Archives for category: Tutoring

NPE Applauds President Biden’s Proposed Education Budget

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2024 //
2

The Network for Public Education was happy to see President Biden’s proposed education budget for the next year. In contrast to the Trump administration, which regularly tried to cut federal aid to education, especially to schools that enroll the neediest students, the Biden administration wants to strengthen the federal commitment to education.

I am especially delighted to see an increase in funding for full-service community schools.

NPE released the following statement:

For Immediate Release

The Network for Public Education Applauds President Biden’s FY 2025 Education Budget 

 Given the mandated fiscal restraints, the White House has presented a responsible budget with increases to programs that best serve American children.

Contact: Carol Burris

cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org

(646) 678-4477

The Network for Public Education (NPE) applauds President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget for the U.S. Department of Education.  At a time when all federal agencies are fiscally restrained, the budget adds welcome increases to programs that benefit American children.

According to NPE’s Executive Director Carol Burris, “This budget is the mirror opposite of budget proposals by the present House leadership that slash funding to children served by critical programs like Title I while proposing an increase to the already bloated Federal Charter School Programs.”

Highlights of the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget include:

  • An increase of $200 million for Title I, which provides supplemental financial assistance to schools with a high percentage of children from low-income families.
  • An increase of $200 million to IDEA to support the needs of students with disabilities.
  • An additional $50 million for grants to full-service Community Schools (FSCS).

Building on the recent State of the Union Address, the budget also includes more funding for high-quality learning time, such as high-dose tutoring, preschool grants, career and technical education, and mental health services in schools. It also includes additional funds for programs to increase the number of teachers at a time of unprecedented teacher shortages.

The Federal Charter School Program (CSP), which has seen a decrease in applications since 2016, was cut by $40 million. In its rationale, the Department notes that both State Entities and Charter Management Organizations did not deliver the number of schools promised in their applications.

The Network for Public Education fully supports the decreased funding for the CSP program, which has far outlived its usefulness. The growth in the demand for charter schools during the Bush and Obama years has ended. As the program rapidly expanded, so did the opportunity for grift and fraud. “The Department’s recent demand that the IDEA charter chain return $28 million is just the latest example of how the CSP has been abused,” said Burris. This is the first time an administration has recommended a decrease in the CSP since the program began.

We thank the President and Secretary Cardona for preparing a sound budget that puts students first in a time of fiscal restraint.

The Network for Public Education is a national advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen public schools for current and future generations of students.

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Categories Biden, Charter Schools, Community Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Supporting public schools, Tutoring, U.S. Department of Education

The For-Profit Tutoring Experience—Ugh!

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2013 //
7

A reader recently wrote what it is like to work for a for-profit tutoring company:

I am a teacher in a Catholic school and I work for one of these for profit tutoring companies in Chicago. I provide small group instruction to children in math and reading.

Although I feel that I am conscientious and try my best to provide the best services I can for my students, the company I work for pays teachers very low salaries and forces them to teach extremely unreasonable number of hours per day with almost no preparation time. I, for example, teach nine, 40 minute classes per day with a 20 minute lunch.

The company is squeezing teachers more and more so that the company makes lots of money for their shareholders (because they are paid by the head).

The company cares only about paperwork, and does not care one iota about whether the children learn anything at all. I love the school I work at and the children I teach, but the many, many layers of management add no value whatsover to the end product and provide zero professional development to their teachers.

If more people understood what these companies are doing, they would be outraged!

Categories For-Profit, Privatization, Testing, Tutoring

Making Failure Pay

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2013 //
9

A reader, Jill Koyama, calls attention to an important topic:

I actually conducted a 3-year study of private tutoring companies in NYC. Here is the link to my book, Making Failure Pay: For-Profit Tutoring, High-Stakes Testing, and Public Schools, published in 2010 by the University of Chicago Press:

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo8917055.html

Categories For-Profit, New York City, Testing, Tutoring

Tonight on PBS

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2012 //
1

When I visited Austin recently, I taped an interview with Evan Smith for his PBS program “Overheard.” It will air tonight on PBS stations in Texas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Tampa, New Orleans, and other places.

If you miss it, this is the link that will go live after the show airs.

There was a live and very enthusiastic audience, which made it a lively setting. Just what you would expect in Texas.

Categories Ravitch, Diane, Texas, Tutoring

Why the Federal Tutoring Program Is Failing

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2012 //
9

An expose in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune uncovered fraud, waste, and incompetence in the federal program for tutoring called Supplementary Educational Services. This program is part of No Child Left Behind, and it created the equivalent of a voucher program for after-school tutoring. Instead of encouraging schools to provide trained and certified teachers for the extra tutoring that low-performing students need, NCLB inspired the creation of a tutoring “industry.”

Ten years ago, when Congress created the tutoring program as part of No Child Left Behind, proponents believed the private market would accomplish what the public sector had failed to do.

For the first time, many parents would have a say in how their kids were educated. If they didn’t like the troubled school their children were attending, they could switch and districts would pay for transportation. If they wanted to take advantage of free tutoring, they would have plenty of options, and districts would foot the bill.

 Entrepreneurs saw their opportunity and they took it. Thousands of brand-new businesses sprung up to take advantage of the federal dollars. For-profit online corporations leapt to get into this new and lucrative market. The money for SES comes out of the district’s Title I allocation. The cost of SES soared from $375 million in 2005-06 to $970 million last year. That is quite a tempting market.
In Minnesota, more than 80 tutoring services vie for $20 million in federal funds. The most aggressive of the tutoring companies are the online for-profit operators, who pitch their wares to unwary parents. According to the article, they charge as much as $90 an hour, as compared to the nonprofits, which charge as little as $5 an hour. A lucrative business for the corporation, not so profitable for the students. At those sky-high rates, the money runs out long before the student has gained much from the “tutoring.”
The SES program has never had adequate federal or state oversight. Numerous studies concluded that the SES tutoring was ineffective. “It wasted a lot of money and a lot of people’s time,” said Steven Ross, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University who led at least 15 state studies analyzing the program. “It was inadequately funded and developed. The policies don’t work. The whole concept was a bad turn. … It turned out to be very dysfunctional.”
The article documents numerous cases of fraud, occasionally leading to termination of a company’s contract. In several instances, tutoring companies billed for sessions that never  happened; typically, they recruit aggressively, but deliver subpar services to students.
As an aside, the Romney education plan envisions turning over even more money and programs to the private sector, with minimal regulation.
Why do we keep wasting money on private vendors instead of providing our public schools with the resources they need to give students intensive tutoring? At least, we would have the assurance that the services were supplied by certified teachers rather than profit-seeking amateurs.
Diane
Categories Privatization, Testing, Tutoring