Learn, Baby, Learn
Ryan Kearney, New Haven Advocate, June 29, 2006

Why aren't poor students in underperforming schools taking advantage of free tutoring?

Jene Flores' daughter, a second-grader at Vincent Mauro School in New Haven's Hill neighborhood, was already falling way behind in reading. Then, in February, Flores learned about free after-school tutoring that, as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, is available to low-income students in struggling schools.

Flores immediately enrolled her daughter, who has since spent three days a week, 90 minutes a day, studying after school through an education provider hired by the district. Now, as the school year ends, the girl's reading level meets the benchmark for second-graders. "After-school had a lot to do with it," says Flores.

If only more New Haven parents were like her. Of the approximately 3,900 New Haven public school students who qualified for free tutoring this year, only 429 of them, or 11 percent, took advantage of it, according to Patti Avallone, who supervises supplemental educational services (SES)--as the NCLB-mandated tutoring is called--for the New Haven district.

Elsewhere, it's worse. In Bridgeport, the participation rate is less than 2 percent. Alicia DeSouza-Rocha, a community outreach coordinator at ConnCAN, a New Haven-based nonprofit focused on closing the state's achievement gap in education, estimates that Hartford's rate is around 4 percent. Nationally, according to Avallone, it's about 5 percent.

Why do so few students enroll in free tutoring?

"A lot of it has to do with a lack of knowledge about it," says DeSouza-Rocha. "A lot of [parents] don't even know it exists."

Furthermore, the fliers notifying parents about the tutoring are sometimes "written at a grade level that may be difficult to understand what it is about," she adds. "[Parents] don't realize it's just free tutoring."

While not written in highfalutin language, two letters sent out by the school district in October and January aren't crystal clear, either. The first letter doesn't even include the words "free" or "tutoring," and unnecessarily muddies things by explaining the origins of NCLB and SES. Only deep into the letter does it say, "there is no cost to you." The second letter is an improvement--it actually says "free of charge"--but still refers to tutoring by its jargonistic abbreviation.

By law, all schools receiving Title I federal funds and which have been designated as "In Need of Improvement" for two years or more are required to offer free tutoring to low-income students--and to use Title I dollars to pay for it. This school year, New Haven spent $575,000 on the tutoring. Avallone says any remaining Title 1 money will be used for tutoring next school year, including more aggressive recruitment of eligible students in the fall.

SES providers are approved by the state and, at first glance, New Haven appears to have a glut: the state Department of Education website lists 16 providers who serve New Haven. In reality, though, only five of them actually worked with the New Haven district this year. That's partly because of low demand. All providers require a minimum number of students to enroll; otherwise, it's not cost-effective.

New Haven, which has its own extensive after-school program, does more than its counterparts by allowing year-round enrollment, whereas Hartford and Bridgeport impose deadlines. Hartford also doesn't allow providers into its schools, making it harder for students to participate, says DeSouza-Rocha. Parents at six of the nine eligible schools in New Haven, meanwhile, opted for in-school tutoring, while students from the remaining three schools were tutored at another school or at home.

The number of eligible schools--and thus students--has increased dramatically since NCLB's enactment. That's because every year the achievement bar is raised a little higher, and more schools land on the state's "In Need of Improvement" list. The demand for free tutoring, in turn, is likely to grow and could potentially outstrip what's available. Even now, if every eligible student in New Haven took advantage, there wouldn't be nearly enough providers or enough Title I money to pay them.

Marc Magee, ConnCAN's director of research, hopes it doesn't get to that point.

"Ultimately, there shouldn't be a need for supplementing schools that should be doing this during the school day," he says. "It's never going to make up for a school system that isn't advancing kids as it should be."