The Best Way to Make Enemies…
Do the impossible
© 2008 Gary S. Stager

Since 1990, I have worked in schools where every child has a personal laptop computer. In fact, I led professional development in the world’s first two “laptop schools.” Ever since, I’ve worked from Melbourne to Mumbai to Maine trying to help educators enjoy the transformational learning experiences made possible by personal computing.

In some school districts the notion of a laptop per child remains a sci-fi fantasy from a utopian future. For others, laptops are viewed as typewriters, encyclopedias or testing systems in support of traditional school practices. Schools struggle to find the courage, imagination and financing to make 1:1 computing a reality. Despite the seemingly high cost of investing in a laptop per child, I know of schools that have urged manufacturers to keep prices high in order to reserve the laptop as the tool of rich children.

MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte formed the non-profit One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) a few years ago to meet the challenge of providing every child in the world with a robust, powerful, personal, environmentally responsible and rugged affordable mobile computer. If that weren’t ambitious enough, Negroponte recognized what many have known for years – current operating systems make no sense for children, particularly children in the developing world. If you’re a kid in Rwanda, what do desktops, trashcans or file folders mean to you? OLPC also believed that software should be free, open-source and collaborative. Sounds like a tall order.

With the release of the XO, often referred to as the $100 computer, Negroponte and a few dozen colleagues did what Silicon Valley could not or would not do. They made a low-cost energy-efficient laptop for children complete with a new graphical user interface and collaborative software applications. And boy was the high-tech industry mad! The Times of London and 60 Minute have documented Intel’s wide scale attempt to discredit OLPC across the globe while Bill Gates says snarky things about it at every opportunity. OLPC is like kryptonite to Business Week, a magazine that cannot resist writing about the failure of the XO as if it were oil prices or tax policy.

It is easy to understand why OLPC has earned the ire of the corporate community. They made a computer with a superior screen, energy management and ground-breaking mesh networking for less than the cost of marketing a bloated retail laptop. To make matters worse, they challenged the hegemony of Intel and Microsoft.

Looking at the world through school colored glasses
It is a lot harder to understand why many in our edtech community have been so hostile to the XO. The same educators whose students use the computer lab for little more than web surfing and word processing mock the XO, a device capable of a lot more for more children at a lower price. They complain that it’s not powerful enough, yet continue to use their existing computers in trivial ways.

I hear lots of “yeah, buts from the American edtech community.” What about professional development?” is a favorite mantra chanted as if American schools have succeeded in computer integration after more than 25 years of effort.

Why would anyone copy us?

Another favorite question is, “What about tech support?” That question is easily answered; local kids and adults will repair their own XOs. All you need is screwdriver and some parts. Remember when Americans used to repair things themselves? It wasn’t that long ago!

When the XO is the first computer, “book,” or even light source in a community there is a different sense of urgency. A few stories stand out. The President of Uruguay was on hand to distribute the first XO computers to students and the computer has been featured on an Uruguayan postage stamp. Poor slum dwelling Pakistani students had their school closed down and are required to work agricultural jobs. These kids have formed an XO Club and hold meetings during work breaks and nearly every night in order to keep learning.

During a recent OLPC workshop I met two Columbian women who exemplified the commitment to progress shared across the developing world. The educators wanted to provide XOs to a Columbian school without electricity. Due to its remote location where students arrive via individual boats, a petroleum-based generator is impossible. The women considered solar power, but they would need to hoist the panels above the rainforest canopy. Without missing a beat, the women looked at each other, shrugged and said, “We have a river.” That’s right. They’ll figure out a way to turn water into electricity in order to charge student laptops.

To countries where Internet access may be a four-day walk away and per pupil spending is $40/year, computers represent so much more than a way to practice multiplication tables.

SIDEBAR: This Fall, you will once again have the opportunity to change the world for a deserving child and get yourself a wicked cool XO laptop. At the end of the year, OLPC is likely to once again offer its Give One, Get One program. For $400 (price not yet set), you get an XO and a kid in the developing world gets one as well. This has the effect of reducing the cost of a laptop to less than $100 each since your donation is matched by a local purchase. Student clubs might get involved in this worthy endeavor as well. Go to www.laptop.org to learn more about G1G1 and to keep up with XO developments around the world.

