Just a week or so ago ..

ABC News reported:

The audit by the inspector general's office of the Reading First program — the largest early reading program in U.S. history — found that officials in 2002 and 2003, shortly after the program was established, improperly tried to influence states on which curricula they should use.
In addition, some officials with the power to approve certain reading materials for states had connections with the publishers, according to the report. It added the department had not properly reviewed the officials for such potential conflicts.

The Associated Press similarly had the news:

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.

The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use.

Interestingly, the Fort Worth weekly newspaper (appropriately named, FW Weekly) had all this story last January:

... in spite of all of the millions that have poured into the district for new reading programs since 1998, reading scores for most Fort Worth students have not improved.

Entrepreneurs of every stripe, it seems, have realized in the last decade or so that schools are not just places where scholars and future presidents are made. They are places were fortunes can be made — especially with a few friends in the right places.

Why do we care?

Only because the program in question is called Voyager Expanded Learning -- and is the the reading project the Lancaster ISD has been counting on ever since Dr Lewis arrived.

There is absolutely no indication or evidence that the people who decided to switch from whatever reading program they formerly used, to Voyager, pocketed or profited personally from the switch.

Mostly, they just reacted to the availability of federal funds; and the attractions of the educational "fad du jour" .

It's just that when the industry THIS year is dangling Bill Gates' grant money out there for districts that MIGHT consider adding more PCs to their portfolio of educational resources ... one wonders if proposals to offer laptops to kindergardners are really driven by desire for academic excellence, or a hope of latching onto some more free money.