Government money spent on Literacy research, assessment, and programs in the USA and Europe.
GrantsThe Business of Education
The Business of Education
Digital Diplomas and Knowledge based industries an elaborate web of interlocking directorates between corporate and academic boardrooms and the foundation of joint lobbying efforts epitomized by the work of the Business-Higher Education Forum.
QUESTION:
What do bogus reading programs actually cost the country when the student can't pass the state exit exam from high school. Answer
QUESTION:
What can so-called fuctionally literate adults actually do? Answer
RESEARCH - LITERACY AND GOVERNMENT
The money didn't go to Reading First it went to Ignite! and Voyager Expanded Learning Neil Bush's business'
The Game:
Yes this is how it all really works and why America can't read with our Ph.D Higher Ed supply chain system in place over the last 50 years. Big publishers definitely have a leg up on smaller reading companies.
Follow the Money:
The business of reading vendors, publishers, and how they awarded the government's (tax paper) money and conflicts of interest. The legal questions AND organizational conflicts of interest.The goal is to prevent contractors and subcontractors from providing technical assistance for products in which they have a direct interest.
BUSH’S FAMILY PROFITS FROM "NO CHILD" ACT http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-ignite22oct22,1,4882017.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true
READ THE BACKGROUND STORY ABOUT NEIL BUSH'S COMPANY
With investments from his parents, George H.W. and Barbara Bush, and other backers, Neil Bush's company, Ignite! Learning has placed its products in 40 U.S. school districts and now plans to market internationally. At least 13 U.S. school districts have used federal funds available through the president's signature education reform, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, to buy Ignite's portable learning centers at $3,800 apiece. Most of Ignite's business has been obtained through sole-source contracts without competitive bidding. The Washington Times Foundation, backed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the South Korea-based Unification Church, has peppered classrooms throughout Virginia with Ignite's COWs Curriculum on Wheels (the portable learning centers resemble cows on wheels) under a $1-million grant. Oil companies and Middle East interests with long political ties to the Bush family have made similar bequests. Aramco Services Co., an arm of the Saudi-owned oil company, has donated Ignite products to schools, as have Apache Corp., BP and Shell Oil Co.
A company headed by President Bush's brother and partly owned by his parents is benefiting from Republican connections and federal dollars targeted for economically disadvantaged students under the No Child Left Behind Act.
The law provides federal funds to help school districts better serve disadvantaged students and improve their performance, especially in reading and math.
But Ignite does not offer reading instruction, and its math program will not be available until next year.
The federal Department of Education does not monitor individual school district expenditures under the No Child program, but sets guidelines that the states are expected to enforce, spokesman Chad Colby said.
Ignite executive Tom Deliganis said that "some districts seem to feel OK" about using No Child money for the Ignite purchases, "and others do not."
Neil Bush said in an e-mail to The Times that Ignite's program had demonstrated success in improving the test scores of economically disadvantaged children. He also said political influence had not played a role in Ignite's rapid growth.
"As our business matures in the USA we have plans to expand overseas and to work with many distinguished individuals in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa," he wrote.
Interviews and a review of school district documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act found that educators and legal experts were sharply divided over whether Ignite's products were worth their cost or qualified under the No Child law.
The federal law requires schools to show they are meeting educational standards, or risk losing critical funding. If students fail to meet annual performance goals in reading and math tests, schools must supplement their educational offerings with tutoring and other special programs.
Leigh Manasevit, a Washington attorney who specializes in federal education funding, said that districts using the No Child funds to buy products like Ignite's would have to meet "very strict" student eligibility requirements and ensure that the Ignite services were supplemental to existing programs.
Known as COW, for Curriculum on Wheels (the portable learning centers resemble cows on wheels), Ignite's product line is geared toward middle school social studies, history and science. The company says it has developed a social studies program that meets curriculum requirements in seven states. Its science program meets requirements in six states. Most of Ignite's business has been obtained through sole-source contracts without competitive bidding. Neil Bush has been directly involved in marketing the product. In addition to federal or state funds, foundations and corporations have helped buy Ignite products.
