Reading First

What’s Next for Federal Reading?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, early childhood education, IES, NCLB, PD, Reading First, SBRR

For decades now, the federal government has made teaching children to read a national priority.  Reading First is just the latest iteration of this commitment.  The Reading Excellence Act came before it, with other federal efforts before REA.  That’s why Eduflack is always surprised when he hears from reading advocates who are gravely concerned that federal investment in reading instruction will grind to a halt this year when RF ends.

Let’s be perfectly clear.  Reading First is dead.  There is no political will to continue this program, particularly with the baggage it carries.  RF has been tarred, feathered, and paraded through the town square as an example of poor government implementation and of questionable outcomes at best.  But that doesn’t mean the program, at least as it was originally envisioned in 2001, does not offer some strong instructional components upon which a better, stronger, more effective reading effort can be constructed.
To get us started, we need to drop Reading First from our vocabulary.  Call it “Yes We Can Read,” “And Reading For All,” “Literacy for America,” or anything else that will capture the hearts and minds of countless schools and families looking for literacy skills to improve their lots in life and close the achievement gaps in their schools.  (And while we are on the topic, no one in the Administration should utter the words No Child Left Behind or NCLB from this point forward.  That was the old regime.  As we focus on reauthorization and improving the law, let’s stick to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, until we come up with a stronger brand for our overall federal education policy.)
So how do we do it?  What are the core components of “Yes We Can Read” that redouble our national commitment to ensuring every student is equipped with the literacy skills to read at grade level, particularly by fourth grade?  How do we ensure that every child –regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or neighborhood — becomes a skilled, able reader?
Working from the strongest and best of RF — those components that have reading teachers, state RF directors, and a host of other stakeholders excited about reading instruction and certain that they are making the reading gains originally intended — we can build that better reading program by focusing on five key components:
1) Continue the commitment to scientifically based reading.  RF turned a new page on education research, how it is defined, and how it is applied.  It is important that any new education programs continue to rely on science as part of its policy.  We need to make sure we are doing what is proven effective.  If we expect to demonstrate return on investment, we must ensure our federal dollars are being spent on efforts that work.  That means demonstrating a strong scientific base.  We cannot lose sight of that.  But we must also broaden our view of that proven research base.  To date, we’ve been governing under rule of the National Reading Panel report.  That is a strong start.  But there is more to SBRR than just the NRP.  The National Research Council’s Reading Difficulties report, the Alliance for Excellent Education’s Reading Next study, the AFT’s Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science, and even the recent National Early Literacy Panel findings all contribute to the scientifically based reading base we must build upon.  If it is good, replicable research, we must include it into the equation.
2) We need to broaden our spectrum.  RF was built as an elementary school reading program, believing we could catch all kids and get them reading proficient by fourth grade.  Today, more than a third of our fourth graders are still reading below grade level.  We have millions of kids in danger of falling through the cracks.  Our federal reading program must be a P-12 reading initiative.  We need to start with the best of what was found in Early Reading First, ensuring our early childhood education efforts are empowering our students with early literacy skills.  We continue that through the elementary grades.  And then we move it through the middle grades and our secondary schools.  If reading is a lifelong pursuit, our federal reading efforts must continue across the educational continuum.  This is particularly true as we look to international benchmarks and state exit and graduation exams as the marks of success.
3) Federal dollars need to be focused on two key components — instructional materials and professional development.  We’ve wasted the past six years fighting over commercial products and which one of those is on a so-called golden list.  This is supposed to be about getting what is proven effective into the hands of good teachers.  The name on the box doesn’t matter.  We need to find a better way to make sure that good research is getting into the classroom.  Too many people took advantage of the intent of SBRR, selling research vapor and serving as 21st century RF profiteers.  Moving forward, it should be about content and proof, not branding.
We forget that 25 percent of the more than $1 billion spent on RF was intended for teacher professional development.   We also forget that effective instruction begins and ends with effective teaching.  Our teachers need to be empowered to improve literacy instruction in our schools.  They need to better understand the research and put it to use in their classrooms, using that knowledge to provide the specific interventions necessary to get all children reading.  We must recognize that such professional development should reach more than just the traditional ELA teacher in our elementary grades.  Every teacher across the continuum is, in essence, a reading teacher.  How do we help math and science and social studies teachers reinforce our reading priorities in their classrooms?  In many ways, research-based pre-service and in-service professional development is the single most important component to any future reading instruction effort.  We need to train, equip, and support our teachers in both the broader and the finer points of literacy.
4) We need to factor ELL and ESL into the equation.  At the end of the day, reading skills are reading skills, whether they are acquired in English or in your native Spanish, Hmong, or other language.  We teach all children to read, and then we convert those skills into English as needed.  With a growing immigrant population and school districts that are now home to 100+ native languages spoken in their hallways, we need to instill literacy skills in all students and then look for ways to transfer those skills to the English language.  Reading is reading.  Phonemic awareness and fluency and comprehension are universal, regardless of the language you may be starting in or what is spoken or read at home.
5) We need to better measure the impact of our efforts.  RF has been bottlenecked the past year over measures of efficacy.  The recent Institute of Education Sciences study on Reading First is seen by many as a repudiation of the program.  Unfortunately, it is not a study of SBRR, it is a study on the effectiveness of program spending.  As we’ve written about many times before, IES failed to take into account the issue of contamination, meaning that the study was built on the notion that only those schools receiving RF funds were implementing RF programs and SBRR, so we compared RF schools with non-RF schools to see the difference.  We know that to be a false comparison.  Publishers changed their textbooks to meet RF standards, and those new books were sold to all schools, not just RF schools.  PD programs were redeveloped to address RF expectations, and that PD was offered to all teachers, not just those in RF districts.  RF permeated all schools in the nation, whether they received a federal check or not. Â
 A programmatic study, conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD) took this contamination issue into account, and its fall 2008 evaluation report identified real success in our federal reading initiative.
Regardless of one’s loyalties to IES or OPEPD, the next generation of federal reading needs to include clear measurements and clear assessment tools to identify our progress and determine true ROI.  How do we measure our success?  What tools, beyond the state exams, should be considered?  How do we quantify good reading PD?  How do we demonstrate that the good works performed by teachers, teacher educators, reading specialists, families, and CBOs is not for naught?  Good programs must be measured.  Great programs must be assessed, reviewed, improved, and strengthened over time.  
These five components provide us the foundations for a federal reading initiative that addresses the real-world needs of our classrooms today.  They recognize the need for federal funds, particularly at a time when state and local budgets are strained beyond belief.  They recognize the central role of the teacher, as an educator, researcher, and student.  And they recognize the ultimate end game we all are playing — to get every student reading proficient, ensuring they have the skills and abilities necessary to achieve in school and in society.
Even when we talk about 21st century skills or STEM skills, literacy remains key.  Nothing is possible if our students can’t read.  They can’t do advanced math.  They can’t study the sciences. They can’t explore our civilizations or our history.  They can’t even fully participate in the school chorus.  Reading is the heart and soul of the American public education system.  Now is the time to come together, tap available resources, and redouble our national commitment to getting each and every child to read.  It is the only way we close the achievement gap, boost student achievement, and improve graduation rates.  It all begins with reading.  And effective reading begins now.

