Online Tutoring: How Far Will We Go?

“Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best./Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.” — Dr. Seuss from Oh, The Places You’ll Go (1990)

Cope and Kalantzis (2000) suggest that the purpose of education “is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life.”  It stands to reason, then, that we should afford our students every opportunity to succeed — and ensuring that all students, no matter their socioeconomic status, have access to affordable tutoring, should be a part of any system that advocates equal educational opportunity.

So it was with great interest that I read Julia Wedigier’s article, “British Kids Log On and Learn Math — in Punjab,” in the New York Times on Sunday.  According to the article, an relatively recent upstart U.K. online tutoring company, BrightSpark, makes its service available at a discount — affordable to many poor and working class Britons who would otherwise be unable to afford the expense of a standard tutor — by hiring tutors in India and making them available via the Internet for British schoolchildren who struggle with math.  The tutors and students conduct sessions through interactive white boards, usually for 45 minute sessions.  While teachers’ unions seem up in arms — of course, they see this as a potential threat — those in favor point to the cost-benefit:  the service opens up a new market of (cheaper) tutors.  Tutors in India are paid 1/3 of those in the U.K., and there is a wealth of expertise waiting to be tapped.

As I investigated BrightSpark, I was interested to discover other companies who perform the same types of services, particularly in the United States.  TutorVista is one such company and — perhaps not so amazingly — is owned by Pearson — the same company responsible for managing testing and data systems in many U.S. public schools (read:  monopoly through NCLB).  After all, their web site — and some of the press they and similar companies  have received — made it seem like their service was the best thing since sliced bread, especially for students and families who would otherwise be unable to afford services usually reserved for those from the privileged classes.  And don’t all of our students deserve these benefits?  This is their pitch, anyway.

Upon first glance at TutorVista.com’s site, I was impressed with the statistic that they’d sponsored over 5.6 million online tutoring sessions.  If I had the skills and education, I could apply to be a tutor, working from the comfort of my home, making extra income.  Scrolling down the page, I became less than impressed with the credibility of the site, as it asked me to “Read what some of our tutor’s say about being an online tutor.”  Ironically, according to the site’s main page, most subjects are available for tutoring, though one would expect a multimillion dollar multinational company to proofread its web pages — even if they are aimed at recruiting employees for whom English is a second language.

Errors notwithstanding, I was curious to see what would happen if I responded to TutorVista via email.   Here is the correspondence:

To Whom It May Concern:

I read about your company after reading about a similar British company in a New York Times article.  You may wish to have one of your tutors, or one better familiar with the English language, proofread both your Home page and the Apply Now page, as there are errors (misplaced apostrophes and incorrect words) on them.  I would expect a more professionally written page from a Pearson owned company.  Such errors do not lend very much credibility to a tutoring service.

Best,

Brigitte Knudson

Dear Tutor,

Thank you for your interest in TutorVista.

We are sorry to inform you that as per our business requirement, we are currently only considering candidates based in India.  In case there is a change in our requirement and we look at candidates from abroad, your candidature will definitely be considered.

Thanks & Regards

TutorVista HR

email: hr@tutorvista.com

My assumption is that although there are many qualified teachers in the United States who could work for TutorVista, a subsidiary of Pearson, they would rather outsource jobs to India.  Interestingly, I never asked about a position tutoring; I only wrote to draw their attention to inaccuracies on the site.

So what is the purpose of sites like this?  According to TutorVista, they have received press both in the U.S. on NBC and in the U.K. on the BBC, major television outlets.  Do they exist to fulfill a need?  Are such companies serving to both exploit cheap foreign labor while teaching to the tests written by the same companies who write and/or facilitate them?  Is any real learning happening or are students merely “learning” how to prepare to choose the best letter on a standardized test?  After all, TutorVista prepares students for SAT and AP testing.

Are we affording our students opportunities for success, or are we merely funneling them further into a system of standardization?

Waiting for Superman?

 

My reading of the press surrounding Guggenheim’s film Waiting for Superman has been accompanied by intermittent outbursts of giggling mixed with gagging.  While his film presents a very real snapshot of the inequities in our public education system, particularly concerning some of our struggling urban schools, his depiction of charter schools, which represent only three percent of all public schools in the country, is nowhere near accurate.  Like our exemplary public schools, there are exemplary charter schools, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Response to his film, however, has resulted in a nationwide dialogue on education, including a website called Not Waiting for Superman, focusing on Rethinking Reform.

It cannot be argued, however, that the current focus on standardized testing is the solution to the perceived problems in American education.  What Guggenheim does draw our attention to is the reality of inequity in our schools.  Students who live in our richest neighborhoods — or who have parents who have the means to send them to private schools — receive a much different education than those who do not.  This is not only about the way we fund our schools, but also about the social supports our society has in place to ensure children and families have the security that enables equal educational opportunity.

We could learn quite a bit by following Finland’s example.  In Finland,  a country that now ranks number one in the world in K-12 education after completely overhauling its failing system 30 years ago, “more 99% of students now successfully complete compulsory basic education” (Darling-Hammond, “Steady Work:  Finland Builds a Strong Teaching and Learning System”).  In addition, instead of placing blame on teachers, the Finns embrace them and invest in them.  According to Darling-Hammond, “all teachers receive three years of high-quality graduate level preparation completely at state expense.”  The Finns equitably allocate the resources for those who need them most, have high standards for all while supporting those with special needs, ensure qualified teachers with a competitive university system where only the top 15% of students who apply are accepted into teacher education programs at universities, and maintain a delicate balance between national regulation and local autonomy.  Moreover, the Finns hold the core educational principle that they must address the whole child and, as a result, all students receive a free meal at school each day, in addition to free health care, transportation, learning materials, and counseling (Darling-Hammond). At home, social supports for the entire family exist that include health and dental care, special education services, and transportation to school (Darling-Hammond).

