First Lady attempts to stave off death of Reading First

 Thousands of teachers rallied in Nashville, Tennessee, with First Lady Laura Bush on Monday, July 28, 2008, hoping to save a $1 billion-a-year federal reading program from the budget ax.

Congress is poised to kill the controversial Reading First program. The program, one of the cornerstones of the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind initiative, has been plagued with allegations of corruption and lackluster test results. But the first lady argued that Reading First, a science-based teaching method that emphasizes basic skills like phonics, is the best possible use of federal Department of Education funds. Reading First targets poor children in at-risk elementary schools for intensive reading curriculums.

"Isn't it sensible to teach kids to read?" Bush asked, to cheers and wild applause from the 6,000 educators and administrators gathered at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center for the three-day annual national Reading First conference. "It's not unfair to expect a third-grade student to read at a third-grade level. In fact, it's our obligation." Read the story in The Tennessean online. The full text is available here.