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12/16/2004: "Tutoring joke"

Story in today's Inqy about the lack of tutoring available to Philly parents.

Under NCLB, 110,000 children would be eligible.

Vallas has gotten a waiver through so that "extended day programs" would count as tutoring.

On one hand, there's no question that private companies charge much more than the district might. Sharks circling in the water, many of these companies would bill the district upwards of $70 an hour and then pay their teachers between $18 and $20 per hour.

On the other hand, extended day is not necessarily the answer. Here you have many of the same teachers who failed the students in the first place who have now been charged with remediation. Classrooms of 15 to 20 students should not count as tutoring anyway.

It's a problem of scale- there are plenty of folks who would be fantastic tutors- most of whom would work out of their homes or after work for a price much lower than what an agency might charge. Yet there aren't 110,000 of these folks...

Chicago has already been busted for the same tactics Vallas has tried. What about Houston, Detroit, or any other big system? Has anyone managed to create real tutoring opportunities?