Private tutors for Clark County

Another story dealing with No Child Left Behind this morning on the pages of the Review Journal. You might remember my previous commentary on the subject matter. It's no secret, I'm vehemently opposed to it.

We'll be getting our results as far as how well we stood up to the restrictions set forth by the Federal Government tomorrow, and according to the article, it's a gloomy forecast.

The bright side is, we'll be getting money from the Federal Stimulus Package regardless, and that's something; we won't be destitute. The article says the Nevada Department of Education is choosing to use the money on private tutors, and I think their heart is in the right place.

In my experience as a teacher, kids of all ages benefit from close attention. My theory is, parents don't care enough to get involved with their kids' schoolwork, thus, the students are starved for attention.

There simply isn't enough time in the school day to take care of every student's needs one on one. So, if we can't force parents to be parents, some individual tutoring will certainly help. The article says we'll get $6.9 million, which averages out to $1,400/student, which equates to about 24 tutoring sessions in a school year, depending on how much the tutor charges.

Granted, that number is pretty weak, over a 9 month school year, that's less than one hour/week. However, not every kid will need tutoring, and not every kid who needs tutoring will want to participate. With that kind of funding, students who will benefit from a tutoring program should be able to have a one hour tutoring session with a decent tutor once/week. And that really is enough to make a difference.

In my opinion, that's only the 2nd best thing they could do with the money. $6.9 million is a lot of money. That's enough to employ nearly 200 starting teachers. Granted, there are over 300 schools in Clark County. But, not every school is grossly overcrowded. Distributing 200 new teachers among the schools with the densest classroom populations has enormous potential.

Remember, it's your school district, funded by your money. If you have kids, and you want to see improvement, tell the School District how you want them educated. Here's a link to the CCSD's Curriculum and Professional Development department. Pick someone and tell them what you think.