Billions for an Inside Game on Reading

Then again, Long thinks spending $1 billion a year on reading is a great idea. And he thinks it's helping kids to read: "Have there been mistakes in implementation? Oh yeah. But teachers in Reading First schools believe progress is being made."

The bottom line, Johnson said, is that Reading First works. A department report found that teachers in Reading First schools spent 19 minutes more per day on reading than teachers in other schools, and were more likely to place struggling students in reading intervention programs. A new report by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy suggested that Reading First is having a positive effect on state reading scores, although Johnson said much more needs to be done.

"Despite all the problems with Reading First, there's evidence that it's helping states," said Jack Jennings, the center's president.

Of course, $5 billion over five years ought to help states; the question is whether it's helping as much as it should. Without the kind of rigorous studies the law promised but the implementers failed to deliver, it's not clear.

But it is clear that Reading First has been a terrific boon for the textbook publishing industry, and for the department's favored programs. For example, the company that developed Voyager Passport was valued at about $5 million in a newspaper article before Reading First; founder Randy Best, whose Republican fundraising made him a Bush Pioneer, eventually sold it for $380 million. He then put Lyon and Paige on his payroll.

Local domination of education is an American tradition, and Bush took up a storied cause in challenging it; reformers since Horace Mann have promoted national education policy as a way to encourage common culture and equal opportunity. But local-control advocates have always warned that empowering heavy-handed federal bureaucrats would breed self-serving, one-size-fits-all solutions. Now, Reading First is making them look like prophets.

grunwaldmr@washpost.com

Michael Grunwald is a

Washington Post staff writer.