<p>Read an article in our local paper today that puzzles me. A local Jr High that has funds due to No Child Left Behind law offered free private tutoring to most of their students and got few takers. Only 5 out of 250 qualified families took advantage of the offer.
The school sent letters, phoned families, held a fair with private tutoring companies and only 1 parent showed up.
It is so weird. This is tutoring offered by companies that charge $50 and up an hour.
Any insight?</p>
<p>Unmotivated students will answer your question. Either that or the students are too proud to get help. Noone wants to acknowledge that they aren’t the best and need assistance.</p>
<p>These private tutoring companies are a joke. I spent more than 2K on D for Geometry and while she was being tutored she got F in one math test. Then, I purchased some books on line and sat down and tutored her(to the best of my recollection) and she started getting B+. Now she gets no tutoring from anybody and she is getting A. So go figure.
I overreacted when I signed D up for these services, it was the first time my d kept getting C and C+ on several tests. They charged me $175 for testing( and I don’t get to keep the test even).
I think these parents are smart, they know a few hours won’t make a dent. They want long term solutions. End of my ranting and raving because it was not worth it.</p>
<p>It may be a transportation problem or the fact that the students who need the tutoring also have to work jobs during the time that the tutoring is offered. Such students often have to work from a relatively early age in order to help their families make ends meet. Another possibility is that the students have conflicting responsibilities at home such as caring for younger siblings.</p>
<p>Parents may not be able to come to meetings because of transportation problems, taking care of younger children or grandchildren (many at risk students are being raised by grandparents) or because they have to work 2 jobs in order to make ends meet.</p>
<p>These were reasons that many students who needed tutoring were not able to access the free tutoring offered at S’s school.</p>
<p>Some of the things that middle class and upper class people take for granted are not conveniences that poor people have in their lives.</p>
<p>I hate to break this news, but as a tutor for many, many years, I can tell you that even many kids from well to do families are dragged to tutoring. I can see the resentment, disinterest and those pulled back ears. There are not that many kids I tutor who come skipping along to see me, and I get stood up alot when it is left up to the kids.</p>
<p>Suzie- The companies offering tutoring were already established tutoring services that middle and upper class families already use with success. Including Lindamood Bell.
We are not a large city and the school district is small which made it seems even more startling that they couldn’t have sold the families on the services. I don’t know if the tutoring was to be offered on campus. Northstarmom I think your reasons probably are pretty accurate. The school is at this point mainly hispanic. Most families with the means have already moved on to a higher performing school.</p>
<p>jamimom, in our case my daughter was very willing no dragging, she even took the bus to the tutoring area by herself.
mom60,I thought this company is also a success because D’s best friend use them in the Bay Area and got straight A.</p>
<p>There are kids who want the tutoring. But considering the type of kids whose family can afford private tutoring, with all the trouble and expense of getting a tutor, it amazes me that so few kids like your D. And I can tell you that my boys all grew mule’s ears when they were forced into tutoring . Part of it was having mom as the tutor, but my son was no happier this year being sent off to someone I consider the best math tutor I have ever seen. He cut out or forgot a few sessions and dragged his feet. There were occaisional scenes, and we have skirted the area where I just about threw up my hands and said, “forget it’”. And my kids have grown up around tutoring as it was sometimes our bread and butter. They were also raised in a setting where education is considered important. I can painfully imagine some scenes in even more dysfuntional households (yes, my family does qualify as dysfunctional; we’re ripe for a good book about us) where education is not on the radar screens and it is a problem just getting the kids to go to school, stay in school and not get kicked out of school. Those families could well be so embattled in issues that make the situation too shaky to demand a kid get tutoring. The parents may well take the attitude that it is up to the kid, and they are not going to pick that battle, and I can’t say it is necessarily a wrong choice, considering that the same sentiment has been expressed to me about my kids’ feeling about help/pressure about schoolwork. I have been told by many counselors, teachers, psychologist that I am too pushy, and that the kids have to be propelled by their own motivation. And they may well be right, I acknowledge, but so far in the final talley each time, I decide to push till it comes to shove. I can well understand why tutoring offers are not such hot tomatoes in some scenarios.</p>
<p>jamimom, I feel for you. My family also dragged me into tutoring years ago, and I drove the tutor away(lol). These bright young men that got accepted to top engineering school(equivalent to MIT) in Vietnam but I couldn’t stand them. I was too mischievous to sit down and being tutored, nowaday they call it ADD(lol). Thank goodness, D1 did not inherit my personality/character, she got H(calm and cool as a cucumber)personality.
