But enough benefit may be left from the program to keep its effect alive, according to educators who've worked with the Reading First curriculum.
The new federal education budget signed by President Bush last week reduced Reading First from last year's $1 billion to just $393 million in 2008.
“There won't be any expansion to new schools,” McCulloch said Monday. “And existing school support will be fairly small. Now grants are anywhere from $75,000 to $275,000 a year. With the money we have now, I doubt schools are going to get much more than $20,000 a year.”
The state money went in two main directions. Grants to individual schools paid for hiring full-time “reading coaches” who worked with both students and fellow teachers. Other dollars brought those school staffs together for summer workshops in the latest reading strategies.
Reading First had its share of critics in the past few years.
One of the federal panelists charged with developing the program, Joanne Yatvin, attacked the program during a 2005 visit to the University of Montana School of Education. She said federal rules were stacked to emphasize the textbooks and worksheets of certain publishers to the exclusion of others.
She also accused her fellow panelists of being overly biased toward phonics instruction over “whole language” and “balanced literacy” approaches.
A 2007 General Accounting Office report found the federal Department of Education appeared to have mismanaged some parts of the Reading First program by interfering with state-level reading curriculum choices, something prohibited by No Child Left Behind rules.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education's March 23, 2007, report, the GAO review backed up critics' claims that federal officials allowed researchers with conflicts of interest to develop some of the guidelines - which states were then advised to follow.
That said, the Montana experience was a success, according to McCulloch. While just 31 schools qualified for Reading First grants, those schools showed progress improving reading scores on the NCLB tests.
For example, Charlo Elementary School had
65 percent of its students earning proficient or advanced scores on their annual test in 2004-05. In the 2005-06 year, that proficiency climbed to 88 percent. Last year, 90 percent cleared the Adequate Yearly Progress threshold.
Pablo Elementary went from 50 percent making AYP in 2004-05 to 75 percent last year. And Stevensville, which received a Reading First grant in 2004, went from 79 percent making AYP in 2005-06 to 84 percent in 2006-07.
“Our test scores are higher than we would have expected them to be if we'd just stayed the same,” said Stevensville Elementary Principal Jackie Mavencamp. “Teaching reading is getting closer to rocket science all the time. And our teachers are infinitely better reading instructors after this program. It's really given them the opportunity to hone their skills.”
Mavencamp said keeping teachers updated with new techniques is a constant process. One side effect of the NCLB tests is increased efforts to find troubled readers before they have to undergo the federal review.
Stevensville's reading coach would show classroom teachers how to zero in on a slow reader's particular trouble spot, and then advise what kinds of lessons would help fix it. The coach would also work one-on-one with kids who needed the extra time to boost their skills.
“Things like using the test data aren't being taught (to teachers) at the university level,” Mavencamp said. “Especially for teachers who trained 15 or 20 years ago.”
Stevensville could lose its reading coach or be forced to raise local funds to keep the position alive if the Reading First grant goes away. However, some of its previous benefits may remain.
Bonner Elementary School Principal Brian Bessette sent some of his teachers to Stevensville to observe their system. Even without their own grant support, they found things they could use back in Bonner.
“We're doing a scaled-back version of what they're doing,” Bessette said. “So our second-grade teacher has 18 students, but they don't all need the same skills. We use our librarian and our art teacher to come in and help specific students. Our system is set up for the students now, rather than having the students fit into the system. And it looks like our scores are going up, although it's too early to tell.”
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