Today that the Bush Administration proposes to eliminate Federal
funding for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), a non-profit program
that has distributed 325 million new books to more than 30
million children over the past 42 years.
RIF has been a popular program on both sides of the political
aisle. RIF's founder was Margaret Craig McNamara, then-wife of
former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who served in the
Kennedy and Johnson Administrations; she was a former teacher
and reading tutor who started the program by delivering used
books to three Washington D.C public schools. More recently,
First Lady Laura Bush, and her mother-in-law, former First Lady
Barbara Bush have served in very visible roles.
I wonder what a self-educated man like President Lincoln would
have said about closing down a reading program, so I did a
little checking to find out: is RIF succeeding, or failing, in
its mission?
While the USA Today article mentions that RIF has not been on
the chopping block since 2001, the truth is that its budget has
been approximately $25 million for the past five years, this
according to the U.S. Department of Education's Web site (see:
http://www.ed.
increased from $23 million in FY 2001, the last Clinton budget,
to $24 and $25 million in FY 2002 and 2003, the first Bush
budgets. After 2003, the funding was essentially frozen at $25
million each year.
However, in government budget-speak, a freeze is the same as a
cut; salaries, administrative expenses and the costs of books
have gone up. The need for books, however, has not gone down.
Yet I go to expectmore, a site co-developed by his agency to
rate federal programs by their effectiveness—
listed in the program database!
So, the American people don't even know why the White House
considers RIF to be ineffective.
It's only proper to find out what RIF did wrong, and why the
White House wants to take it out of the budget. The USA Today
article mentions a preference for a merit-based competitive bid,
over an automatic grant to RIF, but why, when a non-profit has
done this successfully for 42 years? Is it because they'd prefer
not to fund an organization run by a former Clinton appointee?
Cronyism has been part of every political administration since
there have been politicians. However, RIF's board is a mix of
public and private members; more than 140 publishers
participate. This is hardly an organization of political
patronage and "no show" jobs.
I'd prefer to think that the Bush White House would like to cut
out RIF because of poor performance; so would those who are
supposed to receive books.
So, I looked at the Performance Plan for RIF. It's posted on
the U.S. Department of Education's Web site. It lists a
baseline, the number of books that RIF was expected to place
into the hands of low-income children, as well as the actual
total.
I might have thought that RIF could not distribute as many
books in 2004 and later years, because it had less money to buy
books. In 2003, RIF had a baseline of 3.7 million children to
receive books, later raised to 3.9 and 4 million for 2004 and
2005. RIF distributed no fewer than 3.6 million children each
year. RIF didn't meet the baseline in 2004 and 2005, but it's
hardly a failure to distribute the same number of books — which
cost more each year — with less money.
Then in 2006, the last year that federal data is available, RIF
distributed books to nearly 4.5 million children - using less
federal money than the year before.
That's hardly an example of a failing program; in fact, one
would have to wonder what RIF could have accomplished with an
extra million or two.
The USA Today article has a comment by Clay Johnson, deputy
director of the federal office of Management and Budget. Citing
him directly from the article, Johnson says that "we are calling
out as ineffective some sacred cows. It's not enough to say
'Isn't it lovely?' We want it to be a lovely program that
works."
With respect to RIF, the Bush White House has picked the wrong
sacred cow to slaughter.
About The Author: Stuart Nachbar has been involved with
education politics, policy and technology as a student, urban
planner, government affairs manager, software executive, and now
as author of The Sex Ed Chronicles. Visit his blog,
http://www.educated
