NCLB Outrages
Ohanian Comment: Not surprisingly, under NCLB Edison operates a private tutoring service. Bribing kids with prizes and putting 20 kids in a tutoring group. Sounds like business as usual, doesn't it?
Prescott Middle tutoring program stalled
By CHARLES LUSSIER
clussier@theadvocate.com
After months of delay, many students at Prescott Middle School who signed up for after-school tutoring still aren't getting it.
This was supposed to be the week when that would change, but Newton Learning, one of three eligible private tutoring companies, has pushed back its start date until early February.
Now, as many as 140 students at this low-performing middle school will have to wait. The announcement of the delay was made Friday.
The delay stems from a dispute between the East Baton Rouge Parish school system and Newton Learning about how many students each teacher should tutor. The school system wants no more than eight students per teacher. Newton wants classes ranging from 15 to 20 students per teacher.
Diane Helire, a supervisor of instruction who monitors the private tutoring services, said initially it appeared that Newton, a division of Edison Schools, the nation's largest for-profit school management company, had agreed to the lower number.
"We learned later that their corporate office didn't agree," Helire said.
Helire said the company has generated excitement with its plans to tutor students in math and English, as well as offering a range of prizes students who participate can earn. She said parish Superintendent Clayton Wilcox is still deciding how to proceed.
"They say their program works very well, but we just felt like tutoring is better done in small groups," she said.
Taxpayer-funded private tutoring -- known as supplemental educational services -- is a requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act for schools that continually fail to meet minimum academic standards established by each state.
Prescott is the only school in Baton Rouge obliged to offer the service this year, but more local schools might have to offer the service in the future. About 575 students at the school qualify for tutoring, and more than half of them have signed up for one of the three service providers.
Newton's delay comes at a critical time. Standardized testing begins March 15. Although the tutoring companies are not teaching specifically to the tests, as other school-based after-school tutoring programs do, they are trying to improve the general math and reading skills of their students in hopes the effort will result in higher test scores.
The Louisiana Department of Education has approved Newton Learning to provide private tutoring at Prescott, as well as two other companies, Sylvan Education Solutions, and the home-grown, Louisiana Learning Circle.
But unlike Newton, Sylvan and Louisiana Learning Circle have already signed contracts with the parish's school system. Consequently, they can use Prescott's campus to tutor, but Newton can't, at least for now.
"We're working under the hope and the assumption that we'll be able to use the campus," Adam Tucker, a spokesman for the company, said.
On Monday, turnout for after-school tutoring was light.
"We're competing with basketball, band and cheerleading," explained Julia Ware, site manager for Sylvan, which has signed up almost 200 students.
Louisiana Learning Circle, which has signed up about 40 children, held its first gathering Monday to orient students and test them to see their skill levels. It attracted only a handful of children.
"We had quite limited attendance. I think we'll do better on Wednesday," John Hewitt, founder of the company, said.
Sylvan began work in December, but it still has a few students to test to determine their reading skills.
Understanding what you read was the thrust of most of Sylvan classes Monday.
Isabella Poland and Mary Washington had just two eighth-graders to tutor, Jeremy Williams and Alexander Thomas. The students read a short passage about volcanoes. The boys were soft-spoken, but Poland's warm manner eventually worked.
Poland asked Williams what he wants to do when he grows up. Computer programming, he replied.
"I'll make a deal with you. I'll coach you on reading, if you'll coach me on computer programming," Poland said.
"And what about you Alexander," she asked, turning to the other boy.
Play in the NFL, he replied.
Poland applauded his choice, but said not to neglect reading.
"Reading is important because if you don't make it to the NFL, if you can read you can make it anywhere," she said.
For their participation that day, Poland gave each boy a token that they will be able to use later at the Sylvan store. The store features games, toys and various trinkets.
Ware said some items are more popular than others.
"Anything that glows in the dark, they love," she said. "They'd learn to love math if it glowed in the dark."
— Charles Lussier
Prescott Middle tutoring program stalled
2theadvocate.com
2004-01-14
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/011304/new_tutor001.shtml
INDEX OF NCLB OUTRAGES
