The Education Gadfly Weekly

edited by Kenneth K. Wong and Margaret C. Wang
2002

Vanderbilt's Kenneth K. Wong and the late Margaret C. Wang of Temple University co-edited this book, which is the 2nd volume in an educational productivity series whose general editor is Herbert J. Walberg. This 316-page, twelve-chapter volume is organized into sections on "efficiency," "accountability," and "equity." Its policy backdrop is 1994's Improving America's Schools Act, which significantly widened the "schoolwide" approach to Title I. The book, however, deals with numerous issues that bear on this big federal compensatory program, its effectiveness and its possible reform. It likely would have had more policy traction had it appeared before No Child Left Behind was wrapped up. But a number of essays remain germane, such as the thoughtful piece by Tyce Palmaffy and the Gadfly's own Marci Kanstoroom concerning the use of "market forces" to make Title I more effective. The ISBN is 1931576106 and the book can be ordered at http://www.infoagepub.com/oi.htm. Information on the hardback edition (ISBN 1931576114) also appears at Efficiency, Accountability, and Equity Issues in Title I Schoolwide Program Implementation.

S.E. Phillips and Theodor Rebarber, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council
June 2002

Another joint report by AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council, this 25-pager by S.E. Phillips and Theodor Rebarber provides a useful if somewhat technical guide to the relationship between a state and its testing contractor, including numerous responsibilities and expectations needing to be fulfilled by each side if the state testing program is to work well. It offers a rigorous, comprehensive and clear-headed set of guidelines and, while it's most apt to be of interest to state-level policymakers (and testing companies), if its advice were taken seriously it could prevent a lot of mistakes, confusions, ambiguities, recriminations, delays, false starts and wasted dollars. As state testing burdens mount under the pressure of No Child Left Behind (and as the overworked testing industry gets cocky or sloppy, well aware that there's no shortage of jobs and revenues waiting in the corridor), these specifications could prove very helpful. You can find it in PDF format at http://www.educationleaders.org/elc/events/model%20contractor.pdf.

The Partnership for Reading
September 2001

In April 2000, the National Reading Panel released Teaching Children to Read, its rigorous analysis of 100,000+ scientific studies concerning reading education. Put Reading First, by the Partnership for Reading (a collaborative effort of the National Institute for Literacy, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the U.S. Department of Education), summarizes the findings of that comprehensive study in non-technical language. Intended for teachers and parents, the new report stresses the value of an early start and analyzes five key areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Each section "defines the skill, reviews the evidence from research, suggests implications for classroom instruction, describes proven strategies for teaching reading skills, and addresses frequently raised questions." It's available at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/Cierra.pdf or by contacting The National Institute for Literacy at ED Pubs, PO Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794-1398; 800-228-8813; [email protected]. The study upon which it's based, Teaching Children to Read, can be downloaded or ordered at the National Reading Panel website, http://ww.nationalreadingpanel.org.

John W. Oswald and Theodor Rebarber, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council
June 2002

In this oddly titled report, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council (ELC) describe 25 "innovations" in state testing programs that they found in the eleven states participating in the ELC. Authors John W. Oswald and Theodor Rebarber spend 17 pages outlining these under two main headings (immediate innovations and longer-term changes) and according to their significance. Some of it is a bit obvious (e.g. computer scoring, reliable links between test records and student records) though it all seems worthwhile. Unfortunately, this brief report only sketches these individual innovations (and their "benefits" and "challenges"); it does not delve deeply into an explanation of how they work. You can find a PDF version at State Innovation Priorities for State Testing Programs.

