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See my post #4. Also, last year I really wanted to tutor my students in my class. I was told I could get paid for tutoring if I signed up with one of these private companies -- but, I would not be allowed to choose the students I tutor, and there was no guarantee I would have my students.

Well, then -- how does that tutoring program help me, as a teacher? I am concerned with my students since I know their weaknesses and what they need.

Consequently, instead of me being able to tutor, get paid and teach my students, I have to: tutor, and not get paid extra, in order to have my students in my tutoring sessions.

And, my strudents would rather come to me as a tutor than to one of these programs that know nothing about what we are doing in class.

So, the federal program is often bypassed if the teacher is willing to tutor. To get teachers and private companies and No Child on the same page, there needs to be more flexibility by these private companies or the fed govt, re being willing to pay me as a tutor. Then, I should be able to choose my students, and make sure the students I am tutoring are the ones in my class, in addition to any other student I may tutor.

The problem with many failing schools is that the teachers simply don't teach anything whatsoever. If we hire these teachers as tutors for their own students, that's giving them a bonus (incentive) to keep NOT teaching. (Those who don't teach probably wouldn't tutor either. Many of these teachers themselves don't know enough to pass the class that they're purporting to teach.) Because this incentive lasts only as long as the school remains in failing status, it gives teacher-tutors an incentive to perpetuate failure. Although your personal intentions may be good, we don't want yet another government program to degenerate into subsidized failure.