Giving Voice to Those Who Cannot Yet Read?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, early childhood education, Reading First, SBRR

After more than six years of work, the National Early Literacy Panel has finally released its findings.  Commissioned by the National Institute for Literacy and the National Center for Family Literacy, NELP was originally charged “to conduct a synthesis of the scientific research on the development of early literacy skills in children ages zero to five.”

The thought here was that NELP would build on the work of the National Reading Panel, which focused on kids in elementary school (those in kindergarten through fourth grade).  At the time it was launched, NELP was a hot topic.  Everyone was eager to jump on the Early Reading First bandwagon.  NRP’s findings were the law of the land.  The world would build a continuum on literacy skills connecting the early years of NELP to the latter years of adolescent literacy (as put forward by the Alliance for Excellent Education a few years go) with the good work of the NRP.
Six and a half or seven years is a long time to wait for the findings, particularly for what is a meta-analysis of existing third-party research.  So what did NELP find?
* The best early predictors of literacy include alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, rapid naming skills, writing, and short-term memory for words said aloud
* Instruction on the best predictors may be especially helpful for children at risk for developing reading difficulties
* To a lesser degree, students also benefit from concepts about print, print knowledge, reading readiness, oral language, and visual processing
* More complex oral language skills “also appear to be important”
Nothing groundbreaking here, I’m afraid.
Like the NRP, NELP also highlighted the limitations the Panel faced and provided direction for future research efforts.  Unlike its big brother, though, NELP is not likely to cause much of a ripple in the education improvement pool.  (And I know it doesn’t need to be disclosed yet again, but Eduflack served as a senior advisor to NRP, helping guide the Panel through its entire life and afterlife.)
Why is NELP different from NRP?  First, NRP took a hard stand on key issues.  The Panel purposely avoided publishing another “consensus” document along the lines of the National Research Council study that came out when NRP began its work.  The result?  A lot of attention — both good and bad — for its findings.  We knew exactly where NRP stood on issues, and loved them or hated them for it.  
Second, NRP took complex issues and related them back to the end user.  There was a reason we pushed so hard for a video report to accompany the telephone book-thick Report of the Subgroups.  Teachers, TA providers, and practitioners needed to see the Panel’s findings in real practice.  Seeing the reccs at use in classes like theirs and with kids like theirs made the NRP real and practical.
Third, NRP was audacious in its findings.  Teaching Children to Read essentially told the education community that reading instruction in the United States was broken, but we knew how to fix it.  The Panel (or at least all but one of them) boldly went out with real solutions to fix the teaching of reading, keeping the report viable long enough for policy and funding, in the name of Reading First, to catch up with the recommendations.  
I want to see those three characteristics in NELP and its Developing Early Literacy report, but it just isn’t there for me.  As I read it, the report is a consensus document, proven by the nearly seven years it took to produce the end product (for the record, the NRP study was conducted and released in on a two-year calendar).  The study, its executive summary, and even its press release seem to be written by researchers, for researchers, with little link back to the educators and caregivers needed to implement the findings.  And finally, the report is beige at best, blending in with dozens upon dozens of other education studies hoping to catch the attention of a well-meaning policy crowd.  The report is nice, but it isn’t the end all-be all, nor is it the solution so many of us are looking for.  it is a report that contributes to the discussion, providing some fresh perspective on what early childhood educators have known for some time.  It is nothing more, nothing less.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for NELP (and similar reports) and the impact it can have on early learners.  Just yesterday, NIEER released its report on its recommendations to the Obama Administration on early childhood education.  PreK Now has been calling for an early childhood ed czar in the White House, with the group serving as the most consistent drumbeat for improving early childhood education.  So we have both means and opportunity.
Means and opportunity for what, you may ask?  The opportunity to move early childhood education toward the top of the list when it comes to education improvement initiatives.  How?  Through five easy steps:
* Step One: Identify clear policy initiatives.  PreK Now and NIEER have already gotten the ball rolling on this.  Obama campaigned on dramatically increasing funding for early childhood education.  The policy initiatives are coming.  Those leading this fight need to streamline our thinking, focusing on the top three issues (TBD) and keeping the collective focus on those issues only.
* Step Two: Identify a leader.  Libby Doggett is right.  We need an early childhood education czar.  We need someone in the White House who can harness the power of what is happening in ED, HHS, Labor, and everywhere else in the Administration to ensure that preK dollars are wisely spent and all programs are pointed toward core goals and real ROI.
* Step Three: Build a coalition.  PreK Now and NIEER are ready for this.  NCFL is probably game as well.  Bring aboard the teachers (through both AFT and NEA), the content leaders (IRA), and the policy hounds (NGA, NCSL, CCSSO, and National Head Start Association), and you have a real network to identify the national clarion call for early childhood ed reform.
* Step Four: Focus on the research and the results that come from it.  NELP provides some core research findings to get us started, as does some other work offered by the research community at large.  But at the end of the day, we need to know how to effectively measure any improvements that are put forward.  That means core academic standards for our preK programs which means a greater emphasis on instructional matters in early childhood programs, including Head Start.
* Step Five: A bold idea to stir the pot.  Call for Head Start to be moved from HHS over to ED.  Early childhood education is the gateway to K-12 success.  If every student is reading at grade level by the end of fourth grade (a task that nearly 40% are unable to master today), we must start instruction earlier than we are now.  NELP provides some of the necessary instructional building blocks for literacy.  Let’s take it even further, ensuring that preK is about both the social and academic preparations all students need to achieve.
Five easy steps doesn’t mean the work itself is easy.  But if early childhood education is going to get its due (and if the NELP findings are going to get any legs and be put to practical use) this is the roadmap we should be unfolding.  Now is the time for those leaders and that coalition to come together, embrace a select group of policy initiatives focused on ROI, and then push, push, push to get buy-in and adoption with fidelity, and then we may be onto something here.
At its best, NELP is one of many tools that show us what is possible and what intellectual resources we have to work with.  Now is th
e time to take that potential and move it into real actions and real improvements.  That isn’t going to come from a meta-analysis.  It comes from real policy, real advocacy, and real leadership.
  