Laura Bush Praises Obama, Defends Back-To-School Speech
In an interview with CNN, Mrs. Bush, a former school teacher, said, “There’s a place for the president of the United States to talk to school children and encourage school children” to stay in school. And she said parents and others also need to send that message.

“That certainly is the right of parents to choose what they want their children to hear in school.”

“I also think it’s also really important for everyone to respect the president of the United States,” she said.

Mrs. Bush praised Obama’s performance under difficult circumstances. “He’s tackled a lot to start with and that’s made it difficult,” she said.

The good news is that my daughter’s teachers are at last beginning to use computers. The bad news is they are using them to make PowerPoint presentations. Frightening images of my high school algebra teacher with the indelible blue arm from the ceaseless writing and erasing at the overhead projector flashed through my mind during my recent trip to Back-to-School Night

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Originally published in the January 2004 issue of

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Monotonous lectures at the overhead are quickly being replaced by the even more mind-numbing PowerPoint-based instruction. While the overhead projector allows a presenter to make changes and annotations on the fly in response to the needs of the audience, a PowerPoint presentation is a fossil created earlier that day–or during another school year–with few expectations for audience engagement.

Allow me to set the scene, a drama familiar to parents of secondary school students. Your child writes his or her daily school schedule for you to dutifully follow during Back-to-School Night. You rush through dinner to attend the PTA meeting, where the details of the latest fundraiser can be revealed. This year you will be inflicting $20 gallon drums of cookie dough on your innocent friends, colleagues and relatives. Next, you run a half-marathon in less than three minutes on a pitch-dark campus in order to make it to your first-period class.

The teacher, a new devotee of PowerPoint, has a problem to solve. The low-bid PC in her classroom is broken and the school district cannot afford an expensive data projector for every teacher. Undeterred by these challenges and buoyed by a motivation to convey critical information to the assembled parents, the teacher does what any good problem solver would do. She prints out the PowerPoint presentation. The teacher carefully hands each parent a copy of her presentation one at a time. This takes approximately four minutes.

The title page contains her name and contact information, but no details about this particular class because the presentation needs to be generic enough to use all evening. Upon opening the stapled packet one is treated to a couple of dozen slides detailing the teacher’s gum rules, incomprehensible grading system and ways in which students will be punished for breaking any of the innumerable classroom rules. Since the “presentation” was prepared with a standard PowerPoint template, each page is dark and uses half the toner on the planet.

Teachers like the one I describe are well-meaning, but their reliance on PowerPoint undermines their ability to communicate effectively. Such presentations convey little information and reduce the humanity of the presenter through the recitation of decontextualized bullet points. Such presentations require expensive hardware, time-consuming preparation and reduce spontaneity. This eight-minute presentation was a test of endurance. I fear for students subjected to years of teacher-led presentations.

As a service to educators everywhere, I have prepared a one-slide PowerPoint presentation (above) to help them with Back-to-School night.

What’s the point?

Somehow the making of PowerPoint presentations has become the ultimate use of computers in American classrooms. Perhaps we are emotionally drawn to children making sales pitches. Adults see these children playing Donald Trump dress-up and overvalue the exercise as educational. Teachers refer to “doing PowerPoint” or students “making a PowerPoint” and this is unquestionably accepted as worthwhile.

The desire to create a generation of fifth graders with terrific secretarial skills fails on a number of levels. PowerPoint presentations frequently undermine effective communication. The time spent creating PowerPoint presentations reduces opportunities to develop important storytelling, oral communication and persuasive skills. The corporate look of PowerPoint creates an air of false complexity when students are really constrained by rigid canned templates and the use of clip-art. Class size and time constraints frequently deprive students of opportunities to actually make their presentations before an audience.

Kids should be conducting authentic research, writing original ideas and learning to communicate in a variety of modalities. PowerPoint is a poor use of technology and trivializes the development of communication skills.

Everyone should read Edward Tufte’s very short book, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.

© 2003 Gary S. Stager/District Administration Magazine

The insanely paranoid right-wing fears about the president of the United States urging American children to be good students scares me. I believe that it is another hysterical attempt to usurp the legitimacy of a democratically elected African-American President. Denying children access to the President of the United States is unpatriotic and miseducative. The teachable moment should be seized to discuss and debate the President’s words in a civil democratic fashion. Surely, that is consistent with the ideals of public education in a free society.