Bush's parents joined Neil as Ignite investors in 1999, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents. By 2003, the records show, Neil Bush had raised about $23 million from more than a dozen outside investors, including Mohammed Al Saddah, the head of a Kuwaiti company, and Winston Wong, the head of a Chinese computer firm. Most recently he signed up Russian fugitive business tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.
Barbara Bush has enthusiastically supported Ignite. In January 2004, she and Neil Bush were guests of honor at a $1,000-atable fundraiser in Oklahoma City organized by a foundation supporting the Western Heights School District. Proceeds were earmarked for the purchase of Ignite products. Organizer Mary Blankenship Pointer said she planned the event because district students were "utilizing Ignite courseware and experiencing great results. Our students were thriving." However, Western Heights school Supt. Joe Kitchens said the district eventually dropped its use of Ignite because it disagreed with changes Ignite had made in its products. "Our interest waned in it," he said.
The former first lady spurred controversy recently when she contributed to a Hurricane Katrina relief foundation for storm victims who had relocated to Texas. Her donation carried one stipulation: It had to be used by local schools for purchases of COWs.
Texas accounts for 75% of Ignite's business, which is expanding rapidly in other states, Deliganis said. The company also has COWs deployed in North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia and Florida, he said. COWs recently showed up at Hill Classical Middle School in California's Long Beach Unified School District. A San Jose middle school also bought Ignite's products but has since closed. Neil Bush said Ignite has more than 1,700 COWs in classrooms.
But Ignite's educational strategy has changed dramatically, and some are critical of its new approach. Shortly after Ignite was formed in Austin, Texas, in 1999, it bought the software developed by another small Austin firm, Adaptive Learning Technology.
Adaptive Learning founder Mary Schenck-Ross said the software's interactive lessons allowed teachers "to get away from the mass-treatment approach" to education. When a student typed in a response to a question, the software was designed to react and provide a customized learning path. "The original concept was to avoid 'one size fits all.' That was the point," said Catherine Malloy, who worked on the software development. Two years ago, however, Ignite dropped the individualized learning approach. Working with artists and illustrators, it created a large purple COW that could be wheeled from classroom to classroom and plugged in, offering lessons that could be played to a roomful of students. The COWs enticed students with catchy jingles and videos featuring cartoon characters like Mr. Bighead and Norman Einstein. On Ignite's website, a collection of teachers endorsed the COW, saying that it eliminated the need for lesson planning. The COW does it for them. The developers of Adaptive Learning's software complain that Ignite replaced individualized instruction with a gimmick.
"It breaks my heart what they have done. The concept was totally perverted," Schenck-Ross said. Nevertheless, Ignite found many receptive school districts. In Texas, 30 districts use COWs. In Houston, where Neil Bush and his parents live, the district has used various funding sources to acquire $400,000 in Ignite products. An additional $240,000 in purchases has been authorized in the last six months.
Correspondence obtained by The Times shows that Neil Bush met with top Houston officials, sent e-mails and left voice mail messages urging bigger and faster allocations. An e-mail from a school procurement official to colleagues said Bush had made it clear that he had a "good working relationship" with a school board member. Another Ignite official asked a Texas state education official to endorse the company. In an e-mail, Neil Bush's partner Ken Leonard asked Michelle Ungurait, state director of social studies programs, to tell Houston officials her "positive impressions of our content, system and approach."
Ungurait, identified in another Leonard e-mail as "our good friend" at the state office, told her superiors in response to The Times' inquiry that she never acted on Leonard's request. Leonard said he did not ask Ungurait to do anything that would be improper. Houston school officials gave Ignite's products "high" ratings in eight categories and recommended approval.
