How Did The Mainstream Press Miss The Reading First Scandal?

Is anyone else but me wondering how the mainstream press missed the story of how Reading First was being abused? Politically and substantively, it's arguably the biggest education story of the year. It's got politics, greed, and ideology galore-- not to speak of all those little kids taking DIBELS tests all day. And the program's prescriptiveness was an open secret in Washington and the states.

So what happened? Do the national reporters not read the trades or think tank reports? (Education Week and the Title I Monitor had both run stories going back at least a year about possible conflicts of interest and other problems. The Center on education Policy did a 2005 report (PDF) alluding to heavy-handedness.>) Hard to imagine that. Was the story not considered big or sexy enough by someone's editor? It's possible. Or, did someone actually cover it and I just missed the piece? Always a chance of that.

UPDATE: Over at edspresso, Ryan Boots points to a D-Ed Reckoning post (at EdNews) saying that at least one former state superintendent says maybe Chris Doherty didn't do anything wrong.