When Congress decided to appropriate $2 million in fall 2001 to help D.C. kindergartners and first-graders learn to read, city school officials were told that the money could be spent only on the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program, a new product with virtually no track record. They had just picked a different reading curriculum, and “we didn’t want to be guinea pigs,” recalled Mary Gill, then the system’s chief academic officer.School leaders did not know that the $2 million was an earmark that had been guided into law by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) just after she had received more than $30,000 in campaign contributions at a fundraiser held by Voyager’s founder and chairman.
Thanks, Mary!