What's the Agenda?

• 7 Dec 2006 // Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education (DOE)  in the District court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit is based on DOE's failure to release certain records required by law to be made public. Those records include the activities of advisory panels created under the Reading First Initiative, which was set up by the No Child Left Behind Act. CREW's complaint alleges that DOE failed to comply with any of the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires agencies using panels such as those implemented by the Reading First Initiative to conduct open meetings, make records of those meetings publicly available, and ensure that any recommendation of the panels is the result of a fairly balanced panel. The panel sets up under the Reading First Initiative make recommendatiosn to the Secretary about which states should receive federal funds under the program. In a report issued in September 2006, DOE's Inspector General found that the Reading First Initiative was plagued by conflicts of interest, possible corruption, and numerous violations of law and General Accounting Office (GAO) standards.

• As a result of the lawsuit CREW obtained e-mails from G.Reid Lyon, including the e-mail shown in the image below that mentions MCPS' reading program. At the time of this e-mail message G. Reid Lyon was Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at NIH and Chris Doherty was the Director of Reading First. 

• The Washington Post - Billions for an Inside Game on Reading Oct. 1, 2006

RF = Reading First
NCLB = No Child Left Behind
RR = Reading Recovery
SBRR = Scientifically Based Reading Research

TEXT OF E-MAIL: 

Hi Ray and Chris. Hope this gets to you. Looking foward to the meeting on

the 14th. I know that Jeny Weast wil be attending so wanted to give you a

heads up. I have worked with Jerry for some time and he certainly has his

strengths.

The downside is that he tends to hype his data and tends to overestimate his

potential and ability to change the nation. He has aIso not been supportive

of NCLB when in Private.

Chris, he is aIso using RF funds for a healthy dose of Reading Recovery

which I caIIed him on last week He said it was great for diagmostics - ala

running records.

The reason he is staying with RR is his teaches will not move to SBRR

I wish I had more confidence in his reading data.

At any rate, I don't trust him, but I hope he can contribute to the kids we

are trying to help rather than his own agenda

Reid

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