NCLB Reauthorization — It’s Baaack!

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, NCLB, Reading First

To paraphrase the Godfather, just when we thought it was done, he goes and brings it back to life.  For the past year or so, just about anybody who is anybody had written off No Child Left Behind.  We assumed the law was dead, and we figured that ESEA reauthorization would occur in 2010 at the earliest.  But then U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy strikes.  According to today’s Politico, Kennedy has added NCLB reauthorization to his wish list (thanks to the FritzWire for spotlighting the news story.)

According to Politico, the senior senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts wants to use NCLB reauthorization to focus on three key issues:
* Closing the student-teacher achievement gap
* Encouraging parents to get involved in schools
* Amending the legislation’s one-size-fits-all approach to low-performance schools
This should be welcome news to education reformers and agitators throughout the nation.  Instead of pressing for the status quo and looking to roll back the calendars eight or so years, Kennedy is hoping to use his perch as chairman of the Senate HELP Committee to focus on key issues facing our schools.  How so?
First, he is directing our attention to the achievement gap, and not merely student achievement.  We talk about every child succeeding and every child succeeding.  But in state proficiency exam after exam, we see that minority and low-income students are still underperforming the state average.  In our push for overall student achievement, we believed a rising tide would raise all boats.  Today, we see that there is still much work to be done, particularly to get many students into the boats in the first place.  Greater attention to the achievement gap — both for students and for teachers — is a key component to meaningful school improvement.
More importantly, he is placing the spotlight on parents, just as President-elect Obama did during the campaign.  If Kennedy can accomplish just this task, he will make a major contribution to school improvement.  For too long, we left it to the schools and the teachers to fix the problem.  We neglected the fact that parents (or families) are the first and strongest teachers we have.  Learning happens at home just as frequently as it does at school.  And increased parental involvement in the classroom results in improved student success.  Last month, Eduflack called for the establishment of an Office of Family Engagement in the U.S. Department of Education.  Hopefully, Kennedy can help move that forward, helping ED systematize how we engage parents, how we empower them in the education process, and how we use them to help improve instructional quality and outcomes in all our schools.
As Kennedy looks at his NCLB priorities for 2009, I would ask him to consider two others as well:
* We need a Reading First 2.0.  We need a federal program that continues to invest in proven reading instruction, getting best practices into the hands of teachers and providing our students the reading interventions needed to succeed.  Literacy has long been a national education priority.  That should not stop, even if RF’s implementation was problematic.  Kennedy is just the leader to take the best from our Reading First experience and build a better program that delivers resources, technical assistance, and leadership to the schools that need it most.  It is key to closing that achievement gap he is so concerned with.
* We need an economic stimulus package for our schools.  Building bridges, erecting buildings, and even constructing schools are important to the future of our country and the current of our economy.  But new school buildings alone will not improve public education in the United States.  Too many districts, particularly those serving low-income students, are facing grim budget realities.  Budget freezes are passé.  We’re now moving into major budget cuts for K-12 at the state and local level.  The federal government must fill the gaps.  If we can step in to save the auto industry, we can also step in to save our schools.  That only happens when we dedicate specific resources to fund the books, the technology, and the professional development that now face the budgetary chopping blocks.  No superintendent should have to choose between textbooks and lights for his schools.  As our school-age population grows larger, and our expectations grow higher, we need to ensure our schools have the fiscal resources to provide ALL students the materials they need to learn, to achieve, and to succeed.
I don’t know about others, but I’m looking forward to an NCLB reauthorizations scuffle in 2009.  Movement is always better than inertia.  By keeping these issues at the front of the public debate, Kennedy ensures that education improvement efforts continue to move, taking a backseat to no domestic policy issue.

“Read”ing All About It

Eduflack IES, PD, Reading First, SBRR

Today, the final shoe dropped on the Reading First era.  The Institute of Education Sciences released the final version of the Reading First Impact Study.  A surprise to no one, the final impact study came to the same conclusions as the interim study.  The summary of summaries, RF schools aren’t doing a better job of making student reading proficient, compared with non-RF schools.