I wrote about what might be in the Obama speech for the Huffington Post - A Sneak Peak at Obama’s Speech to Schoolchildren

I also dug up this article I wrote for District Administration Magazine back in 2007.

The Parental Veto of Curriculum
Fanaticism must not overrule district leadership!

An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary addressing environmental policy, hosted by Al Gore, continues to generate educational controversy. A number of parents have objected to the film’s classroom use, accusing it of being inaccurate, in spite of numerous scientists who testify to its veracity. Other critics challenge the messenger, accusing the film of partisanship. This seems peculiar. Is truth Democratic or Republican?

The Federal Way School District in Washington recently banned the film unless specific criteria were met. Teachers who want to show the movie must get the approval of the principal and the superintendent, and must ensure that a “credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented.” And teachers who have already shown the film must now present an “opposing view.”

This policy raises more questions than it answers. What is credible? Does every issue have an equally valid opposing view? Is there only one opposing view? Should the views of the Aryan Nations be included in discussions of the Holocaust or civil rights? Are there worksheets on the upside of slavery?

“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore.” -Federal Way parent

Must all materials used by a teacher pass muster from the superintendent? How long will that take? Is the superintendent competent to make every judgment? What happened to academic freedom? May teachers discuss current events or share breaking news stories with students?

You’re probably asking, “How did the Federal Way School Board get to this point?” The answer is that one parent, yes one, sent an e-mail message objecting to the showing of the film. Evidently some parents are emboldened to legislate for all students, rather than opting to keep their child out of an activity they find personally offensive.

What sort of educational leadership reverses policy based on a single complaint? How about telling such parents that we trust the judgment of our teachers? Why capitulate so easily?

In fact, Frosty Hardison, the objecting parent, isn’t really concerned about the science of global warming. Like many zealots, Hardison has not seen the film in question, but did say: “Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher…The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is …. The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.” It’s obvious that Hardison’s motives are concerned with imposing his religious beliefs on the school system. He found an ally in the school board president, who dismissed evolution as “only a theory,” that timeless canard that mangles the definition of theory for ideological gain.

I don’t understand the vitriol directed toward Vice President Gore. Why do so many assume he doesn’t know what he is talking about? When did decades of public service and two terms as vice president become something to be condemned rather than respected? What are the implications for our democracy when elected officials are dismissed out of hand as partisan hacks?

Should any parent be able to change classroom practice with a single e-mail? If parents can opt children out of a health class because it violates their family’s values, can I opt my child out of a course because I think it is a dopey waste of time? Why can’t I select my child’s teachers and demand a personal curriculum? Should I be able to bend the district to my wishes? Is the parental veto a sound idea?

The common school is at the center of our democracy. Educational leadership requires the assertion of expertise and a willingness to say “No!”

From Curriculum Administrator Magazine — June 2000

Amidst the sadism, angst and mediocrity of middle school, two social studies teachers had an important impact on my development. Bob Prail has taught social studies for decades and has touched the lives of countless children at Schuyler Colfax Junior High School in Wayne, New Jersey. His class was concerned more with the intellectual, moral and emotional development of each student than the bunch ‘o facts curriculum commonplace in similar classes. Mr. Prail’s class was rigorous despite the pabulum prescribed by the mediocre textbook, which remained in virginal condition. He excited us about American history and our nation’s uneasy quest for justice. Before multicultural education and interdisciplinary teaching were hot, Mr. Prail had each seventh grader read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and each eighth grader read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Decades before student-created multimedia was the rage, our class produced a film of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I was Harry the imp. Being home sick for a week created interesting cinematic challenges when my understudy, an Asian classmate, replaced me. Few middle school students read, let alone dramatize the controversial lessons of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Mr. Prail’s classes were filled with lively discussions and our content knowledge was tested by using an electronic game show set built by the teacher. His classroom was a safe environment for shaping an opinion or arguing one already formed. I’ll never forget how much grief Mr. Prail faced for teaching us how to relax and meditate during class time. There were absurd accusations of religious proselytizing and sorcery swirling around the school while any rational person familiar with middle school kids understands the need for relaxation and reflection. While I hardly remember the content of the class, Mr. Prail taught me a much more important lesson by his example. He treated everyone with dignity and respect even when little respect was accorded him by the school administration. I am convinced that my personal sense of political activism and willingness to fight for those people and issues worthy of support may be traced back to an intuitive sense that at twelve years old we might need to stage a protest to ensure Mr. Prail’s job security. Bob Prail’s lifelong commitment to doing the right thing on behalf of kids, regardless of what the adults around him might think is a testament to the courage and power of great teachers.

