Friday, May 02, 2008

Exaggeration

The Post story on the Reading First study begins: "Students enrolled in a $6 billion federal reading program that is at the heart of the No Child Behind law..."

Wait. It's only a $6 billion program if you add up the total funding over six years (I think, I'm writing this on a plane). That's a completely non-standard way of reporting federal budget numbers. Nobody says the Pentagon has a $2.4 trillion budget. And reading first isn't "at the heart" of NCLB. The accountability provisions are.

Why exaggerate to sell the story? It's an interesting study -- play it straight.

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