The full story can be found here at Education Week — www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/11/18/14read.h28.html?tmp=1344181825  
When the interim study came out, many, including Eduflack, pointed out the vast flaws in the study’s methodology, chief among them being the issue of contamination, or the impact of RF programs and materials on non-RF schools.  Back in September, the Reading First Federal Advisory Committee issued its review of the interim study, calling for some wholesale changes before the final report was issued.  Unfortunately, little, if any, of the recommendations coming from the Advisory Committee were addressed in the final Study.
I’ve been mulling the issue all day.  As a surprise to many an Eduflack reader, I am not here to once again defend the goals of Reading First and point to the data that demonstrates that scientifically based reading is having an effect on schools, both those receiving RF funds and those that do not.  In the simplest of terms, been there, done that.  I’m a pragmatist.  I know that RF is dead.  It was dead the day the IG report came out almost two years ago, and the find shovels of dirt were thrown on the program with the release of this Impact Study.
And no, we are not here to eulogize RF, to discuss its merits, or to hash out why it failed to meet its promise or fulfill its mission.  Such tasks are best left to the think tanks and the academicians who can give a careful eye to how the research translated into practice, how effective that practice was, and how effective the measurement and feedback of the program was across its lifetime.
The question should not be what happened.  Instead, we must ask what comes next.  How do we move on from here?
The legacy of RF leaves us with three key buckets of policy we must consider — research to practice, a federal reading program, and IES.
At its heart, RF was a thorough attempt to move research into practice.  It was the development part of the R&D equation, an opportunity to take decades of research on literacy and reading acquisition skills and put it to use in the classroom.  How is the research applied to core materials, such as textbooks?  How is the research applied to teacher development, both pre-service and in-service?  How is the research embedded in instruction and in key interventions designed to get all kids reading?  And how does the federal government effectively do it all, guiding SEAs, impacting LEAs, and doing it all without endorsing specific commercial products or approaches?  
On some of these issues, RF provided a blueprint for success.  On others, it provided a clear portrait of federal failure.  Through it all, RF raised the profile of research in the instructional process, better equipped classroom practitioners to deal with education research, and increased the profile of data-based decisionmaking.  All of those are pluses for school improvement efforts moving forward.
Now onto stream two — a federal reading program.  For decades, the federal government has enhanced literacy instruction for K-12 students.  Before RF, we had the Reading Excellence Act. Before REA we had other federal programs.  That commitment is not going to disappear.  Long after RF is forgotten, there will still be dedicated federal investment in reading instruction. The question before us, now, is how do we do it.  How do we transform Early Reading First into a meaningful component of early childhood education efforts?  How do we enhance instruction for struggling readers, particularly in the early grades?  How do we promote literacy skills across the curriculum, using science and social studies in particular to boost reading skills for all?  What do we do for struggling readers in our high schools, those who have fallen through the cracks?  Now is the time to apply lessons learned and build a new federal reading program that delivers instruction to the kids who need it, that provides content-based PD to the teachers in need, and that boosts student achievement and closes the achievement gap for all students, from our urban centers to our rural schools.
And finally, IES.  The RF experiment has clearly demonstrated that IES is not functioning as it was intended.  Was IES tasked with determining the effectiveness of RF or the effectiveness of RF funding?  Has it providing findings that aid in the improvement of federal reading instruction?  is it serving the public good by providing clear research findings that are received, understood, and applied by practitioners in the field?  At the end of the day, IES needs to better serve the consumer — the schools, their teachers, and the students they serve.  It needs to  do a better job engaging the entire community, and not simply serve as a lifeline between educational researchers.  If anything, the RF experience has provided us a starting point for improving IES (and the What Works Clearinghouse) and transforming it into the R&D arm of the U.S. Department of Education, with the D being just as important as the R.
Will we take advantage of these lessons and build some real improvements?  That question will remain unanswered for some time now.  But now is the time we start talking about how we move forward and build on the RF experience.  A new program will rise from the RF ashes.  It falls to the program’s most ardent supporters and most critical adversaries to ensure that what comes remains solidly focused on a singular goal — empowering all kids with the reading skills they need to achieve and getting all kids reading at grade level as soon as possible (and maintaining it).    

Accounting for the RF Dollars

Eduflack NCLB, Reading First, SBRR

Reading First has been the federal law of the land for more than six and a half years now.  To date, more than $5 billion has been provided to the states to implement scientifically based reading programs in their schools.  A huge bucket of dollars, these moneys were intended to provide evidence-based curricular materials, instructional programs, interventions, and professional development in those schools that needed the most help in getting every child reading proficient.

We’ve all heard about the problems with the implementation of the program.  Eduflack is clearly on the record believing RF is a terrifically intentioned program, with the right priorities, the right goals, and the right research.  But I’ve also been critical of the implementation of the program.  Oversight was sloppy.  Programs weren’t adopted with fidelity.  And we’ve done a poor job collecting and promoting the data that demonstrates overall effectiveness.
In recent months, the field has debated what the research really tells us.  We’ve had dueling studies, one from the U.S. Department of Education’s OPEPD came out with a study showing real results; IES came out with an interim study questioning impact.  OPEPD addressed the issues of non-RF schools making real gains because of changes in instructional approaches and materials (what the researchers call contamination); IES did not.
Through it all, we’ve assumed that that $5 billion has been spent as intended.  Sure, we know there are some companies that got rich off of RF, selling snake oil to anyone with an open wallet.  There are profiteers that saw an opening in the law, and squeezed every last nickel they could out of RF to line their pockets and enrich their companies.  There are those who claimed to be research-based, who clearly had no understanding what good research was nor any intention to achieve it.  And, yes, there were some really good programs that got into the schools to further show their ability, those that could serve as lighthouses or meaningful examples of promising or best practice.
But how has the money actually been spent?  Over at EdWeek’s Curriculum Matters blog, Kathleen Manzo raises a disturbing point.  In more than six years, it seems no one at the U.S. Department of Education has bothered to collect data on how the LEAs actually spent the billions in RF dollars that made its way down to the localities.  <div><br></div><div>Manzo”>blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2008/10/where_has_all_the_money_gone.html

