy?

Something like that.

[cyberpj]

2. Scholastic? Isn't this another Bushie org involved here? Both Babs and Laura

come to mind.

Doing a google on Bush and Scholastic turns up some ver-ry interesting conncetions.

[acmavm]

3. Neil sells educational materials, doesn't he?

Too bad none of that family seem like they've seen a day of school themselves.

[CabalPowered]

5. Neil sells the talking cow, financed by the Saudis..

The name escapes me at the moment.

[babylonsister]

4. My first thought as well, but no Bushies were mentioned in this

article.

[librechik]

6. Is this Neil's new project?

[cyberpj]

8. No Bush Left Behind - Is there any doubt that Neil Bush's Ignite! Inc. is in there somewhere?

No Bush Left Behind
The President's brother Neil is making hay from school reform

Across the country, some teachers complain that President George W. Bush's makeover of public education promotes "teaching to the test." The President's younger brother Neil takes a different tack: He's selling to the test. The No Child Left Behind Act compels schools to prove students' mastery of certain facts by means of standardized exams. Pressure to perform has energized the $1.9 billion-a-year instructional software industry.

Now, after five years of development and backing by investors like Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and onetime junk-bond king Michael R. Milken, Neil Bush aims to roll his high-tech teacher's helpers into classrooms nationwide. He calls them "curriculum on wheels," or COWs. The $3,800 purple plug-and-play computer/projectors display lively videos and cartoons: the XYZ Affair of the late 1790s as operetta, the 1828 Tariff of Abominations as horror flick. The device plays songs that are supposed to aid the memorization of the 22 rivers of Texas or other facts that might crop up in state tests of "essential knowledge."

Bush's Ignite! Inc. has sold 1,700 COWs since 2005, mainly in Texas, where Bush lives and his brother was once governor. In August, Houston's school board authorized expenditures of up to $200,000 for COWs. The company expects 2006 revenue of $5 million. Says Bush about the impact of his name: "I'm not saying it hasn't opened any doors. It may have helped with some sales." (In September, the U.S. Education Dept.'s inspector general accused the agency of improperly favoring at least five publishers, including The McGraw-Hill Companies, which owns BusinessWeek. A company spokesman says: "Our reading programs have been successful in advancing student achievement for decades; that's why educators hold them in such high regard.")

The stars haven't always aligned for Bush, but at times financial support has. A foundation linked to the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon has donated $1 million for a COWs research project in Washington (D.C.)-area schools. In 2004 a Shanghai chip company agreed to give Bush stock then valued at $2 million for showing up at board meetings. (Bush says he received one-fifth of the shares.) In 1988 a Colorado savings and loan failed while he served on its board, making him a prominent symbol of the S&L scandal. Neil calls himself "the most politically damaged of the brothers."

More:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_42/b4005059.htm

[cyberpj]

9. Hell, They didn't mind using Babs' Katrina donation to fund Neil's program (but only in Texas)

Former first lady's donation aids son
Katrina funds earmarked to pay for Neil Bush's software program
By CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

The gift that keeps on giving

Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.

snip-
Two years ago, the school district raised eyebrows when it expanded the program by relying heavily on private donations. In February 2004, the Houston school board unanimously agreed to accept $115,000 in charitable donations from businesses and individuals who insisted the money be spent on Ignite. The money covered half the bill for the software, which cost $10,000 per school.

The deal raised conflict of interest concerns because Neil Bush and company officials helped solicit the donations for the HISD Foundation, a philanthropic group that raises money for the district. HISD school principals decide for themselves whether to spend their budgeted money on Ignite.

Leonard said that in the past six to eight months, the company has hired national sales representatives across the country — in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — in hopes of expanding beyond Texas. Currently, about 80 percent of the company's customers are from Texas.


More
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3742329.html