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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=5>Program's Creator Is Hired to Assess
It<BR></FONT></STRONG>
<P><FONT size=-1>Associated Press<BR>Sunday, April 1, 2007; A03<BR></FONT></P>
<P></P>
<P>The government contractor that set up a billion-dollar-a-year federal reading
program for the Education Department and failed, according to the department's
inspector general, to keep it free of conflicts of interest is one of the
companies now evaluating the program.</P>
<P>Reading First, part of President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind
education law, provides intense reading help to low-income children in the early
elementary grades. RMC Research Corp. was hired to establish and implement the
program starting in 2002, under three contracts worth about $40 million.</P>
<P>Recently, the Education Department's inspector general reported that RMC
failed to keep the program free of conflicts of interest. For example, RMC did
not screen subcontractors for relationships with publishers of reading
programs.</P>
<P>Now, Reading First is in the midst of a congressionally mandated evaluation
under a 2003 contract with a team that includes RMC, based in Portsmouth,
N.H.</P>
<P>Lawmakers who have been investigating the Reading First program criticized
the connection.</P>
<P>"If it's true that RMC was also hired to evaluate the effectiveness of the
very program it was hired to help implement, then the conflict of interest could
not be any clearer," Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House
education committee, said Friday.</P>
<P>"It's a classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop," said Sen. Edward
M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who chairs the Senate education committee.</P>
<P>The inspector general found that federal officials intervened to influence
state and local decisions about reading programs, a potential violation of the
law.</P>
<P>RMC did not return calls seeking comment. Nor did Abt Associates, a
contractor based in Cambridge, Mass., that hired RMC as a
subcontractor.</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>