And for all of the money spent on Finland’s schools, there is only one standardized examination given:  for those who wish to attend university.  Students receive feedback from teachers in the form of narrative comments instead of grades or numbers, so the whole child is addressed.  The idea is to use the information to improve learning and the children’s ability to work in groups and solve problems — real world activities — not to punish students, their teachers, or schools, as is the case with No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top in the United States.

Perhaps the United States still suffers from the stigma of having always been number one.  Now we can’t swallow our pride and admit that it’s not the case anymore.  Politicians are trying to place blame on schools and teachers when, in fact, test scores are really better than they’ve ever been (really, they are).  If we really want to compete with the world, however, perhaps we should look to who is number one and study what they do.  Let’s look at Finland.  Let’s study their system and mimic it.  Let’s strive to be equitable.  Let’s eliminate all social barriers so that all of our students are on equal footing.  Let’s be sure that all of our teachers are the best and the brightest by paying them a top salary, paying for their college education (and making it competitive for them to even get into teacher education programs), and revamping the way we train and ease them into the classroom.  Let’s send our professors and teachers to Finland for exchange to study their system.  Let’s send our politicians there to see how they do it.

It took Finland only 30 years to completely turn around their system.  We don’t need to wait for Superman.  He is within us all.

Are we too proud and too stubborn to enact real change?

Literacy Demands and the Workplace

If I were of the canine species, my reaction to reading Beaufort’s “Preparing Adolescents for the Literacy Demands of the 21^st-Century Workplace” (Christenbury et al., 2009, pp. 239-255) would have immediately resulted in my hackles being raised.  Instead, I read her arguments with great interest, yet also concern, as I disagree with some of her assumptions.  Even in the introduction to this section of the text, “Literacy Out of School,” the editors contextualize the importance of literacy outside of school by excerpting A Test of Leadership, a document that assumes a utilitarian view of education, citing that “business and government leaders have repeatedly and urgently called for workers in all stages of life to continually upgrade their academic and practical skills” (p. 237).  Noting counterpoints, of which Beaufort’s chapter is one, the editors, like the author, fail to question the validity of market-driven discourses.  Instead, they assume “that many workplace values and practices are specific to the culture of a particular profession and the corporate values of individual businesses” (p. 238), a position, that while not untrue, sets the nature of education – specifically literacy education – as one that is purely service-oriented.  In essence, an ironic contrast given what Beaufort proposes.

Beaufort begins the chapter by immediately drawing connections to economy and utility.  While she is not incorrect in asserting that adolescents who do not have advanced literacy skills are often shut out of jobs – or job advancement – because of their lack of ability to think critically and write effectively, traits that are valued in the workplace (p. 239), her focus on education merely as preparation for work – a utilitarian function – addresses an incomplete philosophy of the purposes of education.  In this way, she is not unlike conservative writer Charles Murray, who argued in an op-ed piece in the New York Times that education is a utilitarian concept linked to economic functionality.  Simply, we educate the populous to perform tasks that ultimately serve to keep our market-driven economy operating successfully, ignoring the perspective that education, albeit idealistically, also serves as a tool for personal enlightenment as well as one of social utility.  By understanding how to think critically and write effectively, as Beaufort suggests, people are equipped with the skills to engage in pertinent matters that are political, social, or otherwise.  To reduce the argument to cultivating “literate behaviors” as they contribute to developing the “skills required in the various jobs [students] will do” (p. 240), especially targeting blue-collar workers and the changes reflected in blue-collar occupations as a result of the transition from a manufacturing-based to a technologically-based economy (p. 241), is telling and reminiscent of age-old arguments about the purpose of education.  Further, her suggestion that high school curricula be rewritten to facilitate both student independence and greater exposure to non-fiction texts (p. 251), while not bad, too easily dismisses the critical thinking and independence that can as easily be fostered with other texts (digital, film, fiction, etc.) given a knowledgeable and effective instructor.

Arguments addressing the purpose of education are myriad, though a brief article, “Liberal Education Versus Vocational Training,” appearing in Harper’s Magazine in 1944 and written by Medford Evans and George R. Clark, addresses these disparate views:

“In every society where there is a ruling class there is one kind of education for rulers and another for the ruled. Vocational training, which confines itself to teaching skills, tends to limit the individual’s interest in general social problems and to discourage intelligent participation in political life. As such, it is the ideal education for the servants of the ruling class. It is sharply distinguished from a vital program of liberal education such as that which provides a broad general training for rulers … The real issue is a political rather than an academic one: how widely available should liberal education be? There is no more radical and democratic idea afloat in educational circles today than that of providing liberal education for everyone” (p. 60).

Only because the needs of industry have changed – not because of an altruistic desire to improve the worker’s plight– is the focus on preparing workers with the skills necessary to succeed in the workplace salient.  Interestingly, though Beaufort supports preparing students by, among other things, “introducing them to the concept of discourse communities and the social nature of written communication” (p. 248), these goals have been hampered by the implementation of widespread standardized testing, which, in many cases, has resulted in teaching a disproportionate amount of working-class students skills using methods that are at odds with a dynamic curriculum that encourages independent and critical thinking as well as one that values the varied and complex nature of writing.   So, while Beaufort’s suggestions regarding curriculum design and assessment are not far removed from what schools encourage – and teachers implement – in traditionally successful programs, it is questionable how much free thought and skill industry wishes its workers to have before they are considered counterproductive to a greed-based, market-driven economy.