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WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Representative George Miller (D-CA) today asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal inquiry into the U.S. Department of Education’s implementation of the federal Reading First program. On Friday, the Education Department’s independent Inspector General issued a scathing report that found that the Education Department had steered billions of dollars in federally-funded contracts to favored vendors in violation of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Miller, the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, also called on Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, the committee’s chairman, to convene immediate oversight hearings into the Inspector General report.
“The Department of Education used a corrupt process to coerce school districts across the country to use reading curricula that, in many cases, they did not want to use,” said Miller. “The Inspector General’s report raises serious questions about whether Education Department officials violated criminal law, and those questions must be pursued by the Justice Department.”
Under President Bush the Department of Education has repeatedly run afoul of ethical standards. In 2005, newspaper accounts revealed – and federal investigators confirmed – that the Department of Education had used taxpayer dollars to pay media commentators for covert propaganda promoting administration initiatives. And earlier this year federal auditors determined that, in 2001 and 2002, the Department had awarded grants to political allies over the objections of career peer reviewers.
“A growing body of evidence over the last few years has shown this type of corruption to be pervasive not just at the Department of Education but throughout the Bush administration,” said Miller. “President Bush claims to believe that a taxpayer dollar should be ‘spent wisely or not at all,’ yet he has consistently failed to hold anyone in his administration accountable when they violate ethics rules, break the law, or waste taxpayer dollars.”
To see a copy of Miller’s letter to the Justice Department requesting a criminal investigation, click here.
To see a copy of Miller’s letter to McKeon requesting hearings, click here.
To see a copy of the Inspector General’s report, click here.
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