<div><br></div><div>Manzo”>

Manzo points to the just-released Notice of Proposed Information Collection issued by ED, asking questions about whether data collection on RF is necessary.  Yes, such notices are required by the Office of Management and Budget of any government agency looking to collect data from more than nine or so folks.  So Eduflack isn’t so worried about the release of the notice.  I’m just heartbroken and frustrated by its timing.
Shouldn’t ED have been collecting this data from the start, gathering information after year one about how RF dollars are spent?  Shouldn’t knowing how dollars are spent be part of the determination of whether the program is effective?  Shouldn’t it be a given that when you’re issuing billions of dollars in checks, you expect to get detailed spending reports in return?
I’d like to believe this is just standard operating procedure, a necessary notice that is sent out at the close of any federal program.  I’d like to believe that such data as been collected annually since 2002, thinking as each SEA gets a new check, they hand over old data.  I’d like to believe such data was collected, in part, as part of the research done by OPEPD and IES.  I’d like to believe, yes, but I also know better.  Through all of the attacks, all of the IG investigations, of the defunding threats, no one in an official position has talked in any detail about how RF money has been effectively spent.  And I know it is a question Manzo and EdWeek have been asking for years, without getting any answers of substance.
  
Any education group that has received philanthropic support knows they need to account for dollars to their donor.  Just ask any organization in town that’s received money from the Gates Foundation.  They document how the money is spent, making sure it aligns with the goals and promises of the original application.  And then they detail how the spending has led to real, measurable results that demonstrate effectiveness.
If this Notice of Proposed Information Collection is what it seems — the first attempt to gather information on RF spending — someone needs to step up and accept responsibility for a monumental failure.  NCLB was the largest federal investment in public education in the history of the republic.  With such an investment should come the largest measure of accountability as well. 
If accountability is to be the legacy of NCLB, and if we are to expect all of our schools to ratchet up their levels of personal accountability, we owe it to every teacher, every publisher, every legislator, every parent, and every teacher to demonstrate similar accountability.  Ultimately, we can’t declare RF a success or a failure until we’ve accounted for how the money has been spent.  At the end of the day, fidelity is more than just a buzzword to measure teachers by.  It is a measure of our action and our spending.  Unfortunately, ED seems to have missed that lesson in Accountability 101 class.
 

When It Comes to Reading, It’s All in Our Heads

Eduflack NCLB, Reading First, SBRR, Science

Over the last decade, we have seen a real evolution into scientifically based reading instruction.  The work of the National Research Council and the National Reading Panel both focused on the research base that was out there, and what the data told us about good, effective instruction.  The American Federation of Teachers released a report on reading instruction titled “Teaching Reading is Rocket Science,” hoping to dispel, once and for all, that there was a proven scientific method behind effective reading instruction madness.

Those who believe in the whole language philosophy (and it is a philosophy folks, it is not an instructional method), would tell you that good reading instruction is actually more art than science.  We need to let students learn at their own pace, do the things they enjoy, and gain skills (or not gain them) on their own terms.  Instead of focusing on the need for practice and skills development, those who stand up against proven instructional methods would almost prefer we let our kids feel their way around reading, guessing in the untested instead of learning through the proven.
When we think about proven reading instruction, particularly in elementary schools, we often think about teachers, teachers’ aides, reading specialists, parents, and after-school programs.  How often, though, do we think of neuropsychologists?  But today’s Washington Post, the Health section no less, reminds us of the lasting and meaningful role hard sciences can have on teaching our children.
WaPo’s Nelson Hernandez paints a compelling picture of the impact neuropsychology, MRIs, and brain scans can have on diagnosing reading difficulties and helping educators provide the interventions specific students need.  The full story is here — <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/24/AR2008102402987.html?hpid=sec-health.
Eduflack”>www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/24/AR2008102402987.html?hpid=sec-health.
Eduflack has had the privilege of spending time with Laurie Cutting at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and seeing how this science works and how it can guide effective classroom instruction.  It is truly amazing to see the process the Post describes in action, to see how brain activity changes, both during an individual session and over time.  It is incredible to know we can use brain maps to literally see scientifically-based reading approaches take hold in a child’s head, giving the instructional foundations virtually all students need to learn to read.  And it is that science that must serve as a foundation for the future of reading instruction.
In the coming year, we are likely to see a de-emphasis in our attention to scientifically based instruction.  We’ve all heard how much scientifically based research was included in the original NCLB legislation.  We’ve all questioned the true impact and validity of the findings offered by the What Works Clearinghouse.  And we’ve are even slowly seeing the differences between both good research and bad research, though most are still learning how to tell the difference.  
Both presidential candidates, along with legislative leaders such as Senator Ted Kennedy, Congressman George Miller, and Congressman Buck McKeon have all spoken to the need to continue to “do what works” in our classrooms.  That means spending our valuable education dollars on methods and materials that are proven effective and based on real, replicable research.  No matter who is calling the shots come January 2009, we all must remember that guiding principle.  We pay for what is effective.  We reward what works.  
And we make a national commitment to move evidence-based instruction forward, regardless of the direction ESEA reauthorization may take.  At the end of the day, we are investing in our children, placing a large bet that virtually every child can succeed and every kid can perform.  We win that bet by putting our marker on a sure thing.  Evidence-based instruction is as sure as it gets these days.

Engaging the Public on Math Reform

Eduflack Marketing, Math, NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR

When the National Reading Panel released its landmark “Teaching Children to Read” report in April 2000, the obvious question to follow was, “what’s next?”  The federal government releases studies like “Teaching Children to Read” all the time.  The report comes out, copies are distributed, and they usually end up in someone’s closet, on someone’s bookcase to get dusty, or as a doorstop in a state department of education.

