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Re: AUT: The rise of the "tutoring industry"....

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Major source of growth of tutoring in the US is competition for entrance into
more elite colleges (most colleges accept most of their applicants in the US)
-- takes first off the form of coaching for SAT and ACT, the two main exams,
and others.

For anyone having difficulties (learning disabled or not), and parents have
money, tutors are an answer - beginning often at an early age. Much of the
official "tutoring" however is either going to a group space (like Japanese
juko) for instruction, tho the instruction may be "individualized" - yet take
the form of practicing for mulitple-choice tests -- places like Sylvan (which
has now opened universities in several countries). Another rapidly growing
form takes place on line - you log on for your test prep, and someone (the
"tutor") responds - or at times just a computer responds, even for writing
exercises. Much of this latter is about the continuing effort of capital to
find a way around the expensiveness of the teacher in the classroom, which
has been an essentially insurmountable obstacle to "efficiency" in education
(well, in schooling anyway).

Now more states have high school exit exams (no pass, no diploma), and a
coaching industry has grown up around that, which includes tutoring of
various sorts noted above.

A new wrinkle has been added by the new federal education law, the
Orwellian-titled "Leave No Child Behind Act" (aka, leave no child untested
but many children behind act). This says that a student in a school receiving
federal funds (many do, but in US most funding is state and local; feds
contribute about 7 percent) that has failed to make gains on tests for 2-3
years in a row is eligible for tutoring in which a share of the federal money
can be used by the parent to pay a state-approved tutoring program - the
funds deducted from the school budget (thus guaranteeing further failure).
This maneuver was introduced when it became quickly clear that Congress would
not fund a voucher program for students to go to private schools. This is a
step toward privatization of education delivery. Tests are the measuring tool
to be used to help parents decide on a delivery source.

Anyone interested in testing and the new federal law in the US, go to
www.fairtest.org, short on overall systemic analysis, long on lots of details
on how the testing works educationally.

Monty

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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT  SIZE=2>Major source of growth of tutoring in the US is competition for entrance into more elite colleges (most colleges accept most of their applicants in the US) -- takes first off the form of coaching for SAT and ACT, the two main exams, and others.
<BR>
<BR>For anyone having difficulties (learning disabled or not), and parents have money, tutors are an answer - beginning often at an early age. Much of the official "tutoring" however is either going to a group space (like Japanese juko) for instruction, tho the instruction may be "individualized" - yet take the form of practicing for mulitple-choice tests -- places like Sylvan (which has now opened universities in several countries). Another rapidly growing form takes place on line - you log on for your test prep, and someone (the "tutor") responds - or at times just a computer responds, even for writing exercises. Much of this latter is about the continuing effort of capital to find a way around the expensiveness of the teacher in the classroom, which has been an essentially insurmountable obstacle to "efficiency" in education (well, in schooling anyway).
<BR>
<BR>Now more states have high school exit exams (no pass, no diploma), and a coaching industry has grown up around that, which includes tutoring of various sorts noted above.
<BR>
<BR>A new wrinkle has been added by the new federal education law, the Orwellian-titled "Leave No Child Behind Act" (aka, leave no child untested but many children behind act). This says that a student in a school receiving federal funds (many do, but in US most funding is state and local; feds contribute about 7 percent) that has failed to make gains on tests for 2-3 years in a row is eligible for tutoring in which a share of the federal money can be used by the parent to pay a state-approved tutoring program - the funds deducted from the school budget (thus guaranteeing further failure). This maneuver was introduced when it became quickly clear that Congress would not fund a voucher program for students to go to private schools. This is a step toward privatization of education delivery. Tests are the measuring tool to be used to help parents decide on a delivery source.
<BR>
<BR>Anyone interested in testing and the new federal law in the US, go to www.fairtest.org, short on overall systemic analysis, long on lots of details on how the testing works educationally.
<BR>
<BR>Monty </FONT></HTML>

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