Audit Finds Ethical Lapses In U.S. Reading Program (1 Viewer)

[aps]

Most of you will probably think nothing of this issue; however, for me, I am stunned. The head of Reading First within the Dept. of Education is Chris Doherty. He was my first boyfriend when I was 15 years old. I cannot believe it! I was sure he was a democrat (we didn't discuss politics back then), but clearly he is not. I am so surprised by his lack of professionalism. Who sends out an e-mail in an official capacity and uses profanity and words like "dirtbags"? He was one of the smartest men I have ever dated. What a disappointment.

Audit Finds Ethical Lapses In U.S. Reading Program

By Ben Feller
Associated Press
Saturday, September 23, 2006; Page A02

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.

The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests that the department broke the law by trying to dictate which curriculum schools must use. It also says that program review panels were stacked with people who shared the director's views and that only favored publishers of reading curricula could get money.

In one e-mail, director Chris Doherty told a staff member to come down hard on a company he didn't support, according to the report released yesterday by the department's inspector general. "They are trying to crash our party, and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags," Doherty wrote, the report says. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201356.html

He is resigning from his position.