Though there is no proof of collusion, there's plenty of appearance of impropriety: The Bushes and McGraws have been vacationing together since the 1930s. Harold McGraw III is a member of the Bush Administration's Business Roundtable as well as part of G.W. Bush's transition team at the White House.  Other "for-profit" educational businesses have profited from the law: Harcourt Assessment, NCS Pearson, Riverside (Houghton Mifflin), and Educational Testing Service, who dominate the K-12 achievement test market.  Many of the same companies that provide testing materials also supply textbooks and other curricular materials.

While the Reading First program¹ is funded at just over $1 billion per year, in order to access any of those moneys, states must apply to a federal panel of "experts" for a grant.  If approved, these grants are awarded on a competitive basis.  The criteria for acceptable curriculum under Reading First are very specific, some say even narrow, and most were written and researched by the same people in charge of awarding the grants.  For instance, the researchers who wrote the criteria that most states use for evaluation also served as authors for the Voyager Expanded Learning series, approved by Reading First, and officers in the Voyager company are mostly former Texas school officials with close political ties to President Bush.  Randy Best, raised more than $100,000 for G.W. Bush's presidential campaign, developed and owned Voyager Expanded Learning before it was sold.²

In essence, a sealed loop of professionals are performing and presenting research from which they receive financial benefits.  The tight loop provides an insurmountable barrier to innovators.  For example, Cindy Cupp from Georgia, former director for the Georgia Department of education, publishes K-1 beginning reading texts.  Unfortunately for her, the federal panel rejected the grant petitions from the school districts in Georgia that tried to use Cupp's materials in their Reading First.  The panel's mandate is to evaluate the application,  but they also took it upon themselves to evaluate the Cupp program as well, which they apparently did sight unseen  In fact, at least one panel member admitted that s/he had never even seen the materials s/he had reviewed so negatively.

In addition to providing "approved" curriculum and implementing new testing standards, schools also have to invest extensively in test prep materials in order to comply with bringing all the children up to a level of near 100% proficiency.  Such materials weren't even considered in any cost projections at the time of implementation.  Interestingly, the testing and test prep field is an unregulated industry with no real system of quality control. Errors that affect the futures of millions of students are discovered accidentally.

Take the case of Martin Swaden, a Minnesota lawyer and father of a child in public school.  When his child failed a test in school, Swaden thought that the best way to help his child was to identify what his child had missed on the test, thus establishing what topics on which to focus.  When Swaden initially asked to look at the test and answer key at the same time, he was denied.  Upon the threat of a law suit, the school finally obliged. Swaden discovered that the test answers had been mis-keyed.  Many tests are administered with a Scantron form.  Students shade in bubbles with a #2 pencil on a special form.  This form is then fed through a machine that compares the shaded answers to a master key.  The school either used the wrong master key or the master key provided by the publisher was incorrect, either way his child should have passed the test along with 8,000 other students.  Currently, the probability of errors has increased as test use grows and various testing companies raid each other for talented employees.

It grows worse.  There is more profit to be made if the school doesn't meet its AYP.  If a school fails to make AYP for three consecutive years, then it must provide Supplemental Education Services (SES) such as after-hours programs, individual tutoring at the school, or online instruction at the school or student's home.  NCLB requires that all teachers working in the public school system must be "highly qualified," but under the same law those who provide tutoring or other instruction under SES are not held to any qualification requirements.  The contrast of what's required between the two seems hypocritical at best.

And even worse.  While the law has yet to be in effect for 5 years, there are potentially even greater profits to be made if schools fail to meet AYP for five years.  Should this failure happen, the law calls for a complete change in curriculum and a reconstitution of the school, including staff replacement.  The only alternative to such a drastic overall is to close down and perhaps reopen as a charter school.

There is a stunning double standard between the feet-to-fire treatment of public schools and lax treatment for the private corporations with close ties to Bush that provide materials or services that the law requires that the school use.  The testing material, textbook, and SES businesses show a rapid growth in profit, while the student suffers.  When children are being supplied with unreliable test prep material and unqualified tutors, how can we really be sure that No Child is Left Behind?

¹ As reported by the Washington Post on Saturday April 21: "The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism..." Please see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042002284.html for further reading.

² Best developed and owned Voyager Expanded Learning.  It was recently acquired by ProQuest for $380,000,000.