Complaint Filed Against Reading Initiative

Success for All Officials Request Investigation of Federal Program

Washington

The Success for All Foundation has asked the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the $1 billion-a-year federal Reading First program for alleged mismanagement and seeming preferential treatment of a handful of consultants and products.

“We believe that the federal government enabled a small group of individuals to direct significant federal resources to a small group of companies, thus both restricting our ability to trade and subverting the explicit intent and language of the Reading First statute,” the complaint submitted May 27 by Success for All founder Robert E. Slavin says.

While Mr. Slavin calls the Reading First legislation “sound” and “well intentioned,” he contends in the complaint that “the program itself has been badly mismanaged, and as a result, many fewer children are likely...