As loyal readers know, NRP was a passion project for Eduflack.  I was involved from the very beginning serving as a senior advisor to the panel and helping with everything from qualitative research to editorial.  For two years, NRP was my life, and I wouldn’t change a day of it.
During the NRP process, the we recognized that we needed to do more than just traditionally “disseminate” the findings.  Informing key stakeholders on reading research was an important step, yes.  But if the NRP was going to have the lasting effect it intended (and the lasting effect, I argue, it has) we needed to reach far deeper.  We needed to move beyond simply informing to engaging.  And we needed to move from engaging to changing behavior.  
Ultimately, we needed to change the way the education world dealt with reading instruction.  We needed to change how teachers taught kids to read.  We needed to change what parents asked about reading in the classroom.  We needed to change how school administrators made decisions on the programs they purchased.  We needed to change how local, state, and federal elected officials prioritized funding for reading instruction.  And we needed to change how the community at large, particularly the business community, addressed the issue and focused on reading.  Most importantly, we needed to change student reading ability, ensuring that virtually every student gained the research-based instruction needed to be reading proficient by fourth grade.
Such change is no small undertaking.  Following the release of the NRP report in 2000, we spent two years engaging in a range of communications and public engagement activities.  Conference presentations.  Interviews with the media.  Interactions with key stakeholder groups and influential individuals.  Armed with just the massive Report of the Subgroups, the Summary Report, and the NRP Video Report, we began the process of informing, engaging, and changing thinking.
After the tenets of NRP were included in No Child Left Behind (Reading First in particular), a new phase of engagement began.  The U.S. Department of Education created the Partnership for Reading, a joint effort led by all federal agencies involved in one way or another with reading.  This included ED, HHS, Labor, and NIH.  Together, these agencies pledged a shared support to promote a unified commitment to scientifically based reading instruction.
Through the Partnership (another project Eduflack played a leading role in), we were able to launch a national public engagement campaign to ensure that all audiences 1) understood scientifically based reading instruction; 2) knew why it was important; and 3) began implementing it in their schools, classes, and communities.  Originally, the work focused on a broad range of stakeholder audiences, including policymakers, the business community, school administrators, researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and parents.  During the two-year process, we winnowed down our audiences, seeing the key actors in getting SBRR into the classroom as both the teacher and the parent.
To accomplish this effort, we engaged in a wide range of communications activities, far more than those used following the NRP release.  Development of strong, audience-specific messages.  Creation of specific materials designed for specific stakeholders.  Media relations.  Public service announcement campaign (both print and radio, in both English and Spanish).  Conference presentations and exhibitions.  A speakers bureau.  Partnership development.  And any and all marketing and communications activities designed to spread the word about the need for and the impact of SBRR.
At the end of the day, I am proud of the results we accomplished.  Yes, we secured significant media coverage (millions of impressions worth millions and millions of ad-equivalent dollars).  But we also built a strong network of supporters and advocates.  Through a working partners group, we brought together organizations like NEA, AFT, AASA, and IRA (organizations not exactly friendly with ED or NCLB at the time) and joined them with NGA, NAESP, BRT, and the Chamber as a sign of shared commitment to scientifically based reading.  How?  At the end of the day, all of these organizations, regardless of their political leanings, shared a common belief that every child needed to learn to read and we needed to use instructional approaches that worked to get all children reading.
I don’t take this walk down memory lane to toot any particular horn or wait for an applause line for the hard work of all of the people at NICHD and ED who helped move this forward, from 2000 through 2005.  Instead, I reflect on this experience because of an article in this week’s Education Week.  In it, Sean Cavanagh reports on the current efforts underway to promote the recently released report from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. The full story can be found here — <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/10/10/08mathpanel.h28.html
The”>www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/10/10/08mathpanel.h28.html
The Math Panel is to be commended for its work, and it is especially noteworthy that they were able to pull together a conference earlier this month for policy folks and practitioners to focus on how to move the Panel’s findings into U.S. classrooms.  The NRP shared a similar goal, but those conferences quickly evolved into RF conferences after the passage of NCLB.
Cavanagh also focuses on efforts to print more than 160,000 pamphlets for parents on elementary and middle school math.  Again, a needed step.  For change to occur in our schools, parents must be effectively used as a lever for action.  Lasting change does not come without real, sustained action from the parents.
EdWeek also notes the work of the ED’s Doing What Works website (http://dww.ed.gov) to move the Math Panel’s findings into teachable moments for educators and professional developers.  (Full disclosure, Eduwife is managing DWW for ED).
But I also hope the Math Panel is thinking bigger, thinking bolder, and thinking more audaciously.  Yes, it is unfortunate that ED will soon change hands, and a new EdSec will have new priorities.  And yes, it is unfortunate that the Math Wars make the Reading Wars seem like Cub Scout jamborees.  But the findings of the Math Panel are too important to fall by the wayside come January 2009.  The need to equip all students with real math skills is too important for our schools, our community, our economy, and our nation for the Math Panel’s report to hit a dusty shelf come next year, forgotten for the “next big thing.”
Someone needs to launch a massive public engagement campaign to reform math instruction.  Building from the work, infrastructure, and results of the Partnership for Reading, someone needs to work with parents, teachers, and policymakers to focus on getting what works when it comes to math into the classroom.  And, ideally, someone outside of the federal government needs to make this their national priority, allowing such a campaign to move swifter and more nimbly than a government effort.
Interested?  I’m happy to give you my cent-and-a-half to get it off the ground.
 

Real Scientifically Based Reading Results, Courtesy of AFT

Eduflack AFT, Reading First, SBRR

If it is Tuesday, then it must be time for Eduflack to get up on his scientifically based reading soapbox.  And while I am out of the country this week (down in Guatemala, preparing to bring our 13-month-old daughter home), the trip down South provided me with a great deal of time to catch up on reading and generally think.

