Tutors’ grade: Incomplete

Monday, June 11, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.

This is what the Nevada Education Department can tell us: Since 2004 almost $12 million has been spent on private tutoring services for students in its poorest, most struggling schools, mostly in Clark County.

This is what the Nevada Education Department can't tell us: whether the thousands of hours of tutoring have helped.

"We know how many students are being served by each provider, and how much those providers are being paid," said Fawn Lewis, the education department consultant overseeing the program. "In terms of whether or not the tutoring is improving academic outcomes, we have done no independent assessment of any kind."

How is it possible that so much money has been spent on a program with no documentation of results and only minimal oversight of the private companies providing the services?

Because Nevada doesn't have the money or staff to conduct the federally mandated assessment of the tutoring efforts.

Other states are in the same boat, according to a report last year by the Government Accountability Office, the independent congressional watchdog agency. As of 2006 only New Mexico and Tennessee had even attempted to assess their state's tutoring programs, investigators found.

The requirement that school districts provide tutoring to students in their poorest, lowest-achieving schools - or offer those students transfers and transportation to better-performing campuses - is a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act, a White House education initiative Congress adopted in 2001 to close the achievement gaps for poor students who have long lagged behind their more affluent peers.

Critics of the law, which is facing new scrutiny as it comes up for reauthorization, say the worthwhile goals are not being met.

One way of measuring progress would be to quantify the results of tutoring. But such tracking is not occurring across the country.

"It's the state's responsibility to oversee the programs and make sure they are effective - for the most part, that's simply not happening," said Gary Huggins, director of the Commission on No Child Left Behind, a nonpartisan committee formed to examine the law and recommend changes. "How can we be sure something's working if we don't know what the results are?"

The federal government is so frustrated, it announced last year it may start withholding money from states that don't monitor and evaluate their tutoring programs - even though the GAO said states haven't received the federal help they need to develop those assessments.

The distribution of students receiving tutoring in Nevada has been uneven. The small districts of Lyon, Nye and White Pine counties have spent a combined $363,394 serving 441 students since 2004, according to figures provided by the Nevada Department of Education. Rural Elko and Carson City school districts were unable to find providers willing to serve remote schools.

Washoe County, the state's second-largest school district, has been required by the No Child Left Behind Act to provide tutoring services since 2005, and since then has spent nearly $740,000 on services for 1,884 students.

During the 2004-05 school year, Clark County provided tutoring to students at 14 schools, at a cost of about $1.6 million in federal Title 1 funds, which are earmarked for schools with high percentages of students from low-income households.

The number of eligible schools has since soared to 34, with nearly $5 million allocated for the 2006-07 school year. The district plans to spend $1.5 million more on tutoring over the summer.

The School District earmarks $1,224 per student - an amount determined by the state - to pay for tutoring. Parents receive a list of providers, with hourly rates ranging from $29.50 for a group session at a school to $68 for in-home, one-on-one instruction. Some parents want their child to receive individual attention even if it means fewer hours of tutoring, while others prefer the convenience and supervision of after-school group sessions on campus.

Of the more than 26,000 students eligible for tutoring or transfer to a better school, about 4,000 signed up for tutoring and fewer than 900 sought school transfers.

Seven private companies provide tutors for the district, but most work for the Clark County Education Association Community Foundation, a partner of the teachers union.

The federal law has no minimum education requirements for tutors, and the federal report found qualifications ranged widely from state to state. In Clark County, nearly all the tutors are licensed teachers.

Although the state doesn't know how effective the tutoring is, the teachers foundation, which tutors 1,610 students, claims gains of 18 percent in math scores and 16 percent in reading and writing scores among its elementary school students last year. At the middle school level, math scores increased about 5 percent and reading and writing went up nearly 8 percent.

Education Station, a nationwide tutoring company serving 312 students at 11 Clark County schools, said its students - particularly English language learners - made strong gains in overall literacy.

School officials say they are frustrated, however, that they can't advertise to parents which companies do the best job, but only answer specific questions from parents. Only after two years of poor performance may a district petition the state to remove a company from the list of approved providers.

Federal law requires tutoring providers to send monthly progress reports to classroom teachers and parents. But not all companies comply, and districts can't do anything about it. In Clark County, the level of communication between tutoring companies and school principals varies from company to company.

But it's getting better, said Kelly Sturdy, principal of Fay Herron Elementary School in North Las Vegas, which has more than 400 students receiving tutoring. The first year of the program "was a mess," she said. Principals were told not to involve themselves in the tutoring program.

"It was like we were overstepping our bounds if we asked for a progress report," Sturdy said. "They weren't communicating with us and we weren't telling them what our kids needed."

There's been steady improvement since , Sturdy said. She meets regularly with tutors who provide services at Herron, and expects her classroom teachers to foll ow up on the progress reports.

Although anecdotal evidence suggests tutoring helps - no surprise there - educators caution that many students already are stellar performers who are seeking to perform even better, while the most needy students may not even sign up for help.

The district had hoped to test all its tutored students this year to assess the program, but several companies refused to cooperate, saying it wasn't part of their contract. And because the company that was hired to evaluate the results was overwhelmed, several schools say they are still awaiting the results of last fall's testing.

The district says it will probably try again next year, using a quarterly benchmark test that its classroom teachers are already required to administer.

Federal auditors, meanwhile, are waiting for Nevada to develop its process to evaluate tutors.

The problem, State Superintendent Keith Rheault said, is money. The federal No Child Left Behind Act didn't provide money to help states cover the cost of evaluating and monitoring the program.

In a state already overwhelmed by the red tape that has accompanied the federal education law, oversight of Nevada's tutoring program has dropped near the bottom of the priority list. The state plans to spend $50,000 to evaluate the tutoring program , but must find someone to do it.

Even though the responsibility of evaluating the success of tutoring doesn't rest on the district's shoulders, Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes says he may step in.

"I may, out of necessity, have to do something," Rulffes said. "We need evidence of what's working and what's not working. There has to be accountability."

In the meantime Nevada, like the rest of the nation, will continue to set aside millions of dollars in federal funds each year, to be spent on a program that may not be doing any good at all.

"I wish I could tell you we know for sure our kids are doing better," Lewis said. "The reality is, we have no idea."