Josh Hirschstein faces a paradox. "In Eugene, Oreg., where I live, the schools are in pretty desperate financial shape. The public school where my kids go had 10 percent of its staff cut last year," says the coordinator of Lane Tutoring. "But as the schools deteriorate, there's a greater need for the work that we tutors do." At the same time, he notes, a recession means less disposable income for hiring tutors.
Hirschstein is not alone in his mixed feelings. Every year, Americans spend between $5 billion and $8 billion on tutoring and other supplemental educational assistance. The new No Child Left Behind Act is expected to enable more parents to seek outside assistance for their children who are struggling or attending low-performing schools.
But tutoring itself remains a profession fraught with challenges, according to officials. Teachers sometimes resent what they regard as outside interference in their educational practices by tutors. Parents, understandably concerned about costs during hard economic times, may feel compelled to opt for quick fixes that are not always in the best interests of their children.
Nevertheless, the future of tutoring is looking more and more promising, according to experts. "In the future, people are going to find that tutoring is very helpful," says Ed Gordon, author of the book Tutor Quest: Finding Effective Education for Children and Adults. "It's good for teaching children to learn how to learn."
Weighing Costs and Benefits
According to Gordon, tutoring has undergone a transformation over the last 100 years. Once a practice reserved for the elite, tutoring today reaches into the inner cities through business-supported efforts and volunteer programs.
One example of this is Cabrini Connections in Chicago, Ill. "We formed Cabrini Connections in 1992 as a children's tutor-mentor program," says Dan Bassil, Cabrini's president. The program, located in the public housing area of Cabrini-Green, has served more than 300 children in the 10 years since its founding.
By using a seven-step process, the organization partners volunteers from different local corporations with students and aims to
- Build regular weekly participation through shared activities.
- Ensure regular contact with caring individuals.
- Offer enrichment activities (such as field trips and computer labs).
- Foster skill development for possible careers.
- Provide networking opportunities through local businesses (where many of the volunteer tutors come from).
- Offer counseling about possible scholarships.
- Ensure commitment to monitoring the students' progress through school and after graduation. "We focus on how we can be a meaningful part of a young person's life for many years," Bassil says. "Columbine woke a lot of people up to violence in the schools, but for some kids, its a common occurrence—just getting to and from the school safely every day is a challenge for them."
While Cabrini and programs like it specialize in community-targeted approaches, other organizations focus on meeting students' needs within schools themselves.
At Shepard Elementary in Columbia, Mo., for instance, school officials follow a program called CARE.
CARE stands for Counselor-Administrator-Resource-Educator, says Ter esa VanDover, a former school principal who developed the program. "I told teachers if they could identify students with problems, they would have a team approach to support them in their efforts to reach that child; the problem would not rest on their shoulders alone." The prereferral strategy, she says, involves holding brainstorming sessions to identify children's reading levels, examine peer and parental relationships, and determine what is going on in students' lives that might prevent learning. The information gleaned from the sessions is then presented to teachers and tutors to help guide instruction and make sure that all parties are working with the same information. "We also encourage tutors to meet with teachers before tutoring children to get as much background information as they can," VanDover adds.
According to people who have had experiences with tutors, the benefits can be well worth the cost. "My son had a difficult time picking up reading," says James Baumhart, president and chief executive officer of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois. "With the help from a tutor, we not only saw improvement over time but also saw the beginning of an interest in reading." The biggest benefit Baumhart saw was the confidence that the tutor helped inspire in his son.
The right tutor can make all the difference in a child's progress. "Parents need to interview tutors and have confidence that their child will enjoy working with that person," Baumhart says. "If they don't feel comfortable, they should look for someone else."
Facing Resistance
Gaining teacher support can sometimes be a bigger challenge, Gordon notes. "A lot of classroom teachers actually feel threatened by tutors," he says. "They want to know why you're hiring a tutor for your child, and they ask, ‘Is my instruction not good enough for you?’" The result of such an outlook, he adds, is that many parents will request tutoring assistance for their children discreetly to avoid a negative reaction from the teacher.
Another challenge tutors face is cost. Professional tutoring organizations charge anywhere from $20–$70 an hour, according to sources. If a parent needs to hire a tutor for an extended period or sign a contract for 20–30 hours of instruction, the costs can quickly spiral to a point where many simply cannot afford to pay for the extra help needed to raise their child's achievement.
Looking Ahead
Despite the challenges, the future appears bright for tutoring. Many tutors, in fact, find that they cannot keep up with the demand for their services.
"There's a lot of speculation that the need for tutoring is going to grow," says Mike Zenanko, coordinator of the Teacher Service Center at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Ala. "Some may say that tutoring is not cost effective, but we need to be sure that we look at the human capital side of things. That's what's important." Such personalized attention can be expensive but can have high payoffs for students.
Recent U.S. legislation calls for more financial assistance for parents seeking additional help for their children. The No Child Left Behind Act contains provisions requiring school districts to "provide extra academic assistance for eligible children" in schools deemed low-performing. The act will require states with schools that have not met their improvement goals to offer parents lists of approved tutors and other supplemental educational services to help their children increase achievement.
Such extra help, sources say, will likely affect more than just students. By making tutoring more accessible, tutors may make a difference in not only children's lives but also the lives of their parents. "I know one woman who put five children through college while making a living cleaning offices," says Gordon. "When her last child graduated, she called us for tutoring and said, ‘I can't read or write, and I want to learn now because it's my turn.’"
