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Testimony from Congress regarding Reading Recovery in Reading First grants:
Here is the Congressional Testimony from U.S. Dept. of Ed about Reading
Recovery in Reading First.

1. Congressional Testimony by USDE Establishes Reading Recovery’s Eligibility for Federal Funds.

2. RRCNA issues request to members to contact members of the new 108th congress by January 6, 2003.

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1. Congressional Testimony by USDE Establishes Reading Recovery’s Eligibility for Federal Funds

On June 13, 2002, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee conducted a hearing on the topic of reading programs and strategies in the No Child Left Behind Act.

During questioning, U.S. Department of Education Undersecretary Gene Hickok, made several positive statements regarding Reading Recovery’s eligibility for federal funds. The transcript for that hearing recently became available, and the relevant excerpt appears below. This information should be helpful to Reading Recovery professionals as well as educators with responsibility for selecting and implementing scientifically-based reading instruction and professional development. A complete transcript of the hearing (S. Hrg.107-517) may be ordered from the U.S. Government Printing Office at 1-800-512-1800. Excerpt (p. 10) –

“Senator Collins: Is there anything in the guidance that the Department has given so far that would preclude funding for Reading Recovery programs.

Undersecretary Hickok: No, there is not, and I want to make sure that that is pretty well understood, not just by the committee, but by everybody. I mean, the fact is we will have, if I might say so, we do not have a dog in this fight. Our only goal is to make sure that whatever is being done at the State and local level results in students being able to read by Grade 3.

The real sad part of the story is, while we do not have a whole lot of knowledge about some things in education, we know about reading, and yet in far too many places, we are not successful. So the goal here is to transform the culture of education with regard to reading. Reading Recovery, as far as I know, can be a part of that transformation. It has to be able to make its case, within a Sate application, the way everybody else does, in terms of those five components [of reading instruction].

The goal here is to transform the classroom and the instruction, but as I just said a moment ago, it is also to recognize the individual needs of individual students. The goal would be preventative programs, so the need for intervention and remediation is limited, but that does not mean that Reading Recovery or any other successful program that has got the science and can demonstrate it in an application cannot be a part of this. The goal here is that end to success.

Senator Collins: Thank you. I very much appreciate those reassurances.”

This excerpt is also availableon theRRCNAweb site at: http://www.readingrecovery.org/pdfs/HickockTestimony.pdf

2. NCTE Resolution on Reading First:

On the Reading First Initiative
2002

NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia

Background

The Reading First Initiative of the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2002 makes available to states $900 million for the
teaching of reading. And in passing this Act, Congress has affirmed
NCTE's commitment to helping all students become more powerfully
literate. However, states can only obtain these funds by committing
themselves to professional development of all teachers of reading,
based upon and limited to the view of reading instruction embodied in
the Reading First Initiative. Therefore, the No Child Left Behind Act
attempts to impose a centrally mandated "one size fits all" method of
reading instruction upon the nation's children and their teachers.

This Initiative is the culmination of a recent trend, as the
federal government has increasingly attempted to define what reading
is, to limit what counts as research on reading, and to dictate how
reading should be taught in our classrooms. As a consequence, the
government is channeling education funding to a few corporate purveyors
of a limited set of methods of reading instruction. As a professional
community actively involved in literacy research and instruction, NCTE
has systematically opposed these mandates, partly through resolutions
(1997, 1998, and 1999) on government intrusion into professional
decision making.

We believe the Reading First Initiative is potentially
harmful to children for several reasons:

Individually unique children suffer when they are subjected to a
national, single, uniform model of reading instruction.

Children are deprived of sensitive, responsive precision in teaching
when a rigid methodology is imposed on teachers.

Teaching that is based upon a limited, inadequate research base risks
miseducating children about reading.

Some of the weaknesses of Reading First stem
from its dependence upon the National Reading Panel report (2000) as
its research base. Mislabeled as an assessment of "the" scientific
literature on reading and reading instruction, the National Reading
Panel report is incomplete, narrowly focused, and flawed. The research
examined does not represent the full range of scientifically valid
research methodology, but appears to have been chosen as selective
support for a preconceived notion of what constitutes best practice.
Furthermore, the Summary booklet, the most widely distributed and
widely read version of the National Reading Panel report, does not
accurately represent the findings of the full report (Joanne Yatvin,
"Babes in the Woods: The Wanderings of the National Reading Panel,"
January 2002, Phi Delta Kappan).

States applying for Reading First grants have been advised to
choose from a "short list" of commercial programs that claim to be more
scientifically based than alternatives. In reality, alternative
approaches to instruction have not been compared with the approaches of
commercial programs as to their overall effectiveness. The
professional community raises many areas of concern with respect to
available commercial programs:

The appropriate balance among components
of reading instruction has not been adequately researched.

The sufficiency of those components has not been determined.

The appropriate amount of time allocated to and among the components of
reading instruction has not been determined.

Research does not support the sequencing in which instruction occurs.

Teachers are finding, too, that some of the
mandated scripted programs are crowding out of the curriculum the time
needed for reading aloud, independent reading of enjoyable and
informational texts, writing, discussion, and in-depth exploration of
literature. In short, the Reading First Initiative seeks to remove
professional judgment and decision making by educators and to replace
it with packaged materials marketed by corporate publishers. This
process imposes a standardized methodology upon teachers and children,
which is an inevitable recipe for failure.

NCTE asserts the responsibility of literacy educators,
collectively and individually, to speak out about the limitations of
the assumptions behind the Reading First Initiative. When our federal
government attempts to narrow literacy teaching to a focus on a few
isolated skills, we must protest. We object to the federal
government's unprecedented co-opting of American traditions of local
control of curricula. Our responsibility as educators compels us to
develop and communicate to federal, state, and local policymakers
specific suggestions for revisions to the Act itself and to policies
related to it. For example, we need to call for revisions in the
evaluation plan for Reading First. The Initiative must be evaluated by
knowledgeable professionals free from commercial and political
relationships with the programs, research base, and agencies being
assessed. Such evaluation must invite, entertain, and facilitate a
broad critique of the Initiative, including its research base. Be it
therefore

Resolution

RESOLVED, that the National Council of Teachers of
English support the tradition of local and state control of English
language arts curriculum, instruction, and assessment and oppose the
use of the No Child Left Behind Act to mandate a "short list" of
professional development providers or commercial products in reading.

Be it further RESOLVED that NCTE call upon Congress to
commission knowledgeable, independent professionals to critique the
currently promoted research base for the Reading First Initiative,
specifically the National Reading Panel report.

Be it further RESOLVED that NCTE call upon Congress to ensure
that the five-year evaluation of the Reading First Initiative required
by the No Child Left Behind Act be conducted not only independently of
the U.S. Department of Education but also independently of the
influence of the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, other federal agencies and officials, and corporations
that have produced the commercial programs used to implement the
Reading First Initiative.

Be it further RESOLVED that NCTE call upon Congress to expand
the five-year national evaluation of the Reading First Initiative of
the No Child Left Behind Act to include

implementation of diverse kinds of scientific research, including teacher research;

determination of whether the "essentials of reading instruction"
required by this legislation are sufficient as a comprehensive program
for the development of reading;

study of how implementing the Reading First Initiative affects the
development of students' writing, their understanding and appreciation
of literature, and their oral communication skills;

comparison of the effects of the isolated skills approach to reading
instruction underpinning this legislation with the effects of more
complex, integrated approaches to developing literacy; and

study of the long-term effects on students' reading achievement,
behaviors, and attitudes.