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Reading Law Fails to Bring Innovations

Big publishers continue to dominate text market.

Reading First’s $1 billion-a-year investment in improving reading instruction seemed to be the kind of incentive that would push publishers to develop a new generation of products and approaches to match the research base the No Child Left Behind Act requires. But the money for instructional materials has not spread much beyond the handful of big publishing companies and name-brand programs that have dominated the market for years, according to industry reports and observers.

Nearly five years after the federal program was rolled out, it appears that the intended expansion of choices of core and supplemental materials hasn’t happened. In fact, some experts say, little has changed in the kinds of texts being offered, despite the potential many educators saw for Reading First to fuel a dramatic shift in how reading is taught in the nation’s schools.

“The distribution of rewards in Reading First followed familiar patterns,” said Marc Dean Millot, the founder of K-12Network.com, an Alexandria, Va.-based consulting firm that provides research and analysis on the school improvement industry. “The traditional providers of materials enjoyed the spoils, while the upstart firms [the federal law] favored were more...