I finally forced myself to sit down and read the Institute of Education Science’s interim report on Reading First. If you pull it down from the web you’ll see why I had to force myself. It is written in almost incomprehensible language, which may explain why so few reporters seemed to understand that it does not prove, as so many articles have said, that Reading First has had no effect on reading.

Unfortunately, it is being cited as the reason to eliminate funding for Reading First—in fact, according to the June 25 issue of Education Daily, House Appropriations Committee chair Rep. David Obey, D- Wis., said ending the program would not have a significant impact, as an [Education Department] study in May “revealed that the program has not had a marked influence on student reading performance.”

First, I should say that my initial reaction to hearing about the report was relief that the IES, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education, really is an independent research agency that doesn’t just write things that the administration wants. That has been a worry, and the IES can certainly say it didn’t bend to any political pressure with this report. Reading First was a pet project of President George W. Bush, and the report said, point blank, “estimated impacts on student reading comprehension test scores were not statistically significant.” No kowtowing there. That’s the good news that came out of this report.

My second reaction was dismay that all the money, time, and effort put into Reading First seemed not to have had a good effect on kids’ reading. There have been smaller studies, mostly on a state level, that have indicated that Reading First has had a good effect, and I have talked with many teachers and principals who say that Reading First has made a huge difference in their instruction and their students’ achievement. So I thought it was too bad that this national study found no widespread effect.

Reading First, for those of you who haven’t been following this, is a huge funding stream–$1 billion a year—that was put in place by Congress to try to ensure that all children read at or above grade level by third grade. The original idea was that if teachers and schools were to use research-proven instruction and materials, reading difficulties would be prevented and just about all children would learn to read. So Greg Toppo’s story in USA Today saying that the study demonstrated that Reading First “doesn’t have much impact on the reading skills of the young students it’s supposed to help” saddened me.

But then I read the report.

You can get a pretty clear idea of the scope of the problems with the report in Kathleen Kennedy Manzo’s article in June 4 issue of Education Week, but I’ll be blunter: This report proves just about nothing about Reading First.

The first problem with the report is that IES commissioned the study too late to do the research properly. Although the 200 legislation for Reading First directed IES to study Reading First’s effectiveness and allocated $15 million to do so, the independent researchers IES contracted with weren’t given the contract until September, 2003, as the first Reading First Grants were being handed out. As a result of the delay, the researchers couldn’t do research in the obvious way. Instead, they came up with a complex and inadequate research design that didn’t answer the questions asked.

This is what I mean: The purpose of the study was to figure out if Reading First had any effect on teacher behavior and student achievement. The obvious way to do this was to study schools, reading instruction, and student achievement in the schools both before and after receiving Reading First grants, while simultaneously studying demographically similar schools that did not receive Reading First grants. That would have given us a lot of useful information.

But because the study was commissioned too late for that, it couldn’t look at what the Reading First schools were doing before they got the grants. As the report says, “the study does not have data from early award sites from before they began their implementation of Reading First (page 61).”

To make up for this, the researchers compared two groups of schools: those that applied for and received the grants and those that applied and didn’t receive the grants but which were substantially similar in demographics, structure, and so forth. Researchers came up with their “best estimates” of what reading scores would have been without the Reading First grants, and then compared the Reading First schools’ scores to the scores in the similar schools that didn’t have Reading First grants but were in the same districts.

This tells us nothing about the effectiveness of the Reading First instructional approaches, because the researchers did not look at any changes the non-Reading First “control” schools may have made in their reading instruction at the same time. I know from talking with school administrators that many districts that received Reading First grants made changes in their non-Reading First schools that were similar to what Reading First called for–different reading materials and substantially more and better training for teachers. I am going to guess–though this is just a guess–that that would be more true for the schools that applied for Reading First grants than for a random sampling of demographically similar schools. Ohio’s Reading First co-director says in this answer to the IES study that that is exactly what happened: “In our large urban districts,” he says, “the central office was not standing still while RF was being done in their district.”

If this were a medical trial, this would be like comparing two groups of people, both of which had asked for a particular treatment. One group gets the treatment and results are compared to the second, control, group, and the treatment is declared to have no effect. But—and this is the important part—members of the second group are never asked whether they went to the drug store and bought the generic version of the treatment. They could all have been using substantially the same medicine.

A lot of commentary on the Reading First study has used its conclusions to reopen the reading wars, with some people even saying that the study proves that phonics instruction is worthless (Reading First is supposed to ensure that reading instruction addresses the five elements of reading identified by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension). This study doesn’t even come close to addressing whether phonics instruction is valuable, and it is a shame that some people would try and fit it into that kind of argument.

There is no question that there have been problems with both the Reading First legislation and the way the program has been implemented. But I have talked to too many teachers and principals who say that the training and materials they received as part of their Reading First grants were important and led to real and important gains in student achievement to think that it is useless.

I know my information is anecdotal and thus fragmentary and insufficient, but at this point I’d rather believe what I see in front of my nose than take my information from such a report.

I don’t respond to poll questions. Occasionally someone will call on the telephone, introduce him- or herself as associated with some organization I never heard of – and often saying the name of it so quickly that I can’t quite make it out – and then announce that I’m about to be asked questions about something. I invariably say “No, thanks,” and hang up. I don’t give it away, folks.

While pursuing a business degree – do you ever wonder why we are said to “pursue” a degree, as though it were fleeing in terror, or at least at high speed, like the rabbit at a greyhound race? – I took some marketing course in which we learned about polls and surveys. The readings gave us an inside look at how subjects are chosen, how questions are composed, how the process is conducted. What was clear although never spoken aloud was that these techniques are about equally efficacious in finding what people actually think and finding that they think what pollers want or expect them to. It’s all in the wrist.

