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Showing posts with label critical tutoring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label critical tutoring. Show all posts
Our kids are under a lot of pressure these days to perform. This can lead to a high amount of anxiety right before a major school test which can impact how they do on the test. Here are a couple easy to do exercises that will greatly reduce their worries and help in their test taking.
Expert Annie Murphy Paul shares two techniques where kids put pen to paper and scribble their worries away.
Tutoring and affordability is a subject that is very near and dear to our hearts here at Athena. We deal with it every day. We would love to see professional, quality tutoring available and affordable to every child who needs it. While our legislature has made some attempts to deal with the problem, they are often short sighted and lacking. What's worse, the children who some of these programs were designed to help the most are often ineligible due to technicalities that weren't very well thought out. This article deals with the subject very well. Look for more insights at the end.
Have you ever struggled in school? A common solution to that problem is to hire a tutor. However, a problem today is the lack of affordable tutoring for those in need of it. Providing more academic aid to students can help them get better grades and hopefully get into a better college.
The fee for a tutor can range from $10 for a high school student to $75 for a certified teacher per hour. This can be extremely expensive, especially if a student receives frequent tutoring. Students and parents in lower income areas may be unwilling to spend that extra money or be unable to afford it, but students who can afford it gain an advantage over others who cannot and have been shown to have significantly higher mean scores in both language arts and math standardized tests when compared to an untutored control group.
In 2012, over 50% of students in U.S. public schools were considered low income for the first time in
at least 50 years. A lack of affordable tutoring is an increasingly large issue that now affects the majority of public high school students and the gap between low-income and wealthier students is only increasing.
Students should be given as equal a chance as possible to do well in school, regardless of their economic situation and should be able to receive extra help if needed. Tutors can focus on a specific student’s needs, which is often hard to accomplish in large groups.
It was due to similar concerns that Congress passed its No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. The goal of the act is to provide federal funds to schools with poor students and “improve educational equity for students from lower income families”.
Although the act can also cover tutoring costs, less than 15% of eligible students are currently receiving it. Also, districts are only qualified if they attend Title I schools, which are school districts with at least 35% of students’ families categorized as low income. Students are qualified if they attend the district and receive a free or reduced-price lunch.
Much more can be done to raise awareness of these programs and further encourage students to seek tutoring, especially if the costs are covered under the act. Since the program already exists, people should be encouraged to us it. However, one issue with the No Child Left Behind Act is that it caused a rise in companies charging the maximum covered by the act of $2,000 per student for 50 hours for unqualified tutors. This problem can be solved by an increase in oversight and increased monitoring of the tutoring companies, which would save money being spent on overpriced, unqualified tutors.
While the No Child Left Behind Act does help many of those who need it, it only targets those in
relatively high-poverty areas. Those attending school districts that don’t meet the criteria or whose families are not considered low-income are not affected, even if they need it.
A solution to this problem is volunteer tutoring. Many high school and some college students are required to provide community service and many are members of community service organizations that are willing to help. Tutoring could also be beneficial to the elderly and retired - a study in 2009 indicates that tutoring can delay or reverse brain aging in the elderly. Another study found that tutoring led to measurable improvements in physical activity and mental health of the tutors over those who did not.
Organizations such as the Experience Corps, which tutors in 22 cities across the nation, are already working with the interested elderly. Tutors receive no income other than “an annual stipend of about $2,800 that helps cover transportation costs, school lunches and occasional treats for the kids”.
Programs like the Experience Corps should be more widely implemented and in more flexible groups so that a wider range of people can participate. Funding could come from donations and from states or the federal government. Funds are already being used for the No Child Left Behind Act and some could be used for volunteer programs, which could also reduce existing costs for other tutoring under the act.
What amazes me is that well intentioned programs like No Child Left Behind can have such overarching requirements like the child can only be in a Title 1 school. So basically, if you are a poor kid in a rich school, you are out of luck. I understand the thoughts behind it like richer schools should be able to supplement tutoring for poor students easier than poor schools, instead of having nicer football stadiums, or huge marching bands, or....I better just stop there. And don't get me started on blithely handing out ipads to every student thinking this will magically jump them into the 21st century. See an entire article we published about that here: http://athenabcs.blogspot.com/2015/10/why-ipads-and-chromebooks-wont-save.html
So what do you think? What are some of the more pressing concerns we have when it comes to our poorer students? How can we help them best? Leave your comments below.