edited by Edward J. Dirkswager
2002

In the world of management theory, the 1990s featured much talk of a workplace shift from "command and control" hierarchies to empowered high-performance teams. This ethos permeates Teachers as Owners. In the second paragraph we read, "The typical organizational structure of our school systems contains a rigid hierarchy of roles and decision-making power, with teachers firmly positioned at the bottom of this hierarchy. Very simply, teachers are employees, and like most employees in rigid hierarchical organizations, they have a limited range of decision-making powers." The book's thesis is that, by empowering teachers as owners of their own means of production, communities will see a rise in student achievement. Few would deny that teachers prefer to work in schools that trust them, empower them to make decisions, value their input, and invites innovation. Yet empowerment only seems to succeed when those being empowered are fully committed to the enterprise, highly skilled at its work, and able to be trusted at all times. Democratic models of employment quickly collapse when they encounter slackers or inept members. Once trust is lost, rules and regulations are created to prevent cheating by the minority that would wreak havoc if left to their own devices. This fact collides with the theory of creating leaderless systems run by equal partners. The editor of this book notes that teachers who work in teacher-owned schools "believe that 100 to 250 students is a desirable size. They believe that schools of this size are better able to create a learning community." If a school gets much larger, teachers cannot effectively regulate themselves and the slackers can successfully hide. One must therefore ask whether teacher empowerment is a sound reform strategy for many U.S. schools, particularly in urban districts where the average elementary school enrolls 500 students, and the average high school more than 750. The ideas in Teachers as Owners are definitely worth considering-and may be applicable in charter schools and some regular public schools-but one can't put the book down without noting the chasm between these ideas and the realities of most American schools. For more information, see http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0810843722.

David Brennan with Malcolm Baroway
2002

Toledo entrepreneur David Brennan (with help from Malcolm Baroway) has written this short, lively, opinionated book on the Cleveland voucher program, how it came to be, how it works and why it's controversial. Brennan has long been a major player in the Ohio school-choice saga, first chairing the Commission on Educational Choice named by Governor George Voinovich in 1992, then pressing for the voucher (and charter) legislation, then opening a pair of private schools in Cleveland (subsequently converted to charters) and remaining, throughout, a staunch advocate of more education options for kids-and for the role of the private sector in making such options available. Though this book tells interesting political and policy tales, it's chiefly an autobiographical account of David Brennan's embrace of this cause, as well as a bit of his life story. (You can also read a recent Education Week profile of him: "Millionaire Industrialist Touts 'White Hat' Firm to Build Charter Model," by Karla Scoon Reid, Education Week, May 22, 2002, http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=37whitehat.h21&keywords=Brennan.) This 122-page book contains a useful prologue by David Zanotti of the Ohio Roundtable. It's published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. The ISBN is 097-548528 and you can get more information at http://www.adti.net/brennan/index.html.

On the Newsweek website last week, Jonathan Alter tried to debunk the notion that the Supreme Court's ruling will turn the educational and political tides in favor of vouchers and Republicans who favor them. ("America still hates vouchers") Mickey Kaus quickly refuted Alter in his Kausfiles column on Slate. ("Why the voucher issue really could hurt the Dems") Meanwhile, Slate's Steven Waldman explains why vouchers may be bad for Christianity (in short: mission dilution, tuition inflation, and the growth of minority religions). ("The price of religious education").

According to school choice critic Richard Kahlenberg, private school vouchers will never work because successes with small pilot-level voucher programs (which help some students at the expense of others) cannot be replicated when taken to scale. A better and more egalitarian option, he says, would be to allow every child the opportunity to attend a "solidly middle class" public school through a system of mandatory public school choice, spanning school district lines and subject to "fairness" guidelines. "The Problem of Taking Private School Voucher Programs to Scale" by Richard D. Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation, June 27, 2002.

Students in approximately 8,600 schools across the country must be given the option to attend a higher-performing school this year because the school they currently attend has failed to make adequate yearly progress, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced last week. The 8,600 schools are Title I schools identified by their states as "in need of school improvement" because they twice failed to meet state standards for progress. (Federal standards for adequate yearly progress, which don't apply until next year, are even tougher and will likely yield even longer lists of failing schools.)

States and districts are now scrambling to find higher-achieving schools for these children to attend and to arrange transportation to those alternative schools. In Baltimore, for example, 30,000 students are eligible to transfer out of failing schools, but only 194 openings exist in the non-failing schools that have been designated to accept transfers. In Camden, parents of children in failing schools were told that no other schools in the district had room for them, and that they should contact Camden's two charter schools or a nearby district, but those schools told a reporter that they have no room either. Some predict that parents will be reluctant to take their children out of neighborhood schools, and school officials in at least one district have mounted a PR offensive to convince parents to keep their children where they are and give reforms in those schools another chance to work. Many districts have not yet made arrangements to comply with the law, and with school starting in less than two months, it looks unlikely that we will be able to observe a full-fledged test of the effects of public school choice anytime soon.