Anyone who has read this blog or has generally been within the sound of my voice for the past decade knows that I am a passionate advocate for scientifically based reading instruction.  We know what works to get kids reading.  We know the instructional approaches and building blocks necessary for most kids.  We know the interventions needed for the others.  We know the content-focused professional development our teachers should be receiving.  And we even know how to effectively measure student reading achievement and how to determine the true efficacy of a reading program, basal or otherwise.
We know what works.  We know scientifically based reading works.  And even if Reading First is destined for the great policy heap in the sky, we know that the core tenets of the program — the research base that was to guide instruction and evaluation — works too.
It isn’t just the rabid phonicators who are out there talking scientifically based, though.  Case in point, this month’s edition of American Educator, the publication of record from the American Federation of Teachers.  The Fall 2008 edition of American Educator has two terrific articles that are well worth the read.  The first, authored by American Educator’s Jennifer Dubin, discusses the success of scientifically based reading in turning around performance in struggling schools in cities such as Richmond, Virginia.  The second, authored by NWREL’s Teresa Deussen, Kari Nelsestuen, and Caitlin Scott, touts the initial impact Reading First is having on our schools and advocates for giving the controversial program a second chance.
I’m not going to provide my rhetorical musings on these pieces, because I think the work of the authors speaks for itself.  What is important to note, however, is that AFT has long been a supporter of the notion of scientifically based reading.  From their “Teaching Reading is Rocket Science” publications to their investment in classroom based reading to their support for the U.S. Department of Education’s Partnership for Reading Efforts from 2002-2005 (an effort Eduflack helped direct, at least on the communications side), AFT has long gotten it.  AFT teachers know what works in the classroom, and its leadership has not been afraid to stand up and support it, even if it was unpopular with other education organizations or other teachers unions.
So a tip of the hat to AFT for publishing these two pieces, particularly in this political climate.  Dubin’s piece, in particular, is an important read for those who want to understand how these recently released interim and final RF implementation studies actually relate to what’s happening in real classrooms across the country.  And isn’t that what is most important?
 

What Works for the WWC

Eduflack IES, Reading First, SBRR

Last week, This Week in Education revealed that Russ Whitehurst was leaving the Institute of Education Sciences.  That should come as no surprise, as Whitehurst’s congressionally appointed term expires in November 2008, and he has made clear he was not seeking reappointment.  TWIE’s announcement was followed by Fordham Flypaper’s news that Whitehurst was moving over to Brookings’ Brown Center for Education Policy, presumably to fill the very capable shoes of the departing Tom Loveless.

Interestingly, no one in DC education policy circles seems to be talking about what comes next for IES.  Who will serve as the next director?  What will the priorities be?  Heck, we don’t even know where an Obama or McCain administration stands on IES, its mission, and its programs.  One thing seems certain, though, the future of the Institute won’t be determined until well after the next president is sworn into office. 
The defining experiment of IES has been the What Works Clearinghouse.  Released six years ago with much fanfare, the WWC was intended to be a Consumer’s Reports of sorts for education practitioners.  It was to sort through all of the education research data, determine what works, and provide guidance to school district officials, building leaders, and teachers on what was most effective and how education dollars should be spent.
A noble goal, and a much needed role in today’s education universe. Unfortunately, a funny thing happened on the way to implementation.  WWC became a methodological monster.  In its zeal to distinguish itself from the past work of the U.S. Department of Education’s former Office of Education Research and Improvement, WWC laid out strict and complicated criteria for every piece of research it would examine.  The result?  Most research was kicked out during the initial stages, found to lack the methodological rigor WWC called for.  For these studies, we never got to the issue of effectiveness or impact because they lacked effective control groups or didn’t form the proper study structures, as called for by WWC and its advisors.
Over the years, we have accepted the WWC process as fact.  Some organizations have pleaded mea culpa, asking WWC for advice on what to do.  Others have carefully constructed a single study to meet WWC criteria so they could claim approval (while claiming their competitors were rejected).  And still others refused to acknowledge the value and authority of WWC, and continued to do things their way, stating that their research was true, clear, and effective.
In recent months, WWC has drawn some real attention, mostly for its negative findings on the instructional impact of reading programs Open Court and Reading Mastery. For those watching WWC all these years, we just chalked it up to WWC being WWC.  Eduflack was of similar mind, reminding individuals that, at the end of the day, decisionmakers at the district or school level are simply not making decisions based on WWC findings.  While it may have been the intention, WWC is now merely a forum for researchers to try and outresearch each other, for methodological masters to do their jousting and determine who the true jedi was.  Despite the best of intentions and the most noblest of needs, WWC had become irrelevant.
Then an interesting document crossed my desk.  Under the headline “Machinations of the What Works Clearinghouse,” Zig Englemann provides a terrific analysis on the WWC’s decisions regarding Reading Mastery.  The headline?  “What Works Clearinghouse is so irreparably biased that it would have to be thoroughly reoriented and reorganized under different management rules to perform the function of providing reliable, accurate information about what works.”
With regard to Reading Mastery, Englemann points to the fact that there are more than 90 research studies on the program (and its predecessor DISTAR Reading), with most of these studies appearing in “refereed journals.”  Yet WWC found that “no studies of Reading Mastery that fell within the scope of the Beginning Reading review meet WWC evidence standards.”
Honestly, Eduflack is just plain tired of hearing that no studies fell within the scope.  For years, I defended WWC and IES, seeing both as necessary components to strengthening the research base of the education field.  When Mathematica announced that it was reopening and re-examining the Beginning Reading field — a prior review that had caused much heartburn across the reading community — I was heartened that change may be in the works.  But my atypical optimism has quickly been replaced by my real and necessary skepticism.  Englemann is right, we need to build a new, better, and more effective IES before it dies from within.
Englemann does a terrific job in looking at the WWC methodology, identifying the problems in techniques, approaches, and analyses undertaken by WWC (who knew that research conducted prior to 1985 didn’t count, even if it met every methodological standard laid out by WWC and its methodological advisors).  I would highly recommend the study for all those seeking to better understand how good research has been deemed outside the federal scope these past few years.
But yelling into the wind only gets us so far.  For the record, I still believe in the mission and goals of WWC, and I particularly believe in the mission, goals, and objectives of IES.  We need a strong, independent voice in the federal government that can tell us what works and can point us to valuable research on improving practice and instruction.  We need a voice that ensures what is proven effective is what is being practiced.  We need the evidence, plain and simple.
Now is a unique time for IES and the Board that oversees it.  Currently, a number of board member nominations are pending before Congress.  Clearly, a search for a new IES director must be underway.  So what’s the message IES and its Board should be spending in the near future?
* The voice of the practitioner is just as important as the voice of the researcher.  Methodology is important, but it is no more important that ensuring an intervention works in a school like mine, in a class like mine, with kids like mine.
* We cannot exclusively value process over results.  Again, the methodology is important, but so are outcomes.  Which is more valuable to our schools — methodologically strong programs with middling results or middling methodology with extremely strong results?  Yes, we want strong methodology and results, but if I have to choose, I want to invest in what works and what’s working on a large scale.
* We need to broaden the audience.  IES should be playing to a wide range of stakeholders, and not merely the research community and the education publishers it happens to review at a given time.  It should be a resource for teachers, school leaders, and policymakers.  To do that, we need to simplify the message and broaden the appeal.
* IES can become a Consumer Reports for the education sector.  But to do so, it needs to change its thinking and approach.  It needs to be user friendly.  It needs to be collaborative.  And it needs to think more broadly about the impact it is having, not just on research but on education and the community at large.
* IES needs to inspire and lead.  This isn’t just about being the stick to ED’s funding carrot.  It isn’t just about good, methodologically sound research.  IES needs to invest the time and effort into educating stakeholders as to why scientifically-sound education is important.  Why do we care about methodology?  What are the benefits to scientifically based instruction?  And what can I do to get the science into my kids’ schools?  It needs to demonstrate how education sciences improves student achievement and boost student options for both school and
life.
Recent attempts by IES and WWC to quickly turn around focused research reports are a good first step. But if the Institute is going to build its legacy, it needs to focus on building both public awareness for its mission and objectives and establishing public support and enthusiasm for achieving those goals.  It’s not a simple process, but it is doable.  And it is necessary for IES to survive and thrive.
Regardless of who is EdSec come January, IES should be a priority for either administration.  It possesses enormous potential and opportunity.  Hopefully, someone will remember that and we can build on its best qualities, learn from its worst, and do what is right by states, districts, schools, and students.