Today’s newspaper brings a story that underscores just how useless polls can be. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life surveyed 35,000 Americans on their religious beliefs. There’s a wealth of information on religious affiliations, strength of certain beliefs, the relationship between religious belief and political posture, and so on. And there are some puzzling results like this: Of those who identified themselves as atheists, 21 percent said that they believe in God or in some universal spirit, and 6 percent believe in a personal God. Of agnostics, 55 percent believe in God, 14 percent in a personal God. How can that be, you may be wondering?

I’m reminded of the man-in-the-street surveys that Steve Allen used to conduct when he was the host of the “Tonight Show” on television. One election year he asked people if they would vote for a presidential candidate if it could be convincingly demonstrated that he had “scruples.” The pollees were unanimous: They most certainly would not.

Poll results can be influenced by the wording of questions, by the tone of voice or facial expression of the interviewer, by myriad factors that do not bear on the actual issues at hand. Notoriously, too, people choose their answers to survey questions under the influence of a welter of sometimes conflicting motives. They tend to answer as they think they are expected to and tend to avoid controversial or unpopular positions. Hence the wide differences between pre-election polls and election results, for example.

There are those who just like to mess with the survey. This might account for some of the believing atheists, jolly folks that they are.

And then there would seem to be those who – it must be said – simply don’t know what the heck they are talking about. “Scruples” sounds as though it might be a rather nasty and contagious disease, after all, one that probably causes pustulant irruptions on the skin. Not what we want to see at the inaugural ball, so why take chances?

Too many surveys seem to take no pains to exclude the “eager to speak out but unfortunately clueless” portion of the population or at least to identify it separately in the results. Consequently, those of us who haven’t yet decided to ignore surveys entirely are left with an unknown and unadmitted degree of uncertainty. Word to the wise.

Science is an important facet of Scotland’s history. Innovations, such as the steam engine and penicillin, and the generation of theories such as empiricism, the acquisition of knowledge through experience, are products of the minds of Scottish scientists. Today, science continues to be of vital importance, in large part because the Scots have found ways to actively incorporate science and technology into their lives while also maintaining a grasp on their traditions and history. The result is the existence in Scotland of a unique harmony between old and new that is reflected in the architecture, the mindset of the people, and the land.

This harmony is especially striking in the tranquil and remarkably beautiful countryside of Scotland. In Aberdeenshire, located in the northeast, there is an ancient landmark, known as the Loanhead of Daviot, which lies not more than a few miles away from a very modern landmark, a wind farm (right). The contrast between old and new is startling, but so too is the similarity in connection and dedication to the land. The Loanhead is a recumbent stone circle erected by druid farmers 4,500 years ago. It was presumably used to anticipate changes in the seasons and to observe cyclical patterns of the moon, as well as other astronomical phenomena, all of which were believed to impact farming. The turbines, on the other hand, were erected several years ago and serve as a source of renewable energy. While both landmarks are significant, their juxtaposition seems to highlight their histories and reasons for existence.

Wildlife in the Ancient Hills

A little ways southwest of Aberdeenshire sits the rugged, northern edge of the highlands. In these lands, the affects of science are subtle but appreciated. Covering the greater part of western, central, and northern Scotland, the highlands are home to mountains, moors, diverse alpine vegetation, and numerous species of animals. Few people live in the highlands, and although modern technology doesn’t permeate far into this daunting and mysterious landscape, modern concepts of nature conservation do.

The highlands are a major source of pride for the Scottish people. Historically, they are the homelands of Scottish martyrs like Rob Roy and the site of countless battles between clans and nations. However, today the highlands are a vital habitat for much of Scotland’s inland wildlife. Due to the establishment of protected areas such as Cairngorms National Park, which extends over 3,800 kilometers, a diverse range of animals native to Scotland are thriving. Red deer, pine martens, and red squirrels and a great many species of birds, including ospreys, ptarmigans, and dotterels, either live in the highlands year round or go there to breed in the late spring and summer.

 

In addition, climate is a defining feature of the highlands. Over the hills and mountains, the clouds often hover low, and it is frequently rainy, windy, and cool. But the alpine vegetation prospers in this climate. The grasses are hardy but soft and feel like walking on pillows, heather grows in abundance close to the earth, clusters of purple and white flowers brighten the grayness, and bogs of peat populate the moors.

Veneration of Scottish Scientists

In the cities of Scotland there also exists a deep respect for science, as well as for members of science, art, and literary academies. In the yard at Glasgow cathedral and in the Necropolis above it, hundreds of monuments demonstrate an appreciation for the most eminent Glaswegians of the Victorian era, which included a number of physicians and scientists. In Edinburgh, hanging on the walls inside St. Giles cathedral are numerous plaques dedicated to great professors, scientists, and intellectuals who once walked the streets of Auld Reekie. Odes to scientists can be found elsewhere in Edinburgh too. On the side of a building at the western end of North Bridge near Princes Street, a plaque commemorates Sir James Simpson’s mid-19th-century discovery of the anesthetic affects of chloroform.

Today, Scottish researchers continue to advance the frontlines of science. From cloned animals such as Dolly (right) to solar-powered public toilets and bus shelters (most efficient in summer, of course) to government funding of science festivals in remote locations such as Orkney, it is clear that science is important to the people of Scotland. Discovery and innovation have led to a better understanding of the environment, animals, and humans. This, in turn, has produced in the Scots a keen awareness of how their activities impact the world around them.