My eighth grade social studies teacher, Harold “Hack” Miller, inspired me in many other extra-curricular ways. Mr. Miller introduced partisanship, parody, humor and controversy to the study of history and importance of politics. These are noble traits required by a strong democracy. I’ll never forget the bulletin board decoration in Mr. Miller’s classroom. On it hung a front-page tabloid photo of President Ford receiving his swine flu shot and underneath it Mr. Miller wrote the caption, “No Brain… No Pain.” Mr. Miller traded “boring” subjects from the curriculum for more engaging ones like the influence of the arts on American culture. Best of all, he let us in on his subversion. He knew what his students needed and taught expertly what he knew best. Mr. Miller cultivated my love of history and passion for politics in both eighth and eleventh grade.

In high school, Mr. Miller was a behind-the-scenes instigator in our effort to rid the school of the sappy sexist expensive pre-Title IX annual student dance competition. He encouraged a camouflage-wearing school legend named Duke to seek the presidency of this august student organization while a slate of my male pals ran to be captains of a dance team. When informal polling indicated that the head cheerleaders were about to lose their most cherished position to a bunch of… well, boys all hell broke loose. While we were not particularly serious about leading the dance contest into the next millennium we were fighting for important principles of gender equity and against entrenched patterns of discrimination. Our mucking up of the works may have been silly, but it was also in the great tradition of the Boston Tea Party and the anti-Viet Nam war protests.

Mr. Prail and Mr. Miller taught without the script or straightjacket imposed by the textbook. They taught from a wealth of knowledge, a love of the subject matter and a commitment to children. I am most grateful for the role they played in the development of active citizens. They make me proud to be a teacher and an American.

There are many ways to evaluate excellent educational leadership. Here is a true story demonstrating such leadership.

A school principal recently led me on a tour of his elementary school. As we walked into one classroom I saw the blood flush from the principal’s face. We walked in on a classroom full of children watching a Disney cartoon while their teacher did paperwork. Once outside the classroom the principal apologized profusely and promised that the teacher would be spoken to.

This principal was embarassed by the lack of teacher professionalism demonstrated by using a cartoon to distract her students. Such practice is widespread and illegal. It is against the law to show commercial films to a public audience (including public schools) without the consent or license of the publisher.

My grade school-age nephews are watching plenty of commercial films as the school year winds down. Therefore, I’m inspired to share an article I wrote six years ago.

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A version of this was published in the August 2001 issue of Curriculum Administrator Magazine

At our annual family dinner to celebrate the end of another school year each of our children reflected upon the lessons learned and the obstacles overcome during the previous ten months. Our seventh-grade daughter, who will be referred to by the top-secret code name of Miffy, shared with us a new pedagogical strategy and use of educational technology not yet conceived of during my school years. What was this innovation? Was it project-based learning, multiage collaboration, constructionism, online publishing, modeling and simulation? No, it was Disney films.

Yup, that’s right. Disney films (and several others too).

The following is a partial list of the films shown this year during class time by my daughter’s teachers.

The following are some links to articles and other resources to support Dr. Gary Stager’s Fireside Chat, “The Education Revolution?” at Trinity College, The University of Melbourne - 2 September 2009.

Personal resources

• Gary Stager’s personal web site
• Gary Stager’s personal blog
• Gary Stager’s articles in The Huffington Post
• My bio
• Follow me on Twitter

Brand New: A Sneak Peek at Obama’s Speech to School Children

Gary Stager’s cover story, School Wars, from GOOD Magazine

Gary Stager’s article about Australian Deputy PM Julia Gillard’s education adviser, Educators can learn nothing from Chancellor Klein’s visit (from Crikey)

The Surge Against First Graders

Shocked! Shocked! Reading First Plagued by Corporate Welfare, Cronyism and Demonization

This article nearly got my entire editorial team fired for what the magazine owner viewed as an unfair (and now proven) attack on President George W. Bush prior to his re-election.

