In September, CREW requested that the Department of Education’s Inspector General (IG) investigate why federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funds are being spent on educational products sold by Ignite! Learning, a company founded and headed by Neil Bush, the brother of President George W. Bush. Our letter to the IG can be found here.

Based on CREW's request, the Department of Education's IG is, in fact, conducting an investigation into federal spending on Ignite!.   The New York Times has the story:

The inspector general of the Department of Education has said he will examine whether federal money was inappropriately used by three states to buy educational products from a company owned by Neil Bush, the president’s brother.

John P. Higgins Jr., the inspector general, said he would review the matter after a group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, detailed at least $1 million in spending from the No Child Left Behind program by school districts in Texas, Florida and Nevada to buy products made by Mr. Bush’s company, Ignite Learning of Austin, Tex. Mr. Higgins stated his plans in a letter to the group sent last week.

Members of the group and other critics in Texas contend that school districts are buying Ignite’s signature product, the Curriculum on Wheels, because of political considerations. The product, they said, does not meet standards for financing under the No Child Left Behind Act, which allocates federal money to help students raise their achievement levels, particularly in elementary school reading.

Ignite, founded by Neil Bush in 1999, includes as investors his parents, former President George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara. Company officials say that about 100 school districts use the Curriculum on Wheels, known as the Cow, which is a portable classroom with software to teach middle-school social studies, science and math. The units cost about $3,800 each and require about $1,000 a year in maintenance.

Obvisouly, we look forward to the results of the IG's investigation.  CREW's Melanie Sloan explained why we asked for the investigation.  It's quite simple actually.  Ignite! does not meet the requirements of NCLB.   A family relationship with the President shouldn't change the law:

Melanie Sloan, executive director of the group, referring to No Child Left Behind, said: “A constant principle of N.C.L.B. is that children must be taught using scientifically proven methods. Ignite’s Cows simply don’t meet N.C.L.B. standards. This suggests that the real reason N.C.L.B. funds are expended on Ignite is because the founder and C.E.O. is the president’s brother.”

Congress in the midst of debating legislation to re-authorize the controversial "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) program. A three-month long investigation by CREW raises serious questions about the use of NCLB funds to pay for products sold by Neil Bush, the younger brother of President George Bush.

CREW is requesting that the Department of Education’s Inspector General (IG) investigate why federal NCLB funds are being spent on educational products sold by Ignite! Learning, a company founded and headed by Neil Bush. Our letter to the IG can be found here.

Neil Bush, who has no education background, is best known for his role in the failure of Silverado Savings and Loan, which cost taxpayers $1.6 billion. CREW is asking the IG to discover why federal money is being funneled to a company with no proven track record of effectiveness, but so happens to be run by the president’s brother.

Congress has set rigorous standards for the types of educational approaches and products on which NCLB funds can be spent, but CREW’s research shows that Ignite! products do not meet those criteria. In fact, there is no scientific data, as defined by NCLB, supporting the effectiveness of Ignite!’s products.

CREW’s three-month investigation revealed that school districts are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, including NCLB funds, on Ignite!’s Curriculum on Wheels (COW), a cart-mounted video projector and hard drive loaded with a year’s supply of Ignite!’s social studies, science, or math curricula. At a standard price of $3,800-$4,200 per unit, the COW is a very expensive device with limited use. A recent New York Times article about the use of the COW in Spotsylvania, Virginia, put the cost into perspective: each school in the district receives $1,000 "to cover all the lab supplies, equipment and other expenses connected with science for an entire year." Adding to the initial expense, schools must pay an annual $1,000 licensing, upkeep and upgrade fee in order to retain the COW for more than one year.

When we sent the letter to the Inspector General, Melanie Sloan issued this statement:

It is astonishing that taxpayer dollars are being spent on unproven educational products to the financial benefit of the president’s brother. The IG should investigate whether children’s educations are being sacrificed so that Neil Bush can rake in federal funds.

If Ignite! is to continue receiving NCLB funding, its products must be held to NCLB’s stringent standards. With the education of our nation’s students at stake, we hope that the IG spearheads an audit immediately.

Astonishing, but somehow not surprising. This story is obviously developing.

Today, CREW filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education for violating the Federal Records Act (FRA) by failing to preserve copies of emails of official Education business sent by agency employees through the use of non-governmental email accounts.  The documents relating to the lawsuit can be found here. 

As we reported last week,  CREW learned that officials in the Department were using private e-mails to conduct official business:

On May 9, 2007, CREW’s counsel, Dan Roth, had a telephone discussion with FOIA officers who told Mr. Roth that Department personnel “often use private email addresses,” and that the Department “wouldn’t have access to that.” Mr. Roth asked whether private email accounts were used for official business and was told that they were, adding that this issue has arisen in the past in reference to other FOIA requests.

