To:?????????????????????? Andrew Rotherham, Jonathan Schnur, Michael Johnston,
???????????????????????????????? Robert Gordon
From:?????????????? Mike Petrilli
Re:????????????????????????David Axelrod's statements about Reading First
Good morning, gentlemen. As key advisors to Senator Barack Obama, as well as bona fide education reformers, I urge you to correct the statements made by campaign manager David Axelrod on Sunday's Meet the Press, which were highlighted in yesterday's Education Daily.
Although David Axelrod, an advisor for Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, did not specifically name the Reading First program when asked Sunday on Meet the Press about programs Obama would cut in light of the economic crisis, [Richard Long of the International Reading Association] said Axelrod alluded to it.
"We're going to have to look at the budget, and Sen. Obama said he's going to go through it line by line, and he's going to get rid of things that don't work," Axelrod said on the TV show. "We have, for example, a reading program that was installed by the Bush administration that turned out to be a big boondoggle. It's not helping any kids learn. We ought to say, ???That doesn't work, let's get rid of it.'"
While taking a scalpel to ineffective federal programs is no easy trick, killing a program that is helping millions of children learn to read would be a national disgrace. Of course, thanks to Democrats on Capitol Hill, the wheels are already in motion for that tragic story to come to fruition. If anything, the Reading First saga is a great example of the Washington "politics as usual" that Sen. Obama has promised to change.
If you've read Sol Stern's report about the program, you know the facts, but let me repeat them. Reading First is based on the tenets of scientific, non-partisan research. This research was shepherded for many years by Reid Lyon, who by all accounts is a liberal Democrat (as were most of the people involved in the implementation of the program). The program's authorizing language was watered down during the legislative process, opening the door for non-scientific programs to be adopted by local districts--as had happened during President Clinton's Reading Excellence Act initiative, which ended without much result. So officials in the Bush Administration had a choice: either let "anything go" or work to ensure that only rigorous programs be adopted. They chose the latter, and for this have been prosecuted with charges of favoritism and cronyism. When, in fact, all they wanted was for poor children to have access to good reading programs. But this is today's Washington.
And what have been the results? Yes, the interim findings of one federal study raised concerns about the program's effectiveness, but this study has been widely criticized, even by the director of the Institute for Education Sciences, which released the study. Meanwhile, the program is wildly popular with educators, evidence is mounting that state and local reading scores for the neediest children are going through the roof, and just the other day the Southern Regional Education Board issued a report crediting Reading First for the big gains being made by states throughout the South (a region with a disproportionate share of the African-American and Latino students targeted by Reading First).
It's understandable why a non-education-expert such as Axelrod would believe Reading First to be a "boondoggle," since that's what's been reported in the media. (Of course, by the same count, he might also think that charter schools are ineffective, because that's what the New York Times has reported.) So I'm asking you to clarify for Axelrod and other key officials in the campaign--and perhaps even the candidate himself--that if they are looking for examples of failed programs eligible for elimination, Reading First should not be one of them.