Some in Houston's schools question the expenditures, however. Jon Dansby was teaching at Houston's Fleming Middle School when Ignite products arrived. "You can't even get basics like paper and scissors, and we went out and bought them. I just see red," he said. In Las Vegas, the schools have approved more than $300,000 in Ignite purchases. Records show the board recommended spending $150,000 in No Child funding on Ignite products.
Sources familiar with the Las Vegas purchases said pressure to buy Ignite products came from Sig Rogich, an influential local figure and prominent Republican whose fundraising of more than $200,000 for President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign qualified him as a "Bush Ranger." Rogich, who chairs a foundation that supports local schools, said he applied no pressure but became interested in COWs after Neil Bush contacted him. Rogich donated $6,000 to purchase two COWs for a middle school named after him. Christy Falba, the former Clark County school official who oversaw the contracts, said she and her husband attended a dinner with Neil Bush to discuss the products. She said Rogich encouraged the district "to look at the Ignite program" but applied no pressure.
Few independent studies have been done to assess the effectiveness of Ignite's teaching strategies. Neil Bush said the company had gotten "great feedback" from educators and planned to conduct a "major scientifically valid study" to assess the COW's impact. The results should be in by next summer, he said. Though Ignite's products get generally rave reviews from Texas educators, the opinion is not universal. The Tornillo, Texas, Independent School District no longer uses the Ignite programs it purchased several years ago for $43,000. "I wouldn't advise anyone else to use it," said Supt. Paul Vranish. "Nobody wanted to use it, and the principal who bought it is no longer here."
Many of the videos were shot at Del Valle Junior High School near Austin, where school district officials allowed Ignite to film facilities and students. Lori Anderson, a former teacher and now Ignite's marketing director. Ignite says Anderson was simply role-playing. In return for use of its students and facilities, a district spokeswoman said Ignite donated a free COW. Five others were purchased with district funds. District spokeswoman Celina Bley acknowledged that regulations bar school officials from endorsing products. But she said that restriction did not apply to the videos. "It is illegal for individuals to make an endorsement, but this was a districtwide endorsement," Bley said in an e-mail.
"READING FIRST UNDER FIRE"
University of Oregon - home of DIBELS’ insistence on frequent testing is the subject of annoyance for many teachers, who charge that the need for ongoing assessment overwhelms time needed for instruction. In some circles, it has earned the derisive nickname “dribbles.” “It’s an assessment tsunami,” said a Reading First consultant in Colorado. “It’s the dibelization of America. Everything is being dibbled.” Charlotte Postlewaite, a Kentucky schoolteacher, tracked the early implementation of Reading First in 2003. As part of her efforts, she interviewed the author of DIBELS, Roland Good, an associate professor of school psychology at the University of Oregon. In an e-mail Postlewaite shared with the Monitor, Good explained that “the level of interest” in the test was on the rise: 2,020 schools were actively using DIBELS data across 32 states and Canada. He predicted that those numbers would triple by the spring of 2004. “All in all, DIBELS is becoming very widely used,” he said. Something about the exchange irked Postlewaite. “He told me business was booming,” she said. “Well, it ought to have been, because states told me that if they didn’t put DIBELS in their applications, they didn’t get funded. I thought it was a bit disingenuous that he pretended not to know why use of the test was growing by leaps and bounds.” States are forced to utilize DIBELS assessments.
Joan Taylor (775) 687-9131
Silbert had worked with Carnine at NCITE, but said he knew little of DIBELS prior to his work with RMC, and certainly had no link to the test. Dimino, on the other hand, is listed on the DIBELS Web page as a trainer.Silbert said he can’t remember exactly what was said, but didn’t recollect specifically pushing DIBELS. “I can’t say what the exact words were, but normally when I dealt with states I just told them what the various options were,” he said.Dimino, incidentally, was the same consultant and DIBELS trainer who drew the ire of state officials in Kentucky. His behavior there sparked a spirited letter from Gene Wilhoit, Kentucky’s commissioner of education. “Kentucky’s team members have expressed to me their understanding that it became quite clear that [choosing DIBELS] was an expectation in order to funded,” Wilhoit said in the Jan. 2003 letter. “We subsequently learned that one of our technical assistance members, Joe Dimino, is, in fact, a trainer for DIBELS, which we believe raises serious issues concerning conflicts of interest. Section 9526 of NCLB, which prohibits ED from mandating state or local curriculum. Furthermore, the developer of DIBELS, Roland Good, is a member of the Reading First Assessment Committee.
