Seattle Times, The (Washington)
May 11, 2011
HEADLINE: Murray's literacy plan a test of clout

By Kyung M. Song

WASHINGTON - In 2001, flush with money from Initiative 728 that earmarked a portion of state property taxes to reduce class sizes, Lake Stevens High School hired a literacy coach to help struggling readers.

Since then, the cash-strapped Washington state Legislature has repeatedly reduced voter-mandated payouts to schools. For this academic year, the state suspended I-728 payments altogether. So the Lake Stevens reading specialist now teaches regular English class - and students have no remedial help.

Enter Sen. Patty Murray.

On Tuesday, the Washington Democrat proposed what could be the largest federal investment in literacy ever. Murray is staking her power in Congress behind a bill that would authorize nearly $12 billion over five years to help students from preschools to high schools to read better.

The sum is nearly twice what the federal government has spent on literacy programs since the 2001 passage of President George W. Bush's landmark No Child Left Behind Act.

Murray is introducing her legislation at a time when education reform is a particularly volatile topic, ideologically and fiscally. Though Murray is known as a powerhouse appropriator, steering a major spending proposal through Congress amid talks about budget cuts in the trillions, not billions, of dollars would surely test her clout.

Democrats and Republicans currently are negotiating to rewrite the most controversial elements of Bush's education law, which relies on standardized test scores to raise student performance and to punish lagging schools. Murray is hoping to insert her literacy measure into the overall reauthorization of No Child Left Behind later this year.

"This is a significant investment, especially in the current budget environment," Murray said. "But the cost of doing nothing could end up being a lot more."

Murray's LEARN Act, or Literacy Education for All, Results for the Nation, would consolidate and beef up three existing federal literacy programs. Two of those have all but petered out, undone by budget battles and controversies involving Bush administration officials and contractors.

Murray, long an advocate for education and children's issues, said she wanted to stake out literacy as a priority for when Congress reauthorizes No Child Left Behind. Recalling an encounter with a Chicago-bound traveler who could not read the flight schedule, Murray called literacy a foundational skill not only for education, but for life.

Diane Ravitch, one of the nation's most outspoken critics of both No Child Left Behind and President Obama's Race to the Top school-reform plan, applauded Murray's efforts to secure more money for reading.

Nonetheless, Ravitch said the LEARN Act would only push the country farther on its "ruinous path" under which students and teachers are set up for failure by unrealistic standards and where test scores - not learning - are the benchmarks of progress.

"So it's nice to have more literacy funding. But it's likely to be used for more test prep," said Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University.

The LEARN Act would, were Congress to appropriate the full amount, distribute $2.35 billion to annually from 2012 to 2016 among states based on poverty levels. States would have flexibility to award competitive grants to local school districts as they see fit, as long as the reading and teacher development programs are proven to work.

In contrast to Reading First and Early Reading First, the centerpiece literacy programs under Bush, Murray would direct significantly more money to helping older students, with 40 percent of the money set aside for grades six through 12.

After funding Reading First by $1 billion a year for the first six years, Congress slashed the program's budget to less than $400 million in fiscal 2008. That falloff came after a federal report accused officials from the Department of Education and contractors of directing Reading First grants to states that adopted phonics, which emphasizes spelling drills and memorization in lieu of the whole-language method, which teaches reading for meaning to acquire new words.

The department's inspector general also concluded that Reading First insiders steered school districts to unproved textbooks and reading-assessment programs in which they had financial stakes.

Kati Tilley, chairwoman of the English department at Lake Stevens High, said she was heartened by Murray's focus on literacy. Reading and writing, Tilley says, has been overshadowed in recent years by a national focus - spurred by, among others, Bill Gates and President Obama - on math and science.

Under Washington state's standards, a quarter to a third of students in third through eighth grades couldn't read at grade level.

Tilley said English teachers in her school each juggle 150 students while struggling to carve out time for extra attention for students who need it. She said teachers desperately need the help promised under the LEARN Act, including training to help teachers teach reading more effectively.

Teachers "do amazing things with very little in the way of resources," Tilley said. The message behind the LEARN Act, she said, is "let's not forget about reading and writing."