On May 14, 2007, a Department FOIA officer confirmed that Department employees use private email addresses for official business.

This is serious.  If employees are regularly using private email accounts to send official email and the Department neither tracks nor stores such email, the Department may be violating the Federal Records Act (FRA), which requires agencies to preserve records of official business.

This is serious, which is why we filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education today.  When CREW filed this latest lawsuit,  Melanie Sloan said:

Complying with laws -- such as the Federal Records Act -- is not optional. Regretfully, it appears that a lawsuit is required to ensure that the Department of Education follows the law.  The question remains as to whether it is only Department of Education and White House personnel who have been violating record-keeping procedures, or if this is an Administration-wide issue.

The use of private e-mails in the Bush administration isn't limited to White House staffers.  CREW has learned that the Department of Education may not be able to provide complete information relating to its troubled "Reading First" program, because Department employees have been using non-governmental email accounts for official business.

So today, CREW asked the Department of Education Inspector General’s office to initiate an investigation into employees who – in violation of federal law and with the full knowledge of the Department’s Office of General Counsel – have been using non-governmental email accounts for official business.  Our letter to the Inspector General can be found here.

On March 28, 2007, CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Education, seeking records related to the Reading First program.   At a congressional hearing last month, the Chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), stated that the troubled "Reading First" program "sounds like a criminal enterprise to me."  The Department of Education's Inspector General also revealed that he's made criminal referrals based on his investigations of "Reading First."

On May 9, 2007, CREW’s counsel, Dan Roth, had a telephone discussion with FOIA officers who told Mr. Roth that Department personnel “often use private email addresses,” and that the Department “wouldn’t have access to that.” Mr. Roth asked whether private email accounts were used for official business and was told that they were, adding that this issue has arisen in the past in reference to other FOIA requests.

On May 14, 2007, a Department FOIA officer confirmed that Department employees use private email addresses for official business.

This is serious.  If employees are regularly using private email accounts to send official email and the Department neither tracks nor stores such email, the Department may be violating the Federal Records Act (FRA), which requires agencies to preserve records of official business.

Melanie Sloan made the following statement about this latest development.

Last month, the American public learned that the White House was violating the Presidential Records Act.  Now we’ve learned that Department of Education has been violating the Federal Records Act.  How many other agencies are knowingly violating federal law?  Complying with the law is not optional.  One would think that those in charge of the government would understand this, but apparently not.

Apparently not, indeed.   

As promised, CREW was on scene yesterday as Education Secretary Margaret Spellings testified before the House Education and Labor Committee on the Reading First and student loan scandals. The focus was almost entirely on student loans, in spite of a blistering report issued yesterday by Senator Kennedy. As summarized by the Washington Post:

Kennedy's report focused on how much current or former directors of three regional Reading First technical assistance centers have earned in recent years from publishers: Douglas Carnine (more than $800,000), Edward Kame'enui (more than $750,000), Joseph Torgesen (more than $50,000) and Sharon Vaughn (more than $1.2 million).

Not only did these folks make a pretty penny on their own reading products while telling states around the country which reading products to use, the report shows incomes skyrocketing once Reading First got in gear. It also happens that these folks weren’t just designers of reading products who were then subcontracted out to provide Reading First technical assistance, they were instrumental in the design of the Reading First program itself.

The report also suggests that Mr. Kame’enui, who now serves as Commissioner for Special Education at the Department and made over a half-million dollars from 2003-2006 on a product used in Reading First schools, may have been less than truthful to the Committee when he testified there last month. Senator Kennedy’s report includes emails that appear to contradict Mr. Kame’enui’s claims that he didn’t know his product was being sold with another product linked to one of his colleagues. If this sounds confusing, it is, but such is the Reading First web.

Sadly, Secretary Spellings was the only one who brought up Senator Kennedy’s report, saying in her opening statement that she was “deeply concerned” about it. Interviewed after the hearing by Education Week (subscription required), the Secretary said she doesn’t know if she will ask for Mr. Kame’enui’s resignation.

We have not heard the end of the education scandals.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings will be heading to the Hill tomorrow to answer questions about Reading First and the still-unfolding student loan scandal. We’ll be there to catch the action, and will provide any breaking news via the blog.