"Schools setting limits on transfers," by Liz Bowie, The Baltimore Sun, July 10, 2002; "Federal Law on failing schools has states scrambling to comply," by Maria Newman, The New York Times, July 4, 2002; "School districts resists law offering kids better choices," editorial, USA Today, July 9, 2002

After nine months of labor, the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education has given birth to a stunning report. If it's allowed to grow up into public policy, rather than be strangled in its crib, it would effect a much-needed overhaul of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)-and much else.

You should read all 90 pages for yourself and make up your own mind, of course. (The report is available on the Internet at http://www.ed.gov/inits/commissionsboards/whspecialeducation.) But allow me to recap some of its key points.

The Commission demonstrates that, while IDEA has done much good, the educational attainments of disabled youngsters remain weak. They're more apt to drop out of school, less apt to attend college, etc. Minority kids are overrepresented in this educational cul-de-sac from which few ever emerge. Half of all children in special ed are there because of so-called "specific learning disabilities" and yet, in the Commission's estimate, eighty percent of those youngsters (i.e. 2 in 5 of all those in special ed) are there "simply because they haven't learned how to read." Worse, once in special ed, they are unlikely to catch up with their peers in reading or other core skills.

The Commission found "a system in need of fundamental rethinking, a shift in priorities and a new commitment to individual needs." Its key assumption is that, in special as in "regular" ed, "accountability for results matters, parents desire maximum input and educators want to see efficiency melded with compassion and improved outcomes." Perhaps the key sentence in the entire report is this: "The ultimate test of the value of special education is that, once identified, children close the gap with their peers." As soon as you accept this view of the proper criterion by which to gauge IDEA's success, everything else begins to shift.

In examining the current program's operations, the Commission settled on nine "findings," mostly centering on the proposition that a "culture of compliance" dominates the program instead of an obsession with academic outcomes. The Commissioners, therefore, set out to bring IDEA into the era of "No Child Left Behind," to conform our thinking about special ed to our thinking about education in general, i.e. to the realization that what ultimately matters is not what's done but what's learned.

This reasoning led the Commission to three broad reform propositions: Shift the focus from process to results. Embrace "a model of prevention not a model of failure." And instead of segregating special-ed kids and isolating their funding, meld special ed with general education into a single delivery system tailored to the learning needs of every youngster.

The Commission set forth 33 detailed recommendations under half a dozen major headings. The only two that seem to be gathering media attention are a limited voucher proposal ("allow state use of federal special education funds to enable students with disabilities to attend schools or to access services of their family's choosing, provided states measure and report outcomes for all children benefiting from IDEA funds") and the Commissioners' refusal to embrace the conventional definition of "full federal funding" for special ed. (On this latter point, the report provides-on pages 28-32-the clearest, sharpest exegesis of special-ed funding that I've ever seen.)

Though you'd never know it from the press coverage, some of the Commission's other proposals are far more revolutionary. These span a wide array of special ed issues, including research, teacher preparation and such knotty topics as how to handle special ed in charter schools. The Commissioners would replace the compliance mindset with bold deregulation of the means by which special education is provided to children, combined with the specification, measurement and reporting (at the individual child level, state level, etc.) of "annual outcomes and results." They would enforce results-based accountability at all those levels, integrating it with the adequate-yearly-progress approach set forth in No Child Left Behind. They would jettison the present "deficit model" for identifying disabled youngsters, one that (for many girls and boys) waits until they've begun to lag in school before deciding that they need help, and would replace it with early identification, prevention and intervention. Moreover, they would include in the determination of a child's need a close review of the instruction previously tried with him and how it worked. Tucked away on page 25 is this bombshell:

"A key component of the identification process...should be a careful evaluation of the child's response to instruction. Children should not be identified for special education without documenting what methods have been used to facilitate the child's learning and adaptation to the general education classroom. The child's response to scientifically based interventions attempted in the context of general education should be evaluated with performance measures, such as pre- and post-administration of norm referenced tests and progress monitoring. In the absence of this documentation, the Commission finds that many children who are placed into special education are essentially instructional casualties and not students with disabilities."