OT. In away, I’m glad I had girls, so many times other Asian moms keep telling me to have a boy because they use the analogy, 2 girls is like getting a B, 2 boys is like getting a B+, 1 boy/1 girl is like getting A, I just rolled my eyes and laughed. I have nothing against boys but I think they are harder to bring up/control. I know my mom had more boys than girls and I would say the family was somewhat disfunctional.</p>
<p>I am a teacher and offer free tutoring after school four days a week and mornings every day of the week, I get about 4 or 5 takers reguarly and they are the B students wanting to get A’s. I get a flood of students during team sport seasons when they need to pass a class or get off the team, but a good portion of that time is spent in classroom management and is not as valuable as when a student comes in voluntarily because they want to understand.</p>
<p>I have also offerred to tutor at students homes, or at the local Mc Donalds and have only gotten two takers in the past three years.</p>
<p>The reason standardized scores are closely tied to parent’s academic achievement is because the parents respect education and what it can do and they have instilled it in their children. Look at the decisions the families of failing children make. A thousand dollars a year for cable tv in every room and not fifty dollars worth of books in the house… We need to educate parents, ministers, and other local leaders to put books in every bedroom.</p>
<p>Mr. B,
You sound like a very dedicated teacher, and your students and their parents are very lucky to have you in their lives.</p>
<p>Both my sons worked at college as tutors in the learning center. They were paid for their time, but the students who came to see them did so at no cost. I was amazed to hear how few students actually came to these free tutoring sessions (even close to exam time)! My boys usually used the time to catch up on their own work, since they were paid by the hour just to be available in case anyone showed up.
As a teacher myself, I have tutored for many years. I offer free extra help a few days a week during recess, before and after school. Very few kids attend, yet I am busy 5 nights a week with kids whose parents are more than willing to pay me $60/hour because that is what all their friends pay. It’s almost like they think the more the tutoring costs, the better it is. Of course, I teach in a very affluent school district where the competiton among students (and parents) is tremendous.</p>
<p>The CC parents here don’t see or experience much of this, but as a teacher in a middle-upper middle class burb, I see a lot of it. There is a small percentage of kids who learn for the love of learning, a large group who do so because they have to, and a slightly lesser group that simply doesn’t care. They take zero after zero, do nothing, etc., and the one thing I hear is that it is my fault. We teachers have reached concensus that many parents want their kids to get A’s but poor Johnny shouldn’t have to work so hard! Hand out unearned A’s and you’re a good teacher, give actual grades and you’re too hard or mean. These parents want to make things easier and better for their children. And these same parents know their kids are perfect, so can’t face the fact that Johnny may need some help. And this is non-minority parents. We have a saying, that as freshmen, they are going to H, as sophomores, to the top state uni, as juniors to the community college, their parents hope! The most frequent question I am asked is, “What do I have to do to pass?” In my day, no one asked that - if anything it was for an A.<br>
And yes, we do have a percentage of lower socio-economic minorities. For whatever reason, a small percentage wants to succeed in school. The rest make fun of the bright, hardworking kids. They just want to get married and have families. (Last week, one of the 17 yr olds married) And a dead-end job is fine for them. If they don’t do the daily work, why would they go to a tutor? I gave up tutoring my students because I would be the only one who showed up. Even the ones who asked for it, didn’t come.</p>
<p>On the flip side of this is sometimes some teachers do not have time to help or want to help. My daughter chased after the teacher after class is over, using her break/lunch to ask the teacher but sometimes some teacher refused to help. For example, she recently needed help with French, she was not clear on certain subject, she asked the teacher and the teacher told her to look in chapter so and so, instead of explaining to her, isn’t that bizzare. This happens across the board(not just this French teacher). May be kids learned that they get nowhere and gave up.</p>
<p>A friend has said that in his school they must offer tutoring because of NCLB. However, no one has figured out how to make students take adv. of it! Therefore, the teacher is assigned to the tutoring room for 30 minutes every day (before or after school, one or the other) and has to sit there regardless of whether someone shows up. It sounds really ridiculous, but it is mandated by fed. law that it be offered.
Can they pass a fed. law that will mandate that students who need tutoring show up for it?</p>
<p>“Can they pass a fed. law that will mandate that students who need tutoring show up for it?”</p>
<p>Can the pass a federal law providing transportation for the students who need tutoring but rely on the school bus, which does not come early enough or leave late enough for them to attend tutoring?</p>
<p>I agree that transportation can be a problem, but there are kids who make it in for sports or music or other activities before or after school. Also this school in question, is well served by public transportation, most kids take the trolley & gasp! some even walk to their hs.</p>
<p>Has anyone ever asked the kids why they don’t come?</p>
<p>Do their parents know that the service is offered? Because many students don’t give parents information that’s sent home via flyer or mail, S’s school called parents to let them know of the afterschool program.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about how it has been advertised or who really determines which students need to go…I would guess it is kids in danger of failing. But I do know that as a very large high school (more than 3,000), there are many who are just buying time until they can legally drop out. I’ll have to ask about the drop-out %.
Also whenever there is parent-teacher night(2x/yr), this friend says there are times he only has 4-5 parents show up for a class of students; particularly if he has lower level classes that semester.</p>
<p>Its unfortunate the the way the NCLB legislation is written a school which is mandated to offer tutoring may not allow their own teachers to provide the service.
It might be more effective to have classroom teachers work in smaller groups with these kids- particulary as the private tutoring services do not have to meet the same criteria.
It isn’t really that the districts have “extra” money, but that they are required to withhold 20% of their Title 1 funds to pay for compliance with NCLB.
Only students who qualify for free/reduced lunch are eligible. Families living in poverty as mentioned above generally have other issues as well as whether or not to use tutoring.
Since many students especially junior high age would be very embarrased about being poor, I wonder if it is something as simple as, showing up for the tutoring is the same as saying they qualify for free/reduced lunch and they need help with their tests.</p>