A Reading Program's Powerful Patron

Last spring, the Department of Education offered a mixed review of Voyager. The department's "What Works" Web site, which rates curricula, says that Voyager's reading system has "potentially positive results" for learning phonics and letter recognition but "potentially negative effects" in reading comprehension.

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Teachers at Park View are also divided. Monica Chase, a teacher there for 13 years, said she has used Voyager and a program offered by Houghton Mifflin. She said she prefers Houghton Mifflin because it publishes complementary materials for other subjects, such as math.

"I think they learn more with Houghton Mifflin, because it is cross-curriculum," Chase said. "They understand their homework better."

A 2002 study in Washington and Cleveland sponsored by the Council of the Great City Schools compared kindergarten students' reading skills in four public schools using Voyager with those at four schools not using Voyager. The study concluded that "a significant difference was found in favor of the Voyager classrooms."

Casserly, of the council, said that the study was interesting but limited in scope and that it needed "considerably greater investigation." There were issues about the size of the sample, the use of schools that did not make for ideal comparisons and the reliance on Voyager for some of the data.

"The results did not apply to a large number of cities, schools or students," Casserly said. "We didn't make much of it."

Voyager issued news releases to promote the results. The company's senior vice president, Jim Nelson, sent a handwritten note to Margaret Spellings, then the White House education adviser and now the secretary of the Department of Education. Nelson had known Spellings in Texas, where both worked for Bush when he was governor. "The results are pretty amazing," Nelson told Spellings. "It proves the research is true -- they can learn to read."

D.C. school officials selected Voyager for 24 schools in 2003 when they applied for federal grants through the Reading First program.

Voyager spokeswoman Shannon Overbeck said the company's subsequent review showed that students using the program improved their results on No Child Left Behind testing.

"We are very confident about the performance of [Voyager] in D.C. schools where it was implemented correctly," Overbeck said.

On Feb. 1, 2005, Best sold Voyager to ProQuest, an educational publisher, for $380 million -- a 12-fold return on his initial investment.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.