Read that last sentence again. It's basic. It suggests that America should come to view the educational inadequacies of millions of its daughters and sons not in terms of organic problems inherent in the children but rather as the fallout from unsound, inept or ill-conceived instruction by adults. This doesn't mean that nobody has a "true" disability. Millions do. And there are many mixed situations, where true disabilities interact in complex ways with how and what a child is taught or with other school-connected experiences. So be it. But that doesn't contradict the Commission's main message: Start to view special ed chiefly in terms of preventing and remedying education gaps rather than as a system for coping with children who were born with problems that schooling can do little about.

Will the Bush Administration and the Congress take this advice to heart in the upcoming IDEA reauthorization? Don't count on it. Myriad adult interests are already rallying to prevent this kind of fundamental rethinking-and on behalf of more money poured into the current, flawed program. We already knew that reform comes hard to "regular" education. It will be markedly harder in special ed. What the Commission's excellent report now needs, above all, are some champions, influential individuals (the President, the Secretary of Education, key members of Congress) who will show real leadership on behalf of these reforms despite the slim political reward for doing so. Reconstructing IDEA may not get one thanked at the polls. It will, simply, be the right thing to do on behalf of millions of America's neediest children and on behalf of an education system that probably cannot be successfully reformed until we are ready to tackle this part, too.

Diane Ravitch and Checker Finn warn that a House-passed bill to overhaul the Department of Education's office of educational research and improvement would damage the federal government's ability to report on the condition of education. Ravitch and Finn argue that the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Assessment Governing Board will see their independence compromised and will become more subject to political control under the new bill and urge the Senate to rectify the situation. For details, see "Time to Save Federal Education Data," by Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn, Jr., Education Week, July 10, 2002.

During the National Education Association's annual meeting in Dallas last week, delegates voted to spend several millions to promote the union's agenda for the new No Child Left Behind Act, an unprecedented mobilization around a single issue, according to Mike Antonucci, who filed riveting daily reports on the union conclave for his own Education Intelligence Agency (EIA). The NEA plans a public campaign "to build broad community consensus against the negative aspects" of the new law, among other things. Antonucci also reports that, while the union has stopped releasing current membership numbers, total NEA membership seems to have flattened and at least 20 state affiliates lost members over the past year. Antonucci's dispatches from the front can be viewed at http://members.aol.com/educationintel. (Click on "Archives.") Readers who want to receive a daily briefing on the AFT convention beginning July 15 are advised to sign up for the EIA e-mail bulletin by sending a subscription request (including preferred email address, name and state) to [email protected].

Facing a Ron Unz-sponsored ballot initiative this fall that would gut the state's bilingual education program, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would revamp the Bay State's bilingual program in more limited ways. At present, Massachusetts students who don't speak English take most classes in their native language while gradually learning English, often for many years. Like similar ballot questions passed in California and Arizona, the pending Massachusetts referendum would replace the current bilingual program with one year of English immersion before moving students into regular classes in English. The bill passed by the House this week would require school districts to consult with parents before creating bilingual programs and would require the Department of Education to monitor whether the programs work, using annual tests of English proficiency. Yet it's hard to imagine that this bill would yield much real change for students who don't speak English. For details see "House votes to revamp bilingual ed," by Anand Vaishnav, The Boston Globe, July 10, 2002, and "Bilingual education bill nears passage," by Anand Vaishnav, The Boston Globe, July 2, 2002

In November, the NAACP challenged all fifty states to produce five-year plans to dramatically reduce the academic achievement gap between white and minority students. By last Sunday, when the NAACP opened its national convention, all but eleven states had submitted action plans. NAACP officials say they are preparing to file federal civil rights complaints against three states that have large minority populations and did not file action plans (Florida, Louisiana, and Ohio). For details see "NAACP's focus shifts to education disparities," by Kim Cobb, Houston Chronicle, July 6, 2002.

Now that the Supreme Court has shifted the school choice debate back to the political arena, policymakers should abandon their tired assumptions about choice and create a new model of schools based on the principle of "accountable choice," argues the Progressive Policy Institute's Andy Rotherham. Under such a model, a public school would be defined not by who runs it, but by universal access and accountability to the public for results-a strategy Rotherham says could unleash a renaissance in American education. See "Putting Vouchers in Perspective: Thinking About School Choice After Zelman v. Simmons-Harris," by Andrew J. Rotherham, Progressive Policy Institute, July 2, 2002.