When the House Education and Labor Committee took a look at Reading First last month, Chairman George Miller concluded that the way the program was run “sounds a lot like a criminal enterprise.” We couldn’t agree more, which is why CREW has been working this issue for months and has a lawsuit in federal court in D.C. Hopefully tomorrow’s hearing will shed some light on the Secretary’s involvement Reading First during her tenure as Domestic Policy Advisor to President Bush. So far, Secretary Spellings has attributed the problems to “individual mistakes,” i.e., not her own. But documents we’ve acquired as a result of a recent FOIA request to the Department indicate that, at the very least, high-level Reading First operatives were keeping Ms. Spellings in the loop while she was at the White House.

The Committee will also be asking about the student loan scandal, which is being investigated by law enforcement around the country. One tiny sliver of this scandal, based on documents obtained by the intrepid student reporters at the Daily Texan, caught our eye. The University of Texas’ loan office, headed up until recently by Lawrence Burt, actually charted “lender treats” – everything from massages to a “Hula Hut happy hour” and “fall buckets with goodies” – and gave lenders credit for the volume of treats when making decisions about which lenders to use in the future. Mr. Burt is on administrative leave, pending an investigation into his ownership of stock in various lending companies. When the investigation became public, Secretary Spellings asked him to resign from a federal committee designed to give “independent” advice to Congress and the Secretary of Education on (you guessed it) student financial aid policy.

The Congressional investigation of the Department of Education's (DOE) "Reading First" Program is extending to the White House.   The DOE's Inspector General, who has strongly criticized that program, has already made criminal referrals to the Department of Justice based on his investigation.   CREW has sued the DOE to obtain documents about "Reading First" that should be publicly available.  Rep. Miller, who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, stated that "Reading First"  "sounds like criminal enterprise."   He wants more information from top Bush administration officials:

The chairman of the House education committee asked the White House yesterday to turn over all its communications about the scandal-tarred student loan program and also Reading First, the administration’s $1-billion-a-year reading initiative, which has been besieged by accusations of conflict of interest.

The request by the lawmaker, Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, carries his inquiries into education policy-making beyond the Education Department itself and into the Bush White House.

“The committee’s ongoing investigations into both programs have revealed serious oversight failures by senior officials,” Mr. Miller’s office said in a statement.

Today, the House Committee on Education and Labor Hearing on "Mismanagement and Conflicts of Interest in the Reading First Program." In response to a question from Committee Chair George Miller (D-CA), the Inspector General at the Department of Education, John P. Higgins, Jr., testified that he has made criminal referrals relating to the program to the Department of Justice:

A federal investigator looking into allegations of conflict of interest and mismanagement in a $1 billion-a-year Education Department reading program said Friday he has made criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

John Higgins, the Education Department's inspector general, refused to specify for reporters what he has asked government prosecutors to look at, but investigators have been highly critical of the department's management of the Reading First program.

Criminal referrals are made by investigators when they encounter evidence of possible federal crimes, which only the Justice Department has authority to prosecute.

This is the first indication we've seen that criminal activity may be involved with what USA Today referred to as "a slow-motion scandal surrounding a federal multibillion-dollar reading program."

As reported in February of this year, the Bush Administration's "Reading First Program" has been the subject of two critical reports by the Inspector General at the Department of Education:

The IG found that the training programs set up by the Department to educate states about the Reading First program violated the prohibition against controlling individual school curricula by promoting specific reading materials and instructions to the financial of benefit companies – such as McGraw Hill and Voyager – headed by top Bush administration donors. The IG also found that the Department failed to adequately assess “issues of bias and objectivity” in approving technical assistance providers.

CREW is engaged in litigation with the Dept. of Education based on DOE’s failure to release certain records required by law to be made public.

The New York Times reports Matteo Fontana was a "stakeholder" in the student loan company while he was in charge of oversight of student loan companies:

A senior official at the federal Education Department sold more than $100,000 in shares in a student loan company even as he was helping oversee lenders in the federal student loan program.

The official, Matteo Fontana, now general manager in a unit of the Office of Federal Student Aid, was identified yesterday from government documents as a stakeholder in the parent company of Student Loan Xpress who sold shares in 2003.

CREW is in litigation against the Department of Education over its unlawful implementation of the Reading First program.  In fact, the Inspector General from the Educ. Department has twice condemned that program as beset with cronyism and by promoting specific reading materials and instructions to the financial of benefit companies – such as McGraw Hill and Voyager – headed by top Bush administration donors.

Boting the errors, bias and confilict of interest, Education Week weighed in with an article on the Inspector General's report on Reading First:

The U.S. Department of Education erred from the outset of the Reading First program in focusing on selected reading programs and a single assessment in training sessions for state officials applying for a share of the $1 billion-a-year program, a report by the department’s inspector general concludes.

Federal officials also failed to screen a contractor for potential bias and conflicts of interest, says the report unveiled this week.