Being in the education business means you need to stay on top of issues affecting your line of work. Since education affects all of us, especially our children, it's critical to stay "plugged in" to the state of education in our nation and in our state. Outlined here are 10 that we as educators and parents need to be aware of.
Critical issues are those issues that are important to education. They are the barriers that get in the way, or the important elements that we need to focus on in order to move forward and offer better opportunities to our students.
Common Core State Standards - 46 states may have adopted the standards but around a dozen states are backing out or considering backing out of using them. Regardless of how people feel about the Common Core they have led to many hot debates about education, and will continue to do so in 2014.
Student Learning - Student learning is everything from different pathways to graduation, encouraging student voice in student learning, and encouraging them have a place at the table for larger conversations about their education (Lisa Nielsen's Innovative Educator blog that focuses on student voice). So often we focus on teaching, but it's learning that matters most.
Technology - Even after all of these years technology is still a hot button issues. Some people love it and use it flawlessly every day, while others hate it and don't see why they need to be forced to use it at all. In addition what makes it complicated is that some schools seem to have endless resources, while other schools have to use what wealthier schools disregarded as old. Whether its MOOC's, iPads, gaming or BYOD, technology will still be a critical issue to discuss in 2014.
Social Media - Twitter has exploded over the past few years. More and more educators are joining and finding members to their Professional Learning Network (PLN). What's even better is that they are sharing resources to use in their classrooms, buildings and districts, and they are also using it to connect for professional development (i.e. Twitter chats, EdCamps, etc.). Social media will be, and should be, part of a huge discussion in 2015.
Politics - Politicians have long mentioned education in their speeches but the past two years it seemed to have happened more than ever. Many politicians seem to focus on how schools are failing, and their only solution is standardization, accountability and high stakes testing. Many governors, like Andrew Cuomo, are running for re-election this year and education will no doubt make or break their campaigns. How many politicians, like Cuomo and Christie, have spoken about teachers is deplorable and this is the year when teachers continue to take control over that conversation.
High Stakes Testing - Not sure if you have heard of this before but schools across the country have to give high stakes tests to students. Some start it in kindergarten, while others begin in 3rdgrade. In most states they are tied to teacher/administrator evaluation and that will no doubt continue to be a big debate this year. There need to be different methods used to assess student learning, and none of it should be "high stakes."
School Leadership - If you go on Twitter, you will find hundreds of school leaders who consider themselves "Lead Learners." This is very important because they see the important part they play in the lives of their students, teachers and staff. In addition, school leaders understand that they can have a positive or negative impact on their school climate, and too many still have a negative impact.
Pre-service Teaching Programs - How can we get the best teachers into our classrooms when so many politicians and policymakers cry that schools are failing? Under those circumstances, who would want to go into the profession? Additionally, pre-service programs need to improve because many of the graduates do not seem prepared for the profession. The real question for 2014 is how can K-12 schools work with these programs to build a community of learners who are prepared for the profession? A little less accountability tied to testing would go a long way to improve this issue.
School Climate - A few days ago Secretary Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder announced new guidelines to stop the school to prison pipeline and improve school climate. This critical issue is not just about bullying, but about creating an inclusive school climate where all students can achieve their maximum potential.
Poverty - We know around 22% of our students are living in poverty. We also know that many children who live in poverty come to kindergarten hearing 1/8th of the language (vocabulary) that their wealthier peers experienced. Many of the schools that try to educate these students lack the proper resources, and the communities where children in poverty live often lack the same resources that wealthier towns have. Poverty is an issue that is one of the most critical issues of our time, in and out of schools.
In the End
We have many critical issues facing education this year, and the larger question should be...How are we going to work together to solve them? I stopped with ten but probably could have gone on with a few more. What would you add to the list?