Convinced that the leadership battles between board and superintendent were creating a crisis for the Pittsburgh school district, three major local foundations announced that they were indefinitely suspending all funding to the district. Citing a decline of leadership, governance, and fiscal discipline, the three foundations, which together have awarded the district $11.7 million in the last five years, said they hoped their decision would catalyze community leaders to push for changes in how the school district is managed. "Foundations yank city school grants," by Carmen Lee and Jane Elizabeth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 10, 2002.

The summer 2002 issue of American Educator, the A.F.T.'s flagship publication, now edited by Ruth Wattenberg, continues this quarterly's fine record of serious, thoughtful, constructive and nicely presented work. "A Common, Coherent Curriculum" is the theme of this 48-page magazine, featuring (along with much else) a fine essay by William Schmidt and colleagues regarding math (in the U.S. and overseas) as Exhibit A of the case for curricular coherence. See http://www.aft.org/american_educator/index.html.

It's not often that a study published in the journal Sociology of Education makes the front page of The Washington Post, but that's what happens when the study's findings suggest that sending junior to Andover may not have been such a good idea after all. A study by Paul Attewell in the October issue of the journal (called "The Winner-Take-All High School: Organizational Adaptations to Educational Stratification") finds that attending a competitive high school can hurt most students' chances of getting into very selective colleges.  Jay Mathews reflected on what this means in a November 6 piece online at WashingtonPost.com ("Competitive High School May Limit College Choices," and on page A1 of the Post on November 12 ("In College Admissions, Magnets are Negative").

Block scheduling caused the test scores of high school students in Iowa to drop, according to a new study by Iowa State University. The popular reform, which ordinarily divides the school day into four 80-to-90 minute classes instead of the traditional schedule of eight classes of 45-to-50 minutes each, led to "markedly lower" ACT scores. Schools often favor the reform because they believe it allows in-depth exploration of content and more hands-on activities, and because it may enhance school climate and reduce discipline problems. "Scores dip at 'blocked' schools," by Clark Kauffman and Staci Hupp, Des Moines Register, July 3, 2002. A press release from Iowa State is available at http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/releases/2002/jul/act.shtml.

David Brennan with Malcolm Baroway
2002

Toledo entrepreneur David Brennan (with help from Malcolm Baroway) has written this short, lively, opinionated book on the Cleveland voucher program, how it came to be, how it works and why it's controversial. Brennan has long been a major player in the Ohio school-choice saga, first chairing the Commission on Educational Choice named by Governor George Voinovich in 1992, then pressing for the voucher (and charter) legislation, then opening a pair of private schools in Cleveland (subsequently converted to charters) and remaining, throughout, a staunch advocate of more education options for kids-and for the role of the private sector in making such options available. Though this book tells interesting political and policy tales, it's chiefly an autobiographical account of David Brennan's embrace of this cause, as well as a bit of his life story. (You can also read a recent Education Week profile of him: "Millionaire Industrialist Touts 'White Hat' Firm to Build Charter Model," by Karla Scoon Reid, Education Week, May 22, 2002, http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=37whitehat.h21&keywords=Brennan.) This 122-page book contains a useful prologue by David Zanotti of the Ohio Roundtable. It's published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. The ISBN is 097-548528 and you can get more information at http://www.adti.net/brennan/index.html.

edited by Edward J. Dirkswager
2002

In the world of management theory, the 1990s featured much talk of a workplace shift from "command and control" hierarchies to empowered high-performance teams. This ethos permeates Teachers as Owners. In the second paragraph we read, "The typical organizational structure of our school systems contains a rigid hierarchy of roles and decision-making power, with teachers firmly positioned at the bottom of this hierarchy. Very simply, teachers are employees, and like most employees in rigid hierarchical organizations, they have a limited range of decision-making powers." The book's thesis is that, by empowering teachers as owners of their own means of production, communities will see a rise in student achievement. Few would deny that teachers prefer to work in schools that trust them, empower them to make decisions, value their input, and invites innovation. Yet empowerment only seems to succeed when those being empowered are fully committed to the enterprise, highly skilled at its work, and able to be trusted at all times. Democratic models of employment quickly collapse when they encounter slackers or inept members. Once trust is lost, rules and regulations are created to prevent cheating by the minority that would wreak havoc if left to their own devices. This fact collides with the theory of creating leaderless systems run by equal partners. The editor of this book notes that teachers who work in teacher-owned schools "believe that 100 to 250 students is a desirable size. They believe that schools of this size are better able to create a learning community." If a school gets much larger, teachers cannot effectively regulate themselves and the slackers can successfully hide. One must therefore ask whether teacher empowerment is a sound reform strategy for many U.S. schools, particularly in urban districts where the average elementary school enrolls 500 students, and the average high school more than 750. The ideas in Teachers as Owners are definitely worth considering-and may be applicable in charter schools and some regular public schools-but one can't put the book down without noting the chasm between these ideas and the realities of most American schools. For more information, see http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0810843722.