The Neverending Saga of RF Data

Eduflack IES, Reading First, SBRR

Even the most zealous of Reading First advocates/agitators (yours truly included) recognize that the headstone for the federal program has been carved.  At this point, we’re all just waiting to see if RF will officially be laid to rest on October 1, 2009, when a new fiscal year takes affect or in March 2009 or so, when a new Congress decides to abandon a continuing resolution for the federal budget and actually passes a Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill (and as former appropriations folk, Eduflack would be shocked if anything new happens with the budget this spring, regardless of who is president).

Earlier this year, we heard much media trumpeting of the failure of RF.  Flying a banner of an IES interim study of RF effectiveness, RF opponents and many members of the media flatly stated that, after billions of dollars, Reading First just didn’t work.  The proof?  While reading scores have improved since RF’s passage, the initial differences in proficiency increases in RF schools and non-RF schools weren’t that much different.
As we’ve stated here before (and as others have more prominently stated in other more prominent forums) that interim study was significantly flawed, methodologically.  More importantly, it never took into account the effect that RF had on reading instruction throughout the nation.  What does that mean?  Publishing houses changed their textbooks and their support materials to meet the RF research standards.  Teacher training and PD programs evolved to meet the research standards laid out in RF.  Whether a school received specific RF funding or not, all schools were and are benefiting from the policy, mandates, and expectations of the Reading First law.
Late last week, the U.S. Department of Education released a new study on RF.  This study, prepared by Abt Associates and meant as a follow-up to a similar 2006 study, declared “limited benefits.”  This study did look at the RF schools versus the non-RF schools, noting that all are likely affected by the law, but that RF schools adopted the law with more fidelity.
At the end of the day, the ED study found limited gains for third-grade reading proficiency in half of the 24 states surveyed,  For fourth graders, six of 17 states surveyed saw improvements in reading proficiency.  Data came from 1,000 RF schools and from 500 Title I schools that did not receive RF funding.  The full story can be found at Education Week, courtesy of Kathleen Manzo — <div><br></div><div>While”>www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/10/15/08reading.h28.html?tmp=326752502.

<div><br></div><div>While”>

<div><br></div><div>While”>While I like to pretend I am, I am not a researcher.  I’ll leave it to the real experts to tell us what’s under the topline data and what these findings really mean, both for Reading First and for schools throughout the nation.  There is still a lot to be written about what this study truly finds, just as there is a lot to be said in what IES will report in its final study, hopefully cleaning up the problems of this year’s interim study.
What troubles Eduflack, though, is how little attention this study has received.  I recognize it was only released late last week.  To date, I have only seen Education Week take the time and consideration to cover this issue.  In the past, publications tripped over themselves to report on the failures of RF or the finding of no findings.  Where is the media coverage of this study?  Here, we have data that demonstrates benefit, and real benefit in half those states surveyed.  Sure, I wish the results were stronger.  But this data — hopefully one of many studies to come in future years, demonstrates there is benefit to Reading First.  And that means we have something to learn from.
RF’s research base, instructional goals, priorities, and potential impact on quality instruction are all positives for our education system.  Hopefully, once that headstone is erected, we can take these parts — a multiple organ donation if you will — and use them to add real life to a strong research-based reading policy.  As a federal government, we’ve invested in reading instruction for decades now.  That won’t stop when RF stops.  With luck, though, we will build and evolve, and not simply scrap and start new.