Cool Tutoring, and NCLB Tutoring

There's a strange disconnect going on around tutoring (at least in the press) in which NCLB required tutoring is controversial and some kinds of regular old after school tutoring are... sort of sexy and cool.

How can that be?

In the Gadfly, there's the SOS on SES, recounting the latest but familiar concerns and contentions. Districts tutoring, companies profiting.

For even more SES sturm und drang, see also: Dropout rate high at extra tutoring (Providence Journal), Are Fl. Schools Flouting Feds? (St. Pete Times)

Then, in the Chicago Journal (as there's been in a bunch of papers and magazines), there's a snazzy profile of the new Dave Eggers-inspired storefront tutoring initiative that is already in NYC and SanFrancisco: Top-secret tutoring.

When Eggers does it, tutoring is so cool, so hip, so new. (Eggers wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and has NPR's Ira Glass on his board.)

How funny. Just imagine what would happen if Ira Glass turned up at a regular old NCLB tutoring program. (I know, no one would know who he was. But you know what I mean.)