An unfavorable audit of the U.S. Department of Education’s Reading First program is not expected to affect the Emporia school district’s efforts to focus on literacy.
The program, a major facet of the No Child Left Behind law, has provided approximately $4.8 billion in grants to 1,500 school districts. William Allen White is the only school in Emporia that has received Reading First grants.
“We haven’t been notified of anything,” said Nancy Horst, community relations coordinator for the district. “There were 11 or 12 states that they were specifically targeting (for review) and we weren’t one of them.”
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had said earlier that she planned to review every Reading First grant her agency had approved, according to an earlier Associated Press report.
The remark came after a “scorching internal review” of the program that accused the Department of conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement, the AP said. The program for the past five years has been led by Chris Doherty, who reportedly plans to resign to return to the private sector.
The report accuses the department of failing to identify six members of a grant review panel who had conflicts of interest based on their industry connections, among other accusations. The report stated that the Reading First director had repeatedly used his influence to “steer money toward states that used a reading approach he favored, called Direct Instruction” and that the review panel was “stacked with people who backed that program.”
The Direct Instruction program at the heart of the conflict is not used at William Allen White school, according to Principal James Baker.
“We’re one of those exceptions,” he said, explaining that the grant required only that the reading program be based on scientific research, which needed to be submitted in the grant application.
Baker said the WAW reading program is based on a Balanced Literacy approach, which includes phonics, whole language and other aspects of communication.
“Reading is a lot more complex, especially when you’re working with many languages,” Baker said. “... Actually, we’re seeing some pretty excellent results. The kids are doing really well.”
Test results for proficiency of individual kindergartners have jumped from 50 percent to about 95 percent and the number of first graders attaining proficiency is similar, Baker said.
Horst said that WAW was the only elementary school in the Emporia district that was awarded Reading First grants. During the past four years, the grants have totaled $824,517.
A substantial portion of the funds has been used to bring in a consultant to teach WAW teachers how to teach reading to children, Baker said.
Horst said that with or without grants, the entire district continues to emphasize improving the reading skills of its students in a variety of ways. Reading coaches and reading strategists are used by all of the elementary schools to meet proficiency goals. By 2014, the goal is that every student will be proficient.
Each grade level is tested twice each year in reading, and in mathematics as well, to measure progress.
Plans are created for each individual student with the intention of providing that student with the best opportunity for success in meeting the proficiency goals.
“It’s just been a huge focus (throughout the district), but William Allen White was the only one able to get a Reading First grant,” Horst said.