In all of the Policy talk about making schools and districts accountable, the faces of children fade from view, leaving only their test scores as residue in the conversation. But to my way of thinking, the faces of students, whether traumatized or not, leads to the appearance of how to support them in being successful, and test scores seems to be last in line.

This is the handout I made for an Elementary School in Queens: 

A) Process for Using Data to Improve Teaching (Richardson 2005)

B) Stages of Teacher Diagnostic Prompts / ELL learners (Marzano, Pickering et al. 2001)

C) Classroom Instruction that Works (Marzano, Pickering et al. 2001)

The Reading First scandal seems to be growing. Now we notice Michael Petrilli's comments in the  National Review Online:

Did Doherty push the bureaucratic and procedural envelope? Absolutely. Did he do what his bosses in Congress and the White House expected him to do? Absolutely. Did his actions help millions of children in classrooms nationwide? Absolutely.

The president was at a charter school yesterday stumping for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and for its re-authorization next year. Despite much controversy surrounding this act, the system of education for our 53 million school children ges a lot of attention because of it. I know that several ideas embedded in it, such as adequate yearly progress, closing the gap on testing scores of children from different backgrounds, and the notion of accountability are all welcomed to the debate on school reform.

Chris Doherty, the former director of the US Department of Education's Reading First granting program has come under fire from the department's Office of Inspector General. Among the ethical lapses is this email: 

In many of Doherty’s emails, Reading Recovery—a widely used Intervention that targets individual students— comes in for particular venom, as do practitioners of “whole language” instruction, such as the Wright Group literacy program, once a popular reading instruction vehicle.

According to the report, Doherty instructed one staff member regarding the Wright Group: “Beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in a way that will stand up to any level of legal and [whole language] apologist scrutiny. Hit them over and over with definitive evidence that they are not SBRR [based on scientifically based reading research], never have been and never will be. They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] 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.” (See Thompson.com for the rest of the story).

The Office of the Inspector General inside of the Department of Education has issued a report that calls into question the process by which the Department of Education administers the application process for Reading First money. The ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act originally passed in 1965), as amended by NCLB on January 8, 2002, established the Reading First program.  The purpose of NCLB is to “close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.” Also from the Inspector General Report on Reading First (pdf) is this part of the executive summary:

In the course of answering our three objectives, we found that Department officials obscured the statutory requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by NCLB; acted in contravention of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government; and took actions that call into question whether they violated the prohibitions included in the Department of Education Organization Act (DEOA).  The DEOA at §3403(b) prohibits Department officials from exercising any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum or program of instruction of any educational institution, school, or school system.  

Specifically, we found that the Department:   

• Developed an application package that obscured the requirements of the statute;
• Took action with respect to the expert review panel process that was contrary to the balanced panel composition envisioned by Congress;
• Intervened to release an assessment review document without the permission of the entity that contracted for its development; 
• Intervened to influence a State’s selection of reading programs; and 
• Intervened to influence reading programs being used by local educational agencies (LEAs) after the application process was completed.
• These actions demonstrate that the program officials failed to maintain a control environment that exemplifies management integrity and accountability.