edited by Kenneth K. Wong and Margaret C. Wang
2002

Vanderbilt's Kenneth K. Wong and the late Margaret C. Wang of Temple University co-edited this book, which is the 2nd volume in an educational productivity series whose general editor is Herbert J. Walberg. This 316-page, twelve-chapter volume is organized into sections on "efficiency," "accountability," and "equity." Its policy backdrop is 1994's Improving America's Schools Act, which significantly widened the "schoolwide" approach to Title I. The book, however, deals with numerous issues that bear on this big federal compensatory program, its effectiveness and its possible reform. It likely would have had more policy traction had it appeared before No Child Left Behind was wrapped up. But a number of essays remain germane, such as the thoughtful piece by Tyce Palmaffy and the Gadfly's own Marci Kanstoroom concerning the use of "market forces" to make Title I more effective. The ISBN is 1931576106 and the book can be ordered at http://www.infoagepub.com/oi.htm. Information on the hardback edition (ISBN 1931576114) also appears at Efficiency, Accountability, and Equity Issues in Title I Schoolwide Program Implementation.

John W. Oswald and Theodor Rebarber, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council
June 2002

In this oddly titled report, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council (ELC) describe 25 "innovations" in state testing programs that they found in the eleven states participating in the ELC. Authors John W. Oswald and Theodor Rebarber spend 17 pages outlining these under two main headings (immediate innovations and longer-term changes) and according to their significance. Some of it is a bit obvious (e.g. computer scoring, reliable links between test records and student records) though it all seems worthwhile. Unfortunately, this brief report only sketches these individual innovations (and their "benefits" and "challenges"); it does not delve deeply into an explanation of how they work. You can find a PDF version at State Innovation Priorities for State Testing Programs.

S.E. Phillips and Theodor Rebarber, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council
June 2002

Another joint report by AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council, this 25-pager by S.E. Phillips and Theodor Rebarber provides a useful if somewhat technical guide to the relationship between a state and its testing contractor, including numerous responsibilities and expectations needing to be fulfilled by each side if the state testing program is to work well. It offers a rigorous, comprehensive and clear-headed set of guidelines and, while it's most apt to be of interest to state-level policymakers (and testing companies), if its advice were taken seriously it could prevent a lot of mistakes, confusions, ambiguities, recriminations, delays, false starts and wasted dollars. As state testing burdens mount under the pressure of No Child Left Behind (and as the overworked testing industry gets cocky or sloppy, well aware that there's no shortage of jobs and revenues waiting in the corridor), these specifications could prove very helpful. You can find it in PDF format at http://www.educationleaders.org/elc/events/model%20contractor.pdf.

The Partnership for Reading
September 2001

In April 2000, the National Reading Panel released Teaching Children to Read, its rigorous analysis of 100,000+ scientific studies concerning reading education. Put Reading First, by the Partnership for Reading (a collaborative effort of the National Institute for Literacy, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the U.S. Department of Education), summarizes the findings of that comprehensive study in non-technical language. Intended for teachers and parents, the new report stresses the value of an early start and analyzes five key areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Each section "defines the skill, reviews the evidence from research, suggests implications for classroom instruction, describes proven strategies for teaching reading skills, and addresses frequently raised questions." It's available at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/Cierra.pdf or by contacting The National Institute for Literacy at ED Pubs, PO Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794-1398; 800-228-8813; [email protected]. The study upon which it's based, Teaching Children to Read, can be downloaded or ordered at the National Reading Panel website, http://ww.nationalreadingpanel.org.