Gary Stager’s recent spotlight presentation from the National Educational Computing Conference (high-quality video) - Learning Adventures: Transforming Real and Virtual Learning Environments

Gary Stager’s recent keynote debate from NECC - Recipe for a Disruptive Keynote

Articles and papers by Dr. Stager

My manifesto for teachers and principals

Recommended books and other resources

Constructing Modern Knowledge

The Constructivist Consortium

Other recommended resources

• Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch’s “conversation,” Bridging Differences.
• Alfie Kohn’s brilliant work on learning, teaching and education
• Test-resistor and crap detector, extraordinaire, Susan Ohanian’s web site
• Jo Boaler’s brilliant dissection of how “scientifically-proven and research-based” methodologies have been used as anti-knowledge codewords for retarding school improvement - Where has All the Knowledge Gone?
• Roger Schank’s Education Outrage blog
• Teacher Certification, Teach for America, and Teacher Effectiveness by Linda Darling-Hammond, et al.
• Jonathan Kozol’s latest book. Letters to a Young Teacher
• Herbert Kohl’s anthology, The Herb Kohl Reader
• Frank Smith’s book, The Book of Learning and Forgetting
• Gerald Bracey on the Huffington Post

Originally published on Wednesday, October 04, 2006 in The Pulse: Education’s Place for Debate

Aside from reducing teachers to script-reading robots and reading to an onerous task, the Federal government’s controversial $4.8 billion Reading First program has been accused of numerous improprieties by the Inspector General of the Department of Education. The scathing report, The Reading First Program’s Grant Application Process – Final Inspection Report, was released on Friday (June 22), employing a common tactic used in the hopes that bad news will escape the public’s attention over the weekend. This is a news story that should not be ignored.

Back in October 2004 I wrote that there was something fishy about McGraw-Hill’s Direct Instruction/Reading Mastery program and the administration’s fondness for it. The Director General’s report details how the Department of Education and Reading First administrators used their influence to benefit the commercial product, Direct Instruction. According to the New York Times, one of the whistle blowers leading to this investigation was Robert Slavin, the creator and director of Success for All, a product many educators find quite similar to Direct Instruction. Slavin told the New York Times, “The department has said at least 10,000 times that they had no favored reading programs, and this report provides clear evidence that they were very aggressively pressing districts to use certain programs and not use others.”

The Inspector General’s report illuminates the corruption involved in the Federal Government’s attempts to micro-manage reading instruction. This should justify caution and vigilance as the President appoints a National Mathematics Advisory Panel that promises to do for mathematics what was done to reading. The report suggests a cozy relationship between the Department of Education and “expert review panels.”

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is spinning the report as ancient history predating her tenure in the position although she was an architect of No Child Left Behind. Reading First was a cornerstone of NCLB.

The report found that the Department of Education

• Developed an application package that obscured the requirements of the statute;

• Took action with respect to the expert review panel process that was contrary to the balanced panel composition envisioned by Congress;

• Intervened to release an assessment review document without the permission of the entity that contracted for its development;

• Intervened to influence a State’s selection of reading programs;

• Intervened to influence reading programs being used by local educational agencies (LEAs) after the application process was completed.

The report states, “These actions demonstrate that the program officials failed to maintain a control environment that exemplifies management integrity and accountability.”

My summary of this complex report is already too long, but there are countless reasons for concern. You can read the full report of the Inspector General (http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/aireports/i13f0017.pdf)

I would like to call attention to four major issues that should alarm educators and taxpayers alike.

Issue 1) Reading First Favored One Curriculum Product Over All Others

Numerous states had their applications for millions of dollars worth of Reading First grants rejected because they did not plan to use the funds for Direct Instruction. The report also says that states received little if any guidance on why their proposals were rejected. This caused state officials to waste time and resources chasing funding based on elusive criteria

Issue 2) Conflicts of Interest

The No Child Left Behind legislation mandated that a National Expert Review Panel be appointed to review scientifically-based reading materials eligible for Reading First funding. The Inspector General’s Report found that makeup of the panels was inconsistent with the goals of the law authorizing the panels.

