Posted on 02/12/2006 7:15:16 AM PST by summer
Four years after President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind education law, vast numbers of students are not getting the tutoring that the law offers as one of its hallmarks.
In the nation's largest school district, New York City, fewer than half of the 215,000 eligible students sought the free tutoring, according to figures from the city's Department of Education for the school year that ended in June 2005.
In one area of the city, District 19 in eastern Brooklyn, about 3,700 students completed a tutoring program last year, even though more than 13,000 students qualified.
Yet New York's participation rate is better than the national average: across the country, roughly two million public school students were eligible for free tutoring in the school year that ended in 2004, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education, yet only 226,000 or nearly 12 percent received help.
City and state education officials and tutoring company executives disagree on the reasons for the low participation and cast blame on each other. But they agree that the numbers show that states and school districts have not smoothed out the difficulties that have plagued the tutoring known as the supplemental educational services program from its start as a novel experiment in educational entrepreneurship: largely private tutoring paid for with federal money.
Officials give multiple reasons for the problems: that the program is allotted too little federal money, is poorly advertised to parents, has too much complicated paperwork for signing up, and that it has not fully penetrated the most difficult neighborhoods, where there are high concentrations of poor, failing students....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I worked for a year in a wonderful country school. The principal was in his last year. He looked at the absense report and then got in his car and went to the places he knew truants would be and brought them to school. Big and bureaucratic schools are not nearly as effective as neighborhood schools under local control.
Although I worked in a lot of different schools around the country, there is only one story I know about teachers who don't teach. In about 1970 my mother went to my brother's high school and a disgruntled white teacher informed he that he was just not going to bother to teach because the school was being racially integrated. Maybe that was widespread and created an atmosphere where it was accepted. Then, of course, with racial and ethnic preferances in teacher hiring we got a lot of teachers who just didn't know anything, but I think the standards movement may be counteracting that.
In these programs money is provided for transportation home. My local school has such a program after school and before school. The NCLB money pays for teachers and transportation.
My favorite school where I once taught was located in a rural area, too. The parents were very interested and involved in their children's education, and constantly gave me small gifts of appreciation. All the teachers at that public school enrolled their own kids there as well. It was a very good experience for me as a teacher. Not at all like experiences I have had in urban schools.
That's quite interesting -- I am wondering if that money has to be applied for somehow and no one has applied, or what the story is because I have never, ever seen a late bus connected with any of these programs.
bump
Thanks for your post #17, VOA. :)
I agree -- the large urban schools (here in LA) have tremendous problems, partly because of their size, that the smaller schools just don't have. It must be wonderful to teach in a small, neighborhood school?
Teachers are being paid $40 an hour to tutor in this program! I was surprised the hourly rate was so high. Maybe the school you are thinking of is putting more money per hour?? It would be a good honest question to ask.
When we moved, that school was one of the things I missed most.
$40 an hour?! Wow! The pay offered by the private tutoring company coming to my school was MUCH lower. MUCH less!
Re your post #32 - LOL! Maybe that's what I need to do; move out to a rural area, once and for all!!!
I spent last Fall at a low performing school. They were required to offer tutoring. There was a late bus available, but most children did walk to school anyway. Only about half of the students who were offered tutoring, took advantage of it. I don't know why. Tutoring did seem to make an impact for the kids who attended.
The school did everything they could do to "encourage" the tutoring. Kids who showed up for tutoring most of the time got lunches out and prizes for improvement. Kids identified for tutoring could not participate in ANY afterschool activity if they chose not to be tutored.
This same school was obligated to notify parents that their children could go to other district schools, transportation paid for by the district, NOT ONE parent took advantage of that. None of the schools in the district were very good anyway.
Because that money is not paid to the union members of the NEA. Period.
that the program is allotted too little federal money,
---
LOL! How unpredictable.
They're complaining that it's not advertised. How much expense would be involved if a teacher tucked a note into the report cards of students who are not doing well? Or better yet, mailed it to the parents telling them about the program.
but if teachers did the tutoring, then it would... in fact, i'm surprised that the NEA has not come up with having tutors belong to the union...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.