Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Summer Tutoring Is Not the Solution to a Lost Year of Schooling. It Might Hurt Kids More Than It Helps Them

https://ift.tt/2Wpnci1

Summer tutoring has become the rallying cry by politicians and pundits as a way to address the learning loss from months of remote and hybrid learning. A frightening number of students did not show up to class last school year, including up to 15% of kindergarteners in some school districts. But tutoring is the not the easy solution many think it is. Before parents sign up their children, they need to do their own homework and, except under specific conditions, they should not pursue tutoring. Simply put, most children do not benefit long term from standard tutoring. Moreover, current trends in supplemental education can end up hurting children.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Tutoring can work well under certain conditions for children. Unfortunately, those conditions are quite strict. First, tutors should have a strong command of the content and must find ways to connect it to the student’s interests. Second, tutoring is more effective when it is intensive, with multiple hours per week and small teacher-to-student ratios and when run by trained professionals (e.g. teachers) during the school year rather than over the summer. The costs for effective tutoring are high (e.g. $3,800 per child in a Chicago program).

Without such expensive and intensive conditions, tutoring proves to be mostly ineffective. Studies find little to no difference between tutored and untutored children in their academic achievement under standard learning conditions. Even when students show short-term improvement, they do not maintain long-term gains.

Still, all kinds of tutoring are gaining steam among parents, increasingly for those who need it the least. Affluent students in well-resourced schools increasingly take part. The national chain Mathnasium, for instance, advertises as serving students already succeeding in math. A founder of another company told me their growth model is to open franchises in well-ranked districts. Companies are cashing in on anxious parents with marketing directed at overcoming the “Covid slide.” This is despite the fact that their learning loss over the past 12 months is less of a concern than often assumed. Kumon, Mathnasium, and other tutoring companies rank among the fastest-growing franchises of 2021. This popularity for tutoring continues a trend that has been going on for years. In fact, No Child Left Behind gave billions of taxpayer dollars to the tutoring industry, jumpstarting their rapid growth.

Parents have strong motivations behind their enrollment. Based on my research with over 100 parents for my book, Hyper Education: Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough, I learned that such parents worry that their child otherwise will not be adequately challenged in schools, even before the onset of remote learning. They also fear that their child would fall behind peers who are being tutored. Learning is sold at younger and younger ages as parents seek an academic edge. Junior Kumon starts at age three; I even saw a child in a diaper at a center. Parents even believe that after-school academics instills values of hard work, sacrifice, and more. The fact that the child does not like this after-school activity is not necessarily a reason to stop.

Yet what parents see as essential to their child’s development can be detrimental. Teachers bemoan this trend. They struggle to appropriately reach elementary and middle school children with increasingly wide ranges of abilities, which is prone to grow by the fall. What’s more, as children in well-ranked schools seek private, corporate-sponsored education, it appears as if even the best schools are failing to properly serve our youth. This becomes one more rebuke of our public-school system.

While teachers lament their own struggles, they dwell on their worries for the children. Teachers see stressed-out youth prone to either crying or silence due to increased academic pressure, much more than parents realize. Nor is it only those tutored who are stressed. One student I interviewed who performed at grade level in her well-ranked school confessed that she felt “stupid” relative to peers who “were three years ahead because of [their tutoring].”

Tutored students are not necessarily better off in the long run either and, in fact, could encounter obstacles to in-depth learning. According to a middle school math teacher, students with supplemental education “do more posturing in class” because they feel they know the subject already. They also can be “bored” in class if they have covered the material already. What’s more, they lose a love of learning, another educator said. If youth are not invested in their after-school education, they come to see all education as a chore to get through. Such monetary and emotional costs are all the more unnecessary given that well-resourced schools, such as the ones many of these families attend, often have a good record of educating children.