The Department Took Action With Respect to the Expert Review Panel Process That Was Contrary to the Balanced Panel Composition Envisioned by Congress

Section 1203(c)(2)(A) states that the Secretary, in consultation with the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), shall convene a panel to evaluate applications and that, at a minimum, the panel shall include: three individuals selected by the Secretary, three individuals selected by NIFL, three individuals selected by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and three individuals selected by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). We have determined that each of the four organizations nominated at least three individuals to serve on the expert review panel; however, the Department failed to ensure that each State application was reviewed by a properly constituted panel.

Section 1203(c)(2)(C) requires a panel to recommend grant applications to the Secretary for funding or for disapproval. After selecting the panelists, the Department created subpanels made up of five panelists each to review the State applications and recommend either approval or disapproval to the Secretary. None of the subpanels possessed adequate representation from each of the organizations identified under Section 1203(c)(2)(A) of the Act.

The Department created a total of 16 subpanels to review the State applications. A majority of the panelists were nominated by the Department for 15 of the 16 subpanels; and 7 of the 16 subpanels consisted entirely of Department-selected panelists. None of the subpanels included a representative from each of the nominating organizations and there is no indication that the subpanels ever met as one large panel to review the State applications and/or recommend approval or disapproval to the Secretary.

If your eyes glazed over by the official mumbo jumbo above, check out this statement from the Inspector General’s report.

…15 of the 16 subpanels had a majority of Department-nominated panelists and none had the balanced composition envisioned by Congress.

Members of the National Expert Review Panels and Reading First staffers had commercial or academic ties to Direct Instruction. These conflicts rose all the way up the Department of Education to then Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, who won an award from McGraw-Hill for his role in the now largely discredited “Houston Miracle” - the basis for No Child Left Behind.

The Reading First Director took direct action to ensure that a particular approach to reading instruction was represented on the expert review panel. Direct Instruction (DI) is a model for teaching that requires the use of Reading Mastery, a program published by SRA/McGraw-Hill, to teach reading. The Reading First Director formerly served as the Executive Director of the Baltimore Curriculum Project, which has implemented DI in Baltimore City schools since 1996. The Reading First Director personally nominated three individuals who had significant professional connections to DI to serve on the expert review panel.

When asked about potential conflicts of interest and ideological blindness, Reading First officials reacted sarcastically with contempt for Congress and the public.

A Department employee reported to the Reading First Director that the Department had received a question from a member of the media about the panel composition. The response by the Reading First Director suggests that he may indeed have intended to “stack” the expert review panel. The employee stated: “The question is…are we going to ‘stack the panel’ so programs like Reading Recovery don’t get a fair shake[?]” The Reading First Director responded, “‘Stack the panel?’…I have never *heard* of such a thing….<harumph, harumph>[.]”

Doherty responded wrote in a 2002 email. “You know the line from Casablanca, ‘I am SHOCKED that there is gambling going on in this establishment!’ Well, ‘I am SHOCKED that there are pro-DI people on this panel!’”

Issue 3) Ideology Trumps Science and Good Public Policy

The Inspector General’s report documents how the Department of Education and the review panels manipulated the law to support Direct Instruction at the expense of competing programs. Reading Recovery, an remedial intervention strategy employed by schools across the globe, was a particular target of Reading First.

The Assistant Secretary for OESE planned for the Reading First Guidance to include language that was not in the statute and exclude language that was in the statute. After reviewing a revision to the Department’s draft of the Reading First Guidance, the Assistant Secretary for OESE wrote to the Reading First Director, “under reading first plan. i’d like not to say ‘this must include early intervention and reading remediation materials’ which i think could be read as ‘reading recovery’ [a reading program]. even if it says this in the law, i’d like it taken out.”

A few days before the Department publicly announced the panelists it had chosen to serve, one of the Department-nominated panelists contacted the Reading First Director and shared his strong bias against Reading Recovery and his strategy for responding to any State that planned to include Reading Recovery in its application. The Reading First Director responded: “I really like the way you’re viewing/approaching this, and not just because it matches my own approach :-), I swear!” This individual later served as the panel chair for the subpanel that reviewed Wisconsin’s State application and in response to the State’s plans to use Reading Recovery, he included an 11-page negative review of Reading Recovery in his official comments on the application.