1 STORY
2 The Assessment Team Chart
Reading First State Monitoring Reports
More about Testing and Assessment
Literacy Research and Best Practices
Government Agenda http://208.241.98.182/litweb/WebList_40.asp
Original Message -From:
U.S. Department of Education
Sent: 2003 April 08, Tuesday Contact: David Thomas (202) 401-1576 NEW INTERNATIONAL STUDY COMPARES FOURTH-GRADE READING LITERACY IN U.S. AND 34 OTHER COUNTRIES
Urban Minorities Reading Project Download the RX Program Linguistics Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania
William Labov, Director
Bettina Baker, Project Manager
Balanced vs. Phonics vs. Cross Curricular vs. thematic vs. Whole Language etc.
Reading Excellence Act Grant Descriptions
Education Commission of the States
(ECS) Promising Practices database which includes about 25 Reading programs that have shown evidence of success.
The Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS) at the National Institute for Literacy
The Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement
The National Institute for Literacy (NIFL)
A federal organization that shares information about literacy and supports the development of high-quality literacy services so all Americans can develop essential basic skills. Phone 202-233-2025
Mailing List
Literacy Policy - Contact Christy Gullion at 202-233-2033
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
U.S. Dept of Education - Research and Statistics 1-800-USA-Learn
They do not have information about Dialect Speakers because there are no federal funds. Funds are only for ESL~EFL~TSOL etc.
Teaching Children to Read: The fragile link between science and federal education policy. by Gregory Camilli, Sadako Vargas, Michele Yurecko
National Institute for Early Education Research and Rutgers University
(May 8, 2003). Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11(15).
Abstract:
Teaching Children to Read (TCR) has stirred much controversy among reading experts regarding the efficacy of phonics instruction. This report, which was conducted by the National Reading Panel (NRP), has also played an important role in subsequent federal policy regarding reading instruction. Using meta-analysis, the NRP found that systematic phonics instruction was more effective than alternatives in teaching children to read. In the present study, the findings and procedures leading to TCR were examined. We concluded that the methodology and procedures in TCR were not adequate for synthesizing the research literature on phonics instruction. Moreover, we estimated a smaller though still substantial effect (d = .24) for systematic phonics, but we also found an effect for systematic language activities (d = .29) and tutoring (d = .40). Systematic phonics instruction when combined with language activities and individual tutoring may triple the effect of phonics alone. As federal policies are formulated around early literacy curricula and instruction, these findings indicate that phonics, as one aspect of the complex reading process, should not be over-emphasized.
National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) 2002 will assess the current status of the English-language literacy skills of adults in the United States, as well as indicate how literacy proficiencies have changed over time. Reports, sources and information available.
What is Content-Based Language Teaching through Technology (CoBaLTT) ?
Using New Technology to Teach Native American Languages.
Diane Tedick, Associate Professor of Second Languages and Cultures Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota Content-Based Instruction CBI--has been defined as "...the integration of particular content with language teaching aims" (Brinton et al., 1989, p. 2). It is based on the principle that successful language learning occurs when students are presented with target language material in meaningful, contextualized forms with the primary focus on acquiring information and knowledge. Content is the organizing principle, and other aspects of language (linguistic structures, vocabulary, functions) are presented as needed (Snow et al., 1989). In order to emphasize the communicative nature of language and to acknowledge that language has meaning only within social and academic contexts, educators must view the target language "largely as the vehicle through which subject matter content is learned, rather than as the immediate object of study" (Brinton et al., 1989, p. 5). To do so requires rethinking language curricula in ways that make content themes and performance tasks the organizing principles and allow language structures to emerge from those themes and tasks.