Fears over children’s learning are understandable now more than ever. But the costs of tutoring go beyond the financial. Unless their children are well behind grade level and can enter effective programs, parents should avoid the treadmill of extra academics for the sake of their children and others. Especially after the school year so many have had, youth deserve a summer of childhood.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Destination San Francisco: Muni Gets You to All the Sights

Destination San Francisco: Muni Gets You to All the Sights By 39 Coit servicing Coit Tower at Telegraph Hill – one of the routes that will be returning in August 2021 as part of Muni’s next service changes. San Francisco is reopening and the  SFMTA is supporting economic recovery by providing Muni access to 98% of the city.  By August 2021, a majority of our pre-COVID routes will be back in service connecting residents and visitors with world-class shopping and dining experiences, off-the-beaten-path local flare, diverse neighborhoods and almost boundless outdoor activities.  Shops, Markets & Dining in Diverse Neighborhoods  Virtually every neighborhood in San Francisco has its own boutique shopping and dining experiences, as well as unique farmers markets showcasing local shops and amenities....

How Improving Muni Also Makes Life Better for Drivers

How Improving Muni Also Makes Life Better for Drivers By Andrea Buffa Photo credit: We Ride Australia If you mostly drive to get around San Francisco, you may be wondering, “what has the SFMTA done for me lately?” San Francisco is a “ transit first ” city, so at the SFMTA we focus our resources on making it easier for San Franciscans to get around by public transit as well as by biking, walking and personal mobility device. While it may seem like adding transit lanes and protected bike lanes doesn’t have anything to do with driving, in fact, it does.  Since San Francisco doesn’t have room to give more space to roads, we have to change the way we use the limited space on our existing streets. (Not that adding more roads reduces traffic anyway – check out this article .) City Traffic Engineer Ricardo Oleo puts it this way: “When you have a city like San Francisco that was built with density in mind, having everyone drive is not a viable option. There’s not enough room to have th...

Safer and Easier Parking in Every City-Owned Facility

Safer and Easier Parking in Every City-Owned Facility By Pamela Johnson Parking at any of our 22 city-owned facilities is now easier and safer than ever. Late last month we completed the Parking Access Revenue and Control Systems (PARCS) project. This four-year effort replaced aging parking equipment with modern technology and significant operational upgrades. Customer using new PARCS kiosk at North Beach parking garage Patrons will notice enhanced lighting, new wayfinding signs, audible alarms, cameras, gate arms, and payment machines with two-way digital intercoms . Behind the scenes is an all-new parking management system and 24/7 command center, connected to every machine. Can’t find your ticket to pay for parking?  No worries! Thanks to license plate recognition technology, cameras located at every facility’s entrance capture patrons’ plate numbers as they arrive . If a customer loses her ticket, the manager is able to re-issue a ticket based on her license plate...

Last Chance - 2022 Muni Service Network Survey Closes October 1, 2021

Last Chance - 2022 Muni Service Network Survey Closes October 1, 2021 By Mariana Maguire SFMTA staff talks with customer about 2022 Muni service options at farmer’s market pop-up event. The SFMTA recently introduced three options for increasing Muni service in early 2022. We launched efforts to get community input on them, including a brief survey that closes Friday, October 1. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, there are still a few days left! You can find the survey link at SFMTA.com/2022Network. We’ve received more than 4,000 survey responses so far and a few hundred calls to our hotline and feedback to our TellMuni@SFMTA.com email. You can also provide feedback on the shortened J Church route and changes to the 23 Monterey, 57 Parkmerced, 35 Eureka and 48 Quintara/24th Street by contacting TellMuni@SFMTA.com or 415.646.2005. All three alternatives to increase Muni bus service in early 2022 have the same amount of total bus service – they’re just arranged differently. Th...

