Reading Mastery and Open Court fail to pass federal muster

Robert Slavin had been complaining long and hard.

The Bush administration required the use of "research-based" reading series for the Reading First program and then decided which programs it would favor - all without rigourous supporting data from research. Slavin's Success for All, which earned a somewhat positive rating from the What Works Clearinghouse last year, did not make the list.

Slavin told Ed Week, "“If there is no evidence on Reading Mastery or Open Court now, there was no evidence in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, or 2007, when Reading First schools were being virtually required to use these programs..."

Federal investigation into the rampant cronyism at the U S Department of Education found that officials pushed certain program on the states. Now, the Reading First program faces congressional elimination.

This from Education Week.

Studies of Popular Reading Texts Don't Make Grade

Two well-known commercial reading programs, which have been adopted by some of the nation’s largest school districts and have met the strict requirements for research-based programs under the federal Reading First initiative, failed to earn ratings from the What Works Clearinghouse because they do not have any studies that satisfy the agency’s rigorous evidence standards.

Reports on Open Court Reading and Reading Mastery, both highly structured texts published by the Columbus, Ohio-based SRA McGraw-Hill, were released Tuesday by the clearinghouse, a program of the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, to vet effectiveness studies on educational programs and practices.

“The lack of studies meeting WWC evidence standards means that, at this time, the WWC is unable to draw any conclusions based on research about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness” of either program, the reports say...