From the Associated Press today:
The $6 billion reading program at the center of President Bush’s signature education law has failed to make a difference in how well children understand what they read, according to a study by the program’s own champion — the U.S. Department of Education.
The program, Reading First, was designed to help boost student performance in low-income elementary schools, but failed to improve reading comprehension, says the study from the Institute of Education Sciences, part of the Education Department.
There was no difference in comprehension scores between students who participated in Reading First and those who did not, the study found.
But if students didn’t benefit from the program, who did? You hardly even need to ask:
This isn’t the first time supporters of the program have been dealt bad news.
Congressional investigators and Education Department Inspector General John Higgins previously found that federal officials and contractors didn’t adequately address potential conflicts of interest. For example, federal contractors that gave states advice on which teaching materials to buy had financial ties to publishers of Reading First materials, according to the investigations.
Amazing, isn’t it, how every initiative this president launches has the same results — nothing for ordinary people, but plenty for the well-connected pigs feeding at the government trough.
(NOTE: Thanks to Smokey in the comments for the link to Snopes.com, who explain that the picture shown above is a fake.)
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Thanks for posting the “upsidedown” My Pet Goat picture!!!!
What does this mean?
They’re learning how to get pregnant!
more better faster
So you are saying that Fed Contractors advise states about which texts to purchase? That explains a lot. I’ve never seen such a collection of dumbed down math textbooks in my life. Big colorful fonts and lots of pictures – this in Algebra 2 Trig textbooks. I refuse to use them, and have my students work out of 25 year old duct taped books.
We wasted money once again. The money could have been better spent on faculty and facilities.
I took this photo and we turned it into a poster in the office. Reading really is fundamental
Swopa!
I’m putting this in the script of my fantasy campaign commercial.
o/t
sorry Swopa -
Prairie Sunshine – here ya go
Requiem At Twilight
oops I forgot to tell you all the caption. It reads:
A waste is a terrible thing to mind
Ask not “Is our children learning,” but ask yourself: “Is our cronies prospering?“
wow- wish I had mentioned it. :)
Don’t forget to check out the demotivators line of posters (was that you who originally posted it?)
mediocrity
OT: A toast to Lurita Doan being fired…and don’t let the door hit you in the *ss…/s
Sorry…
Prospering?
That’s like, getting rich, right? offshore accounts, stuff like that? yeah, ok. is our frenz prahspring?
Retirement: Because when you’ve given so much to the company that you have nothing left they can use.
That photo is priceless…he really has turned America upside down!
lol
And his head is positioned in front of the US Constitution preamble…
No Fredo Left Behind
okay finished my first list in NC. Nice list, almost everyone on it was for Obama so just alot of cheerleading. The rest were either incorrect info (wrong number) or no one was home. One of my callers alerted me to some wierd robocalls coming into NC.
Anyone know about this going on in North Carolina?
Nope, it wasn’t me but that poster fits LMAO
http://www.wvwv.org/2008/4/30/mail-registration
Their statement.
See, the important thing about that photo is not the book in front of him. But they’ve posed him in front of the Preamble to the Constitution! These kids probably knew more about the Constitution than the man sitting in front of it!!!
Yeah but the problem is they did the same thing in VA and swore that they would fix the same thing and didn’t. That is a huge fuck up fairy visit.
Hilarious. Thanks for the link to Despairwear.
Enlightenment must be like kryptonite to him
wobbs -
NC AG got in on it yesterday
group ‘apologized’ promised to never ever do it again
but NC isn’t the only the state – WV, Indiana and Virgina ??
Ha — very nice, Teddy!
good aphorism!
i can haz cronies?
A great piece of Pisa, dosido.
Much apprecated and enjoyed.
;~D
Is FDL going to cover the Robo call controversy? Why so silent?
Bush is officially the most unpopular president in modern American history…per CNN
Heh, heh…
“Prayers of the people that helped me understood”….W said that today.
Maybe we should bring back the textbooks from the 50s and 60s?
(I’d like to get hold of those old SMSG math books, the paperbound ones that were printed from typescript. Maybe make them available as PDFs on CDs.)
Well, given the Iraq occupation, May Day, the issues that affect our lives in the upcoming election and the limited hours in the day, I would imagine it may not be quite as high a priority for some folks as it is for others.
FDL must be in on it!!
Read the thread a few comments above yours?
Also check Daily Kos and Talking Points?
wtf is that all about? I understand one state but multiple states? I’m sorry but a simple apology and a promise not to do it again does not wash. Did any of the other AGs in the other states investigate?
oh I am so
usingstealing that !LMAO!
Mr. Bush’s fears and his many critics notwithstanding, his legacy will be rich. Torture, unending wars built on false premises, illegal domestic spying, corruption of the rule of law and the prosecutor’s office, and the most profligate fiscal policies in modern America.
A candidate for his most lasting and harmful legacy, though, must be his massive privatization of government. From warfare to tax collection, from interstate highways to the writing of legislation by K Street lobbyists, Bush has withdrawn huge tracts of government from public oversight and fiscal and programmatic responsibility. All while getting less and spending billions more in taxpayer dollars.
And he did it all on purpose. Among other appropriate consequences, Harvard should finally fess up and revoke that MBA; Mr. Bush couldn’t possibly have completed a single course.
Itis quite dramatic, isn’t it?
Facing South has their ‘jacket’
Thanks, got it and replied on last thread. FDL Pups are the best!
and obviously that includes you, a very moving comment, PS
Thanks, Elliott, would that there would never be a need to write another again for this wretched war.
