Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Favoritism at the U.S. Department of Education

An eSchool News article this week tells of overt favoritism practiced by the DOE director of the Reading First program. Reading First beset by favoritism tells of an internal audit by the Office of Inspector General that "says the Education Department (ED) ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted." The Reading First program "aims to help young children read through scientifically proven programs," but eSchool News says the audit reports "conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement" in steering funds only to favored publishers of reading curricula.

A representative quote from the program director is pretty outrageous and indicative of the problem:

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.

According to eSchool News the report alleges the following:

The audit found the department:

• Botched the way it picked a panel to review grant applications, raising questions over whether grants were approved as the law requires.
• Screened grant reviewers for conflicts of interest, but then failed to identify six who had a clear conflict based on their industry connections.
• Did not let states see the comments of experts who reviewed their applications.
• Required states to meet conditions that weren't part of the law.
• Tried to downplay elements of the law it didn't like when working with states.

Something a Little Nicer

Cells Alive is an excellent online site for science teachers. One of the activities I ran across on the site recently was an excellent implementation of Flash to enable a couple of interactive jigsaw puzzles. Enjoy!

Animal Cell Jigsaw	Plant Cell Jigsaw

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