[StBernard] Landrieu Statement Regarding CREW Complaint

[Westley Annis]

Statement Regarding CREW Complaint

 

WASHINGTON - The office of U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., today
released the following statement in response to a factually flawed complaint
filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Adam Sharp, Communications Director for Sen. Landrieu, said:

"The frivolous CREW complaint is wholly without merit and is readily
dismissed by the facts.

"Senator Landrieu strongly believes that we should not stop seeking new,
innovative approaches to educating our young.  She is also proud of her
record of integrity in public service.

"When Senator Landrieu came to the Senate in 1997, three out of every four
D.C. fourth graders could not read at even the most basic national standard
- the lowest performance of any major U.S. urban center.  Here stood our
nation's capital, setting the lowest of examples for the nation.  On March
31, 2001, Washington Post Editor Colby King lamented, 'the underfunding of
literacy programs is unconscionable.'

"At the request of D.C. officials - many months before the sequence of
events CREW and the Washington Post so erroneously mischaracterize - and
based in part on the program's successful track record in Louisiana, Sen.
Landrieu secured voluntary funding to make Voyager available to D.C.
schoolchildren.  Since then, reading scores have increased by 11 percent -
from only 28 percent of children reading at or above the basic level, to 39
percent, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.  

"Based on this success, the program has continued to be federally funded
through the support of other senators. The year after co-sponsoring the D.C.
funding, the next Chairman of the D.C. Subcommittee, a Republican, requested
funds to launch the program in his own state."

Attached to this release is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file including four
relevant documents:

1)                  An April 25, 2001, letter from D.C. Public Schools
Superintendent Paul L. Vance requesting the Senator's support for the funds.

2)                  A July 9, 2001, letter from New Orleans Public Schools
CEO A. G. Davis highlighting the success of the program in Louisiana and
asking for funds to expand the program in the New Orleans school system.

3)                  A Washington Post column by then-Editor Colby King
citing the need for reading program funding.  Though the column does not
specifically cite Voyager, it should be noted that the column ran within
weekend of D.C.P.S. officials identifying Voyager as the program they hoped
to fund.

4)                  A letter from Republican Senator Mike DeWine, who both
preceded and succeeded Sen. Landrieu as Chairman of the D.C. Appropriations
Subcommittee, requesting Voyager funding for his state of Ohio.  He served
as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee when the panel approved the funding -
through the regular process, not a floor amendment as the Post suggests -
and also cosponsored it.

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