No Child Left Behind Scandal Widens

[sabra]

Source: ABC News Blotter

A scathing report issued today documents "substantial financial ties" between key advisors of Reading First, a controversial federal reading grant program, and publishers who benefited from the program.

The report, issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called the findings "troublesome because they diminish the integrity of the Reading First program."

...

The Kennedy report centers on four directors of the Reading First Technical Assistance Centers, who, the report says, were highly influential in advising states on which reading programs to adopt in order to qualify for federal funds.

According to the report, the directors had "extensive ties with education publishers" at the same time they were responsible for evaluating other publishers' programs. The report concluded that such ties may have "improperly influenced actions."



Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/05/no_child_left_b.html

[Rambis]

1. A Neil Bush owned company

is the biggest supplier of testing supplies for NCLB funny that?

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. What company is that?

[havocmom]

6. Ignite! Inc

Also, mother Babs (of the beautiful mind) gave a donation to Katrina relief (tax deductible deduction) with the stipulation that the funds to to Ignite! Inc ---- you know, for the children and all that.

She is an investor in son Neil's little enterprise by the way.

Some days ya gotta hope her pearls reach up and choke her.

[Rambis]

11. Article on Ignite

http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/2005/01/no-child-left-behind-bush-family.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. What gave you the idea they were the biggest supplier

of testing materials for NCLB?

I am a teacher and I have never heard that. I am very familiar with Ignite. Didn't know they were selling assesment materials too?

[havocmom]

17. Um, where did I say any of that?

Fact is NCLB requires tests for schools to get $$

Neil sells rather expensive matreials to teach to the tests

Hey, Louie, how's about I give you a grand, ya know, for yer kids... (wink wink). But ya gotta take care of yer kids, ya know, sos ya gotta take them for candy at my brother Bennie's candy shop (wink wink). The candy is sorta pricey, but it's good fer the kids, and you will have a little jingle left in yer pocket from what I gives ya, even after payin my brother....

THAT is the deal

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Wasn't you, it was another poster

[babylonsister]

5. Can you prove that? In every article I've read, there's no mention of

Neil. I'm sure the connection would have been made were it so.

[havocmom]

7. Look into Ignite! Inc and where schools are getting $ to buy Neil's overpriced software to pass test

Just for starters, to whet your appetite:

http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2001/02/19/story1.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/8/125556/7027

"Neil Bush founded Ignite Incorporated, a software company that helps students prepare to take comprehensive tests required under the No Child Left Behind act. A phone call by one of the readers of my blog to Ignite's toll free number reached a company directory that was able to locate Neil Bush's extension -- so it's still his baby with the dough rolling in."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_42/b4005059.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Across the country, some teachers complain that President George W. Bush's makeover of public education promotes "teaching to the test." The President's younger brother Neil takes a different tack: He's selling to the test. The No Child Left Behind Act compels schools to prove students' mastery of certain facts by means of standardized exams. Pressure to perform has energized the $1.9 billion-a-year instructional software industry.

Now, after five years of development and backing by investors like Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and onetime junk-bond king Michael R. Milken, Neil Bush aims to roll his high-tech teacher's helpers into classrooms nationwide. He calls them "curriculum on wheels," or COWs. The $3,800 purple plug-and-play computer/projectors display lively videos and cartoons: the XYZ Affair of the late 1790s as operetta, the 1828 Tariff of Abominations as horror flick. The device plays songs that are supposed to aid the memorization of the 22 rivers of Texas or other facts that might crop up in state tests of "essential knowledge."

Bush's Ignite! Inc. has sold 1,700 COWs since 2005, mainly in Texas, where Bush lives and his brother was once governor. In August, Houston's school board authorized expenditures of up to $200,000 for COWs. The company expects 2006 revenue of $5 million. Says Bush about the impact of his name: "I'm not saying it hasn't opened any doors. It may have helped with some sales." (In September, the U.S. Education Dept.'s inspector general accused the agency of improperly favoring at least five publishers, including The McGraw-Hill Companies, which owns BusinessWeek. A company spokesman says: "Our reading programs have been successful in advancing student achievement for decades; that's why educators hold them in such high regard.")

[babylonsister]

8. I'm aware of his (and Babs') involvement with the software, but

not with the Reading First program.

[Fridays Child]

9. A connection wouldn't surprise me but I haven't seen it, yet, either.

[havocmom]

10. He 'teaches to the test' in ways many educators question

and he does it to the tune of $30 a head, err, per student. Schools have to get the money to teach to the tests that will give them the money... bush created a vicious circle for his clan to cash in on. Poor Neil just doesn't seem to work well for others (Savings & Loan company for instance) so he needed to found his own company.... and the kin-folk made sure he prospered.