The Inspector General’s report includes an email from Reading First Director, Chris Doherty in which he makes his motives and temperament perfectly clear.

“They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags.”

Reading Recovery was not the only approach or curricular product to endure the wrath of Reading First officials. Reading First attacked any curriculum product or pedagogical approach determined to have a whiff of “whole language”.

The Department Intervened to Influence Reading Programs Being Used by LEAs After the Application Process Was Completed

After certain States completed the application process and received funding, the Reading First Director became aware that certain LEAs in these States were using the Rigby Literacy (Rigby) and Wright Group Literacy (Wright Group) programs. The Reading First Director worked closely with a Department staff member, a former expert review panelist, who undertook a review of both of these programs.

In e-mail correspondence with the staff member regarding the Wright Group, the Reading First Director stated:

Beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in a way that will stand up to any level of legal and [whole language] apologist scrutiny. Hit them over and over with definitive evidence that they are not SBRR, never have been and never will be. They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags.

The Reading First Director forwarded the above e-mail to Lyon and stated:

Confidential FYI. Pardon in-house language I use…with fellow team members and friends. Do you know—on the QT—if anyone has done any good review of the Wright Group stuff, to date? We have beaten Maine on Rigby and this is cut from the same cloth. We are proceeding, of course, but if you knew of a good piece of work dissecting The Wright Group’s stuff, it could further strengthen our hand.

Lyon responded that he would obtain this information and added, “I like your style.” In response, the Reading First Director stated, “Additional firepower…may help us make this a one-punch fight.”

After reviewing the programs, the staff member provided the Reading First Director with notes and talking points critiquing these programs. The Reading First Director used this information to convince States using Rigby and Wright Group to change programs. In an e-mail to Lyon, the Reading First Director wrote, “I spoke to Fred Carrigg [the former New Jersey Director of Reading First]…with a roomful of others on their end and they are HALTING the funding of Rigby and, while we were at it, Wright Group. They STOPPED the districts who wanted to use those programs.”

In a later e-mail to Lyon, the Reading First Director stated:

As you may remember, RF got Maine to UNDO its already-made decision to have Rigby be one of their two approved core programs (Ha, ha – Rigby as a CORE program? When pigs fly!) We also as you may recall, got NJ [New Jersey] to stop its districts from using Rigby (and the Wright Group, btw) and are doing the same in Mississippi. This is for your FYI, as I think this program-bashing is best done off or under the major radar screens.

In a formal letter to Carrigg, the Reading First Director did not specifically name Rigby and Wright Group as not being aligned with SBRR (scientifically-based reading research). The Reading First Director wrote, “It appeared that New Jersey had not fulfilled its responsibility to ensure that all LEAs and schools selected to participate in Reading First…would implement comprehensive reading programs that are fully aligned with scientifically based reading research.” The Reading First Director informed us that he could not definitively say why he did not formally state in the letter that those specific programs were not in line with SBRR.

Issue 4) Bias equals dissent?

The Inspector General’s reports how Reid Lyon, one of the architects of No Child Left Behind and Reading First, viewed dissent. People who disagreed with his agenda were accused of bias, ridiculed and intimidated.

Around the same time, Reid Lyon, the former Chief of the Child Development & Behavior Branch at the NICHD, advised the Reading First Director, the Assistant Secretary for OESE, and the Senior Advisor to the Secretary at the time that one of the panelists had been “actively working to undermine the NRP [National Reading Panel] Report and the RF initiatives.” Lyon further stated, “Chances are that other reviewers can trump any bias on her part.” In a written response to all of the people involved, the former Senior Advisor to the Secretary stated, “We can’t un-invite her. Just make sure she is on a panel with one of our barracuda types.”

The apparent intent of the Reading First Director to include and to give a significant role to panelists who reflected his personal preference in reading programs; his specific encouragement to a panelist who held views similar to his on Reading Recovery; and the intention of the former Senior Advisor to the Secretary to control another panelist raise significant questions about the control environment in which the program was being managed.

How is ignoring competing views part of the “scientific method” Lyon and his colleagues require as the basis for all educational practice?

The Executive Summary of the Inspector General’s report describes the following findings about Reading First.

