Tutor-Ama: Vendor Ethics, USDE Bias, Outsourcing, & More
Here we go again.Just a week or so after Chicago school officials announced that scads of kids signed up for NCLB tutoring wouldn't actually be able to get any 'cuz the private providers more parents picked this year are more expensive (see last week's post, Tutoring In Decline), the Illinois state board of education announces that it is getting in on the fun by disqualifying Newton Learning for....using unethical means to convince parents to sign up for their services: School tutoring firm ousted (Chicago Tribune), Tutoring service disqualified at 5 schools (Chicago Sun Times).
Still want to know more? Look for my tutoring piece next week in the November Catalyst for all the inside scoop.
Meanwhile, there's a limp rehash in the Washington Post on whether there's bias towards private tutoring companies in the SES provision:As 'No Child' Answer, Tutoring Generates Complex Questions . Sure there is. It's just not necessarily a bad thing. On related news: Feds tighten tutoring rules under NCLB (eSN).
There's more on online tutoring, the "cute/scary" tutoring story this fall: E-Tutors: Outsourcing the Coach (Wired), Kids dial India for online tutoring(Chicago Sun Times).
Last but not least:
Growing Niche for Tutoring Chains: Prekindergartners’ Academic Prep EdWeek
posted by Alexander Russo at 10/24/2005 02:45:00 AM
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UPDATE: Title I guru Phyllis McClure makes the following point about schools' current complaints about the NCLB tutoring requirement in a letter to the Washington Post:
"Until Congress mandated using federal funds for out-of-school tutoring for kids who are behind, it didn't happen.
"Under prior law, Title I schools could have used their supplementary federal funds to provide this extra assistance through their own personnel or through private contractors.
"Maybe they could have handled [the NCLB tutoring] implementation better, but the fact is students and their parents were not provided these opportunities."
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