One might wonder if NCLB and all the mandatory testing that it includes, coinciding with Bush family investments in Savings & Loan Failure Neil's big new scheme might have been a set up. One wonders about the $$ spent to teach to the test - NCLB but Neil is the child that is being pulled from behind. Neil is the failure who needed to be saved.

The program went big in FL when Jeb was running that operation of the family business ;)

[babylonsister]

12. I live in TX; I know all about teaching to the tests, and how

it's not working; teachers are only teaching what's on the test, which is all the students are learning. I know there's a lot of frustration all around. It really ties the teachers' hands and is certainly not beneficial for the kids.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. The feds are NOT giving schools the money for testing

You are on the right track in claiming Neil's company is making money off of NCLB, because he is. But he is NOT selling testing materials.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. That's not testing materials

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Neil's company isn't selling testing materials

I think McGraw Hill has that market cornered.

[havocmom]

18. True, he is selling materials so they can pass the tests

not so they can really educate anyone, just score on the tests

That is pretty much the deal. He is selling the cheat sheet so the schools can get the $$ which they end up using lots of to pay Neil for the cheat sheets.

Meanwhile, I hear and read many laments from teachers who say the material is SERIOUSLY overpriced and the kids are not getting an education because they are too busy jumping through hoops bush set up with NCLB.

Nice racket.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. That's not the same as testing materials

We really need to get our facts straight here.

Neil is selling a video player that he is calling software. Each unit costs $3800. There is not a per pupil price tag, the feds are not making anyone buy it and it is definitely NOT assesment material.

[EFerrari]

21. There is a connection between the BFEE and M-H but I

can't remember whose book I read it in. Here is a link that talks about it but I can't vouch for the author -- I don't know him.

http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/whatsnu_bush-mcgraw.html

/oops

[EFerrari]

24. This site posts an article from the Columbus Dispatch:

Book Publisher's Ties to Bush a Bit Too Cozy

Saturday, August 19, 2006

By William L. Bainbridge
Critics of the Bush administration have been vocal about the Bush family ties to defense contractors at a time of war and, more recently, to their ties to the price of gasoline. Few, however, have noted the close and profitable relationship with the leadership of publishing giant McGraw-Hill, which, with sales of $6 billion in 2005, produced an annualized return of 19 percent last year.

President Bush has managed to keep his family's relationship with the company alive and well - a relationship that, according to The Nation, began in the 1930s between the president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, and James McGraw Jr., great-uncle of current McGraw-Hill Chairman Harold McGraw, III.

While it is generally accepted that exchanging favors among business friends in the private sector is common, the ethics of such practices between government officials and private business interests is another matter.

http://www.schoolmatch.com/articles/cd2006Aug19.cfm

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Jim Trelease is revered in the literacy world

I was very lucky and got to hear him speak once. He is a well respected author and expert on literacy.

Thanks for the link. I will read that later when I have more time.

[tabasco]

2. EVERY corner of our government has been corrupted by the Bush mafia.

How can people continue to support this criminal regime??

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. Oh Good! Another Scandal. We have one a week at least.

But this one doesn't surprise me at all. In fact I think Neil Bush's ties to this program have come up before - but then the issue died on the vine.

[OneBlueSky]

13. under BushCo, the federal treasury is nothing but an ATM . . .

for oil companies, drug companies, and a whole host of other companies, not to mention administration officials themselves . . . Cheney's got the cat-bird seat -- "serving" as VP while still on the Halliburton payroll -- and no one seems to care . . .

BushCo is, by far, the largest criminal conspiracy in U.S. history . . . period . . .

[endarkenment]

14. Is there any government program in the last six years that they

haven't sunk their teeth into?

[NoSheep]

26. I feel certain No Child Left Behind was designed to round up

a list of kids that might be recruited into the military. An article in our local paper some time back revealed a quote from a local recruiter who said he used the list to identify potential recruits. I'll post a link to it here when I find it.

[Whoa_Nelly]

27. I think NCLB was designed to

1. Strip the Federal coffers of money to support public education, using the tax dollars for other BushCo/PNAC agenda (like war, oil-profiteering, etc.)
2. Create financial and employment strife at the state level
3. Set up the parameters for further erosion of the public school system so the voucher system can gain dominance as the metod of preferred funding, as well as being able to have Federal money to the states being shifted to private/religious schools.

IMO, it's all a set-up to create more impoverished, illiterate Americans, making it even easier to splinter the focus groups and/or the people within the political parties.

More distraction while they line their pockets and seek global domination. It's all very much in line with the precepts of the PNAC.

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. The law says schools have to give lists of kids to recruiters