Five years ago, congress, as part of No Child Left Behind, approved a program that required under-performing schools to provide free tutoring services to their students. The program was well intentioned—after all, one-on-one tutoring is one of only a few measures known to improve student performance. Yet, after five years, of the more than 2 million children eligible for tutoring, only 19% received it during the 2004–2005 school year. While the number of children receiving tutoring services has been improving, it is still woefully short of reaching its full potential. In one-fifth of the school districts required to provide tutoring services, not a single child was served.

The snags are what you might expect:

• Schools can’t recruit in rural areas or for students with disabilities.
• Poor communication home to parents from the schools.
• Tutors from private firms are not being allowed into schools.
• Poor quality tutoring services.

There are many successful programs, and one of the most successful, that I am aware of, is Project More centered in Northwest Ohio. This project has served rural schools using volunteer tutors. Efficacy studies, conducted by Bowling Green State University, have shown that students tutored in the federally funded project make significant gains. The program has expanded and now serves urban and suburban districts. Programs affiliated with Project More are run by local districts and the per-pupil cost is incredibly low. For more information on Project More, contact afreeman@pm.noacsc.org.

Don’t forget to check out Reading-Tutors.com. It has 200 downloadable tutoring packets for volunteer tutors, classroom aides, and parents to use when helping kids to read. The packets cover the main elements of reading. Get the most out of tutoring sessions by providing tutors with the resources they need when teaching kids to read.