Bush learned this stuff from his parents. Remember Baba Bush giving a donation for a new reading program to be implemented in New Orleans? Problem was, her donation was to her son Neil who was running the program. $ just shifted from one family pocket to another. Then there are the Bush family connections with McGraw-Hill that go back for years and years. It is all about the buddy system with these folks who scratch each others’ backs at our expense.
damn you! now I’m going through the James Bond one on the other tab
ps – I’ve seen that little guy with the big eyes in his native habitat !
leaves a bad taste in my mouth (kind of like this beet juice I’m drinking, blech)
I want one
and where was the outrage? The MSM reporters didn’t worry their pretty minds about it.
It’s a tarsier.
okay off to finish my phone banking. I’ll be back at the watercooler in a few
awww
The photo is a fake:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/bushbook.asp
Bush is incompetent and dishonest enough that we should stick to the truth.
Whoa, I had no idea! God bless Snopes.com.
Nothing surprising here….he is so totally learning disabled. So? No, the question is how did he get to be President?
As the parent of one who is learning disabled, I could spot the signs in Bush41 who has a severe “word-finding” issue. Hence, the “economy thing” the “jobs thing” etc. It was known the Bush family has a child with LD but they would never specific which one, as if we didn’t know. So now Neil gets the label, eh? I have no links, sorry, but I could dig them up.
All the west coast ports are shut down for an anti war protest.
OH!!! My God! First “mediocrity,” with the best use of that building I’ve ever seen or could conceive, and then the best 5 second clip on the internet!
Happy May Day to ya!
I wish I could claim credit for bringing the demotivation posters to the Lake but I can’t…I wish I could remember who it was. But it was LLN. And what happens on LLN (usually) stays on LLN….
Thanks Swopa
Still on topic:
Underachievement
My God this story really pissed me off. I cannot believe how morally bankrupt these people are. The more I pay attention, the more I feel it’s the American people Bush is at war with and only uses the term Al Queida as a distraction.
I hope the democrats grow a pair and soon. We’re in deep deep trouble.
1,829 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Swopa and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
We are completely and righteously fucked in this country…my wife has a Master’s Degree in Reading and Psychology and has LD (learning disabilities) certification. She has been the Reading Specialist for our local school district for 3 years, taught 1st grade for 25 years and LD for two before that and with 30 years in the district she still can’t retire because the local Nazi school board pulled the retirement package for the teachers two years ago that guaranteed healthcare coverage for all retirees between retirement and medicare. She has been in charge of or on the committee for purchasing new reading series texts every 4 years for the last 20 years, so she has seen, up close and personal, the hemorrhaging of money into the Bush-held text publishers for the last 7 years. Ya think she’s pissed off??!!
Every single structure of our society has been fatally corrupted in the last 8 years and the public treasuries have been looted so that at every level it will take 20 years of RICO prosecutions and confiscatory taxation jest to get us back to the point that we were at 25 years ago!! And we are debatin’ the importance of a Black minister on the political fortunes of the only real Democrat runnin for the White House while his opponent in the primary sits down with Fox News after gettin’ a $4Million gift for her husband’s retirement fund??!!
I want every single Firepup who has been suggestin’ that we should all rally around whoever the Democratic nominee is explain ta Mrs. Norske why she should believe that Mrs. McClinton will be any different from her best friends in the Bush cabal!
Wake up Firepups, we’re walkin’ off a cliff in our pajamas!!
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION AND NO I WON’T VOTE FOR HER!!!
Thanks, same to you!
Actually, “May Day”* is what i almost had to tap out when I clicked on the “CURSES” extension.
====
* From a distressed French ship whose radio operator frantically called out “M’aidez!” or “Help me!” during the early days of radio communication.
Our musician son tells us today that the Repugs voted to deregulate electricity prices in our state (OH). Analysts expect prices for electricity may rise 40% or so as a result.
This rise includes the public schools, which are on fixed or declining income, depending on where you sit on the
a**issue. Many are frantically looking for places to make cuts – anything not mandated by the state or feds is fair game.So…. Out with arts education, all those field trips to museums and the symphony’s kiddy concerts, probably busing for middle and high school kids plus all students living within a mile of their school (picture your 6-yr-old on a narrow-shoulder country road (55mph speed limit), or crossing a city street through rush-hour traffic on a dark wintry day – no-o-o biggie to these compassionate pugs, nosiree)
Children left behind? well, define be-hind without using the letter “s”.
Children summarily dumped? Absolutely! and people wonder why many youngsters are growing up aloof and bitter. Go figure.
As for the symphony. That’s old news. Our son no longer gives oboe lessons. It’s too depressing, and dishonest he thinks, because the orchestras are dying even faster than the students graduate.
Vote for every Democrat every race, every ballot.
Rinse. Repeat.
Despair – isms? At your service, hon. One of our cock-eyed sonnyboys gave us a calender of them for Christmas. Such a good boy. ;->
check out http://www.despair.com
February’s got a good “teaser” for ya:
“CONSULTING.
If You’re Not Part of the Solution,
There’s Good Money to be Made in Prolonging the Problem.”
Hold it right there! I resemble that remark!?!
Many many LD people lead incredibly productive lives.
Many are absolutely brilliant and work wonders in their jobs.
I know. We hatched one.
so, folks. don’t write anything questionable without that handy little /s added at the end. u be good pups now.
Sure I have, I didn’t pull the story out of my ass./s I’m wondering why FDL frontpagers don’t seem to think voter suppression is a significant enough story to talk about.
I actually considered that, and no doubt there are lots of achievers. Wasn’t Churchill one? We just happen to have one who never put in the diligence to study harder to meet the challenge. He truly does not deserve to be President, IMO