Reading First and Reading Wars

Sol Stern, writing for the Fordham Foundation, has published a report on the federal Reading First program called, "Too Good to Last: the True Story of Reading First." The foreward is written by Checker Finn and Mike Petrelli--both people who saw the reading wars up close. With No Child Left Behind's Reading First program there was, for the first time, a requirement for reading programs to be based on scientifically based reading research. Having previously caught bits and pieces about the controversy surrounding Chris Dougherty, the first director of Reading First, the details in the report provide a complete picture. Further, having experienced the ill-effects of the whole language movement with my own children, I appeciate the heroic efforts made by people who were willing to take the heat!