Blame Game
The first thing I did before writing this article was search for free tutor programs around the country on the internet. I wanted to see how difficult of a task it was to locate help for the student. My search yielded over million results via Google but the first few I called was private companies who charged for their services. I then thought it would be better to search your local school district for assistance, but a search on the Chicago Public Schools website gave me no immediate solutions. I found this to be kind of frustrating and confusing, because one of the main criteria’s for public school funding is student performance. You would think there would be fliers and announcements throughout the school, encouraging needy students to join the programs. If not from the government at least by local school officials and teachers who jobs now depend on the student. Steven Pines, executive director of the Education Industry Association, a trade group that represents businesses like textbook, testing and tutoring companies said “If this was Year 1 or 2, I’d cut the districts more slack in somehow explaining the lack of aggressive outreach.” As a matter of fact, throughout my brief search, I have yet to find an exclusive company or school that says, ‘hey we offer free tutor programs for your kid, come and sign up, and this how you do it.’ You know the same way those stores in the hood that have those big signs in the front that reads “WE ACCEPT LINK.” A friend told me once “straight talk leads to straight understanding.” On the other hand those teachers, officials and even the private tutor companies argue that there isn’t enough funding to support that kind of outreach to the students. Nina Rees, an assistant deputy secretary at the Department of Education said, “This can be time consuming, and a lot of districts don’t have the capacity to administer a program like this while administering all of the other grants they are charged with administering.” Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the supporters of the bill echoed the same thing when asked about NCLB Act a couple years ago. “The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not.”
If You Still Need Help
Kids are not required to sign up for the free tutoring programs. It should be offered and made aware to the students by the Education Department and/or local school officials. Based on my experience going through these channels is like going through a jungle and only the strong survive. Within a standard Google search there are a couple sites that let you know the requirements for entering the free programs and also the process of getting started. Also on this website in the recent post section is a posting titled Free tutoring under the No Child Left Behind Law which answers some questions about tutoring programs throughout the nation.
This Article First Appeared in The Black Truth News Volume 1 Issue 9 August 2010