Tutoring firms stand to gain from ailing schools

So far supplemental education is only a “side business” for the company, which also offers curriculum materials and early-reading programs in the primary and secondary schools.

“We work with school districts as partners,” she said. Like many executives in education companies, she says Plato’s mission is “exactly the same” as that of public-sector educators. “Educators are coming to understand that they can’t do it alone,” she said.

The tutoring services provided under the law came out of a tough political battle and represent a compromise between moderates and hard-line conservatives who would have preferred more active privatization schemes like vouchers or charter schools.

Nina Rees, who oversees the program as assistant deputy secretary of education, said the tutoring program is not really a free-market solution to the problems of struggling schools. Parents, she notes, don’t get money that they are free to spend on any provider but must work through the bureaucracy of the school system.

“The idea behind it is not so much encouraging private and for-profit companies but to engage all kinds of stakeholders to help us close the achievement gap,” she said.

She said the program merely offers lower-income families the same kind of supplemental services that many upper-income families take for granted.

“I think once you whet the appetite of low-income families and expose them to these services they are going to want more,” she said. “Most upper-income families nowadays are hiring tutors even when they don’t need them so much, because they realize in today’s global marketplace students need to be farther ahead than they have ever been if they want to compete. Once the heightened awareness is there, I don’t think low-income parents are any different.”

Outside observers say the program that has flaws but offers some promise for underprivileged children who are failing to learn basic skills.

“It’s a qualitatively different form of choice, and I think that’s very exciting,” said Duncan Chaplin, a senior researcher with the Urban Institute. “It could in theory be a huge improvement in choice and the effectiveness of choice in improving the educational environment. In practice that remains to be seen.”

One sore spot is that some of the most troubled public school schools systems like Chicago’s have been forced to shut down their own after-school tutoring services because of federal rules that apply to failing districts.

Beth Swanson of Chicago Public Schools figures that means only 25,000 students will get services in the coming year, down from 80,000.

“Because our program was much less expensive we were able to serve a lot more students,” she said. “We have a good track record. We had an 85 percent attendance rate and kids loved it . The whole thing is premised on the free market, and if we are truly not a good option we would fall out of the market. So let us compete.”

Rees said the rule is based on the premise “that districts need to be focused on raising student achievement during the regular school day.”

“I think the market can be very useful in the public sector,” said Swanson. “Competition can be helpful. I just think it has limitations in this field and those need to be recognized. The ideal for a policy when it comes out of Washington can look very very different when it hits the ground.”

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