FINDING 1A – The Department Did Not Select the Expert Review Panel in Compliance With the Requirements of NCLB

FINDING 1B – While Not Required to Screen for Conflicts of Interest, the Screening Process the Department Created Was Not Effective

FINDING 2A – The Department Replaced What the Law Intended to be a Peer Review Process With its Own Process

FINDING 2B – The Department Awarded Grants to States Without Documentation That the Subpanels Approved All Criteria

FINDING 3 – The Department Included Requirements in the Criteria Used by the Expert Review Panels That Were Not Specifically Addressed in NCLB

FINDING 4 – In Implementing the Reading First Program, Department Officials Obscured the Statutory Requirements of the ESEA; Acted in Contravention of the GAO Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government; and Took Actions That Call Into Question Whether They Violated the Prohibitions Included in the DEOA

The Pulse will continue to follow this important story. We will report on what happens to Reading First money already in the pipeline and if government officials are held accountable for their actions. Our teachers, students and taxpayers deserve no less.

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For further study:

The Schools Matter blog, while representing a particular point-of-view, offers extensive coverage and analysis of the Reading First scandal.

Susan Ohanian reported (in 2005) on the original concerns that led to the Inspector General’s investigation. Read Special Report: Reading First Under Fire: IG Targets Conflicts of Interest, Limits on Local Control.

Look for news stories involving:

• Reid Lyon, former Chief, Child Development and Behavior Branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, who infamously proclaimed, “If there was any piece of legislation that I could pass it would be to blow up colleges of education.”

• Chris Doherty, former Director of Reading First, who recently resigned

• Douglas Carnine, one of the major proponents of DIBELs and a person involved in assisting Reid Lyon in assembling the Reading First panels discussed in the Director General’s report. Two of his colleagues from the University of Oregon were on the review panel. Carnine consults with the Department of Education and Congress on a remarkable range of topics and with great frequency.

• Rod Paige, former Secretary of Education

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Gary Stager, currently teaching, consulting and speaking in Australia, is Editor of The Pulse and Editor-At-Large for District Administration Magazine. His personal web site is www.stager.org

The views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and not the views of The Pulse, District Administration Magazine or Professional Media Group.

The New York Times article, Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens, punches another whole in the ageist nonsense known as the digital immigrant/digital native BS. That bogus theory fetishizes youth culture and allows middle-age adults, primarily educators, to say, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty,” in an act of self-loathing and anti-intellectualism.

“The traditional early-adopter model would say that teenagers or college students are really important to adoption,” said Andrew Lipsman, director of industry analysis at comScore. Teenagers, after all, drove the early growth of the social networks Facebook, MySpace and Friendster.

Twitter, however, has proved that “a site can take off in a different demographic than you expect and become very popular,” he said. “Twitter is defying the traditional model.”

In fact, though teenagers fueled the early growth of social networks, today they account for 14 percent of MySpace’s users and only 9 percent of Facebook’s. As the Web grows up, so do its users…”

I wrote about this issue long ago in Tech Insurgents: Do your teachers need a computing IEP? and Digital Native Theory Further Disproved.

However, billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban had the definitive word on the alleged digital generation gap.

I arrived two days ago amidst freezing wind and rain in my beloved second home of Melbourne, Australia. This is my thirty-something-ith trip to Melbourne since I began working here 19 years ago. My love for Melbourne is only second to that of New York City. I cherish my long-time friendships and the remarkable work I’ve been able to do.

I’m enjoying the great honor (honour as they would say here) of being the “Visiting Scholar” at Trinity College of The University of Melbourne. I have a large old flat, complete with library and art collection in the college and will experience many of the traditions including the wearing of an academic gown to “high table” and leading “tutes” with students. I’ll also lead a fireside chat on September 2nd. The topic will be “The Education Revolution?” (Aussies know what the title means in the current political climate here)

Tonight, I will participate in the formal graduation ceremony where I will receive the testamur for my Ph.D. and get a really good poofy hat. In fact, according to the rules sent to me, I shall expect much bowing and doffing of my bonnet. I finished my Ph.D. several years ago, but have remained a GRADUAND (a word I thought was a typo until googling it). I’m finally able to attend the festivities and enjoy the punch and cookies.

Since I am no stranger to humiliation, I will post a photo of the poofy hat as soon as I have possession of said bonnet.

I wish my parents and family were here to share this special milestone.