69传媒

State officials, publishers, and educators began complaining to one another very early during the implementation of 69传媒 First that the U.S. Department of Education appeared to be promoting particular reading programs, assessments, and consultants over others in their guidance to states.

Few, however, dared grumble in public for fear they would risk losing out on some of the $1 billion in annual funding for the high-profile reading program.

Now, though, Cindy Cupp is satisfied that, with the recent release of a critical report from the Education Department鈥檚 inspector general, her own very public complaints are no longer just the uncorroborated accounts of a long-disgruntled independent publisher.

鈥淔inally, somebody [in authority] sat up and said this is really happening,鈥� she said last week. Ms. Cupp鈥檚 initial anger and disbelief outweighed any reluctance she may have had to make her gripes with 69传媒 First public in 2004. The publisher of an early-reading series that bears her name, she was once the curriculum and reading director for the Georgia education department. She didn鈥檛 expect the federal program to be a boon for her Savannah-based company, but she never thought the Georgia schools that were already using her readers, or those that wanted to, would be pressured into abandoning the texts to obtain federal grants under 69传媒 First. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 just unfair to my program,鈥� Ms. Cupp said. 鈥淚 felt that if you had to use select programs, schools needed to be told that upfront. The restrictions were under the table, and schools weren鈥檛 aware of it.鈥� (鈥淕a. Officials Admit Mistakes on 鈥�69传媒 First鈥� Rules,鈥� May 11, 2005.)

Ms. Cupp tried to find other publishers to join her in asking state and federal education officials to explain or ease up on the restrictions on instructional materials for 69传媒 First schools. But no one else, she said, wanted to jump into the fray.

Keeping Mum

The Association of American Publishers in 2002 sent a letter to then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige outlining concerns among its members that 69传媒 First was unfairly favoring some commercial reading series over others. But none of the individual companies the organization鈥檚 Washington-based school division represents was willing to express those complaints publicly. And the Association of Educational Publishers advised its members to brief state legislators quietly on the effect 69传媒 First was having on their businesses.

鈥淲e took more of a grassroots strategy,鈥� said Charlene F. Gaynor, the chief executive officer of the aep, a Philadelphia-area-based organization that represents some 400 publishers of supplemental materials. 鈥淏ut to publicly make a comment about what was going on people thought would somewhat jeopardize their relationships with school districts.鈥�

The Council of State Governments conducted a survey of 69传媒 First directors and compiled their observations on the program鈥檚 implementation. But many of the respondents asked that their views remain anonymous, and the Lexington, Ky.-based council did not release the survey results for fear there would be fallout for states that criticized the process.

Similarly, the Washington-based Center on Education Policy, a research and advocacy group that publishes an annual report card on the No Child Left Behind Act, which includes 69传媒 First, could not release a complete report on the program early on because much of the information from state officials was off the record.

In April 2005, after gathering binders full of documents from Georgia鈥檚 open-records act, Ms. Cupp asked the state inspector general, and later his federal counterpart, to investigate what she saw as unfair practices.

鈥淚 was scared,鈥� said Ms. Cupp. 鈥淏ut with me, [the complaints] were not coming from a publisher with 100 employees and a board of directors where the bottom line is how many dollars do you make.鈥