Sunday Streets Returns October 17, with Phoenix Day

Sunday Streets Returns October 17, with Phoenix Day By Pamela Johnson For 13 years, the SFMTA and Livable City have brought "Sunday Streets" to San Francisco neighborhoods. Sunday Streets encourages communities to transform miles of car-congested streets into car-free spaces for neighbors to gather, kids to play, and for organizations and businesses to connect. On October 17, 2021, after more than 18 months of Covid-related shutdowns, Sunday Streets Phoenix Day will again bring free recreational activities, resources, and fun to the streets for tens of thousands of San Franciscans to enjoy. While Sunday Streets was celebrated in one neighborhood at a time in the past, this year's Phoenix Day spans various districts in the City for a simultaneous celebration of community, health, and resilience. This year's theme is "One City. One day. Rising together.”  Highlights this year include historic Sunday Streets SF routes, a 20+ mile community bike ride, three neighb...

FOX NEWS: Students sing to teacher with stage 4 cancer outside hospital: 'It was overwhelming' In an emotional goodbye visit, 26 children sang worship songs prior to Carol Mack's move to hospice care

Students sing to teacher with stage 4 cancer outside hospital: 'It was overwhelming' In an emotional goodbye visit, 26 children sang worship songs prior to Carol Mack's move to hospice care via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3GWyQ6G

Muni Service Changes Starting June 13

Muni Service Changes Starting June 13 By Mariana Maguire Beginning Saturday, June 13, the SFMTA will increase Muni service and frequency, add select routes into service and extend some current routes to continue to support essential trips. A key goal of these service increases is to support the community’s economic recovery by providing more connections to neighborhood commercial districts as businesses begin to reopen. We are also adding more frequent service on targeted routes to help address crowding and improve onboard physical distancing. These service changes will improve transit access through Chinatown, SoMa and the Excelsior neighborhoods, identified by the Muni’s Service Equity Strategy as neighborhoods that rely on transit service the most based on the percentage of households with low incomes, private vehicle ownership and race and ethnicity demographics. Although Muni continues to be for essential trips only, many people have no choice but to use transit to r...

New top story from Time: ‘We’re Nowhere Close to the Deal’. Coronavirus Aid Package Talks Break Down as Trump Rejects Help for Cities

https://ift.tt/3098lHW WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday dismissed Democratic demands for aid to cash-strapped cities in a new coronavirus relief package and lashed out at Republican allies as talks stalemated over assistance for millions of Americans. Another lawmaker tested positive for the virus. Republicans, beset by delays and infighting, signaled a willingness to swiftly approve a modest package to revamp a $600 weekly unemployment benefit that’s running out. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., roundly rejected that approach as meager, all but forcing Republicans back to the negotiating table. Without action, the aid expires Friday. “We’re nowhere close to the deal,” said White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. He said they’re “miles apart.” Stark differences remain between the $3 trillion proposal from Democrats and $1 trillion counter from Republicans, a standoff that is testing Trump and Congress ahead of the November election and putting...

Gene Henderson: Honoring Muni’s First Black Division Manager

Gene Henderson: Honoring Muni’s First Black Division Manager By Jeremy Menzies In recognition of Black History Month, we bring you the story of Gene Henderson, the first Black man to become the head of a Muni bus division, Muni’s Kirkland Division. Henderson’s Background Gene Henderson was born in Houston, Texas, in 1916. He married his wife Naomi in 1939 and then served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Following the war, Gene and his family moved to San Francisco where he began his career at the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Early Career On February 1, 1946, Henderson was hired as a streetcar motorman out of Sutro Division, which was located on the corner of 32nd Ave. and Clement St. He was hired just five years after Muni’s first Black transit operator, Audley Cole, had successfully fought to integrate the carmen’s union in 1941. In his early days at Muni, Gene worked one of the three lines running out of Sutro Division from the Ferry Building to the Richmond District o...

FOX NEWS: 6-year-old girl died after theme park ride operators failed to buckle her in: report A new report revealed the apparent cause of a tragic accident at a Colorado theme park earlier this month.

6-year-old girl died after theme park ride operators failed to buckle her in: report A new report revealed the apparent cause of a tragic accident at a Colorado theme park earlier this month. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/39Ix5eg