WHAT'S GOING ON IN EUROPE
International and National Government support for less-prevalent languages
Listed below are several initiatives that clearly move in the direction of support for less-prevalent languages, cultures and regions from multiple perspectives (i.e., linguistic, economic, education / literacy, etc). These are specific examples of past, present and upcoming funding and investments into projects.
European Commission and European Union initiatives
Over the years, the European Parliament has adopted a number of resolutions defending the idea of a European Union which respects its linguistic and cultural diversity. To this end, the European Commission has been instructed to implement actions in favor of regional or minority languages and cultures and for less-developed regions.
Minority Language funding
The European Commission is now examining the feasibility of proposing a multi-annual action program in the area of regional and / or minority languages.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/langmin.html
The objective of the action is to reinforce the European dimension of activities for promoting and safeguarding regional and minority languages and cultures.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/mercator/obj.html
In various parts of the Member States of the European Union there are indigenous groups which speak a language different to that of the majority of the national population. More than 30% of all London schoolchildren speak a language other than English at home. (Source: BAKER, Philip & Yasir MOHIELDEEN. 2000. "The languages of London's schoolchildren" in Multilingual Capital: The languages of London's schoolchildren and their relevance to economic, social and educational policies (edited by Philip Baker and John Eversley), Battlebridge: London, 92 pp.)
It is estimated that almost 40 million citizens of the Union routinely speak not only the official language of their country but also a regional or minority language that has been passed on from generation to generation.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/mercator/regmin.html
The Final report to the European Commission on the implementation of the European Commission / Council of Europe Joint Programme on "National Minorities in Europe" Strasbourg, June 2000 is available at: http://www.humanrights.coe.int/Minorities/Eng/JointProgramme/Rapport/testrapport.htm
As a result, funding possibilities for lesser-used language projects are now available for eligible institutions. Information is publicly available at: http://www.eblul.org/ia/funding.htm
Selling in Tongues
Translation services are booming because global customers want to buy in their native language
BY DAREN FONDA Time.com 11/25/01
[... Some of the largest companies in the field--Bowne Global Solutions, Lionbridge Technologies and Berlitz GlobalNET (a sister company of the language school)--say they expect a surge in U.S. government contracts involving Arabic, Dari, Pashtu, Uzbek and other languages useful in the war against terrorism. But that's a small part of the business. More broadly, the industry is thriving because American companies are learning--after years of denial--that to profit in the global economy, it's critical to speak the customer's native tongue. "An American company expanding abroad is competing with merchants who speak the local language," says Donald Plumley, chief marketing officer of Bowne Global Solutions, based in Parsippany, N.J. "You may have a better product, but if your customers don't understand your product, you lose. You have to speak their language."
Native English speakers are, in fact, fast becoming a minority in the marketplace. In the U.S. alone, 18% of the population speaks a language other than English at home, according to the 2000 Census. In California, the world's sixth largest economy, the figure is nearly 40%. And on the Internet, it's a Tower of Babel. Only 48% of the world's Web users are native English speakers, down from 77% in 1997. By the end of 2003, the figure will drop to 32%, according to the Aberdeen Group, a tech-research company in Boston.
Consumers are four times as likely to buy a product online if the website is in their preferred language, according to IDC, a research firm in Framingham, Mass. Some of the big dotcoms--Amazon, eBay and Yahoo--figured out this trend earlier than most, and report fast-growing revenues from overseas divisions, which generate indigenous content. But most U.S. firms have not yet done a great job of marketing to non-English speakers online. Last year just 37 of the large companies in the FORTUNE 100 operated non-English sites, according to Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass..] <snip>