Bob Slavin responds to Reid Lyon's series on Reading First

In a series of interviews in EducationNews, Reid Lyon gives a revisionist history of Reading First that has little correspondence with reality. He seems to think that the only thing that went wrong with Reading First was that its director, Chris Doherty, used strong language in a few emails. These unfortunate emails, though emphasized in the media, were not what brought down Doherty or Reading First. The emails were just a few lines in an extraordinary series of seven Inspector General reports that documented a pattern of conflicts of interest and cronyism. The IG reports supported in every essential detail the concerns that I and others had been stating since 2005.

Lyon portrays the Reading First debacle as an overblown response to complaints by "vendors" who did not get as much business as they'd hoped for. This is false. First, the main complainants were our Success for All Foundation and Reading Recovery, both of which are non-profit organizations that exist solely to serve the kinds of children that Reading First was supposed to help. Both have strong, broadly replicated evidence of effectiveness in studies, including randomized experiments, that Reading First was intended to champion. Yet it is not the case that our program just did not grow as much as we expected. In reality, Reading First was disastrous to both programs. In the case of Success for All, whose substantial evidence base Lyon acknowledges, we were nearly destroyed by Reading First. Due to a widespread perception that Success for All was not aligned with Reading First, which I'll address in a moment, districts and schools we serve were frequently forced to drop Success for All, and those that wanted to use the program were discouraged or forbidden to do so. In years before Reading First we were adding 200-400 schools per year to our network. Afterwards, this dropped to 20-30. As a result, we had to lay off 60% of our staff – more than 200 hard working, dedicated educators. We very nearly went bankrupt. Reading Recovery also suffered serious declines.

Lyon maintains that Success for All and other research-proven reading programs did not thrive under Reading First just because they were too expensive and complicated. This does not correspond with the facts. First, the Abt Associates Interim Report on Reading First found that ordinary Title 1 schools similar to Reading First schools were more likely to use Success for All than were Reading First schools. If Success for All is so expensive, why would schools who'd just received grants averaging $135,000 per year be less likely to adopt it? In reality, when Reading First was going into effect, we received constant calls from principals being pressured to drop SFA due to Reading First. We have dozens of letters from principals documenting this. While there was never a direct message from Reading First leaders saying that Success for All was not allowed under Reading First, state directors and others throughout the country somehow got the idea that Success for All was a dangerous choice, not aligned with Reading First, and perhaps more importantly, they were constantly given other programs as positive examples, especially traditional basal textbooks lacking any evidence of effectiveness. The IG reproduced the agendas of the early Reading First Academies, held for the officials who were writing their state proposals. These included presentations by representatives of basal textbook companies, but not of Success for All or Reading Recovery. The IG found that participants were given articles on DIBELS but no other measure. Obviously, any program presented by Reading First officials at a Reading First conference was a safe choice for proposal writers.

What Reading First did to Success for All and Reading Recovery is of little importance in comparison to what it did to the broader movement toward evidence-based reform. Under the banner of "scientifically-based reading research," it systematically stamped out the idea that evidence of effectiveness matters. As Lyon notes, congressional leaders backed off from a requirement that schools use proven programs, because that would have limited them to Success for All or Direct Instruction as core programs. Yet Reading First leaders could have provided information on research-proven programs and still let districts make informed choices. Instead, they eliminated such information. The influential Simmons and Kame'enui "Consumer's Guide" originally included a section on evidence of program effectiveness, and stated that if programs had such evidence the rest of the guide could be ignored. That section was eliminated when the guide was promoted in Reading First. The National Institute for Literacy commissioned a review of research on current reading programs early in Reading First, but the contract was quashed at the last minute. The University of Oregon and Florida State began to do reviews of research early in Reading First, but stopped them early on. The Florida State website contained some discussion of the research bases behind various programs, but it stated that the four top basal texts were excused from reviews and should be considered qualified without review. The What Works Clearinghouse did not issue a beginning reading topic report until summer, 2007, and although it listed 154 programs with and without evidence of effectiveness, it still to this day has not listed the top basals adopted almost universally under Reading First. These basals lack any evidence that would meet WWC standards. Because Reading First provided little information on program evaluations, "based on scientifically-based reading research" came to mean "whatever Reading First leaders like". The fact that several of these leaders (though not Lyon or Doherty) were authors of two of the favored programs therefore takes on enormous importance.

I am not happy that the Reading First funding was cut. For all we know, the program may be doing good things for children (although the evaluations continue to be held up in an endless approval process). However, it is impossible to imagine that the IG simply made up the information in seven lengthy reports documenting serious ethical problems with the program, as Lyon would have us believe. Reading First had an opportunity to make a real difference for children and for the principle that evidence should be the basis for educational practice. Instead, it gave evidence a bad name. It is not for me to say which individuals were most and least responsible for what happened, but Lyon would have us believe that nothing went wrong with Reading First beyond a few emails. The facts are otherwise.

First Part: An On-Going Conversation with Reid Lyon : About Reading First
Second Part: An On-Going Interview with Reid Lyon: About Reading First
Third Part: An On-going conversation with Reid Lyon: About Reading First

Published April 9, 2008

Wednesday

April 9th, 2008

Robert

E. Slavin

Education News

Bob Slavin responds to Reid Lyon's series on Reading First

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