| During the 2007-2008 school year, the York Region District School Board has implemented a new
after-school program that is likely to be the beginning of a wave of
similar action by school boards across the province. It
is charging parents of children in Grades 4, 5 and 6 for after-school help
in literacy and mathematics. For $190, students can fill in learning gaps
and try to boost their marks by signing up for 16 hours of small-group
instruction over eight weeks with a certified teacher.
The board says its "Learning
Advantage" program is not a money grab, but merely an attempt to meet
the needs of families who are already turning to private tutoring
businesses for extra help for their children. It also says it can do a
better job than private services because its program is written by experts
and reflects the provincial curriculum.
Whatever the merits of the actual program,
the board is sorely missing the point. By charging for special academic
classes, the board is in reality creating a two-tier education system that
gives extra help to students who can afford to pay for it but leaves their
poorer classmates behind.
The job of a public school is to teach the
provincial academic curriculum to all students who attend its schools, not
compete with private businesses. That means all of the board's programs
should be accessible to all students, regardless of their family
income.
It is unfortunate that the York Region's new
program is being supported by Rick Johnson, the president of the Ontario
Public School Board Association as well as the Provincial Education
Minister, Kathleen Wynne, who sees no difference between York's tutoring
service and other fee-based education services.
There are several elements of the program
that deserve explanation and comment at this time:
- It has been stated that the cost of the
program offered by York is half of what is being charged in shopping
mall tutoring centers. That is a completely false and misleading
comparison.
In fact, the York program is much more expensive than most other
privately operated programs. There are ten students in each of York's
after-school classes. These students range from Grades 4 to 6. At a
cost of $190 for sixteen hours, this works out to $118.75 per hour of
revenue for the program. The instructor's time is being divided up
between ten students, meaning an average of six minutes per student.
Therefore, at $11.75 per class, and six minutes of attention, the
student is actually paying almost $2.00 per minute of attention from
the teacher. That would translate into an hourly rate of $120 an hour
for a one-on-one tutoring session from a private learning coach.
Most private learning centres charge in the neighbourhood of $30 to
$40 per hour. Some have groups of three students sharing a tutor, so
in reality, this would mean that they would be given 20 minutes of
attention and the cost would translate into approximately $1.50 to
$2.00 per minute, or $90 to $120 per hour.
Private tutors who provide direct one-on-one tutoring will charge as
much as $50 to $60 per hour, depending on their qualifications and
experience. The cost to a student then translates into approximately
$1.00 per minute, or half of what the York Region District School
Board is charging. And very few people would argue the benefits of
one-to-one instruction as compared to instruction in groups of 3 or
10.
In fact, the York Board must be making a huge profit on the program
since it is using teachers who are not currently employed by the Board
and therefore must be paying them at a much lower rate than would be
demanded by hiring a union instructor. With a revenue of $118.75 per
hour, and no overhead costs to speak of, the Board must be making at
least $60 per hour from the program.
Therefore, the York Board may be well within its rights to offer the
program in competition with private sector firms, but it should not be
allowed to mislead the public by claiming that it is much less
expensive.
- The Board has claimed that its program is
much better than some private tutoring services because it is less
rote-based and more closely aligned with the Ontario curriculum. The
program teaches a prescribed curriculum written by school-board
experts that focuses on problem-solving and data management, according
to Reg Robson, who administers the board's arm's-length Learning
Connections organization which seeks new ways of drawing students and
revenues.
The reality is clear. When faced with ten students who range in levels
from Grades 4 to 6, the curriculum must be written and delivered as if
this were a separate class of students, no different from the program
they would receive during the day except that it is done with small
classes. And we all know that smaller classes result in a much better
education result.
Robson is correct when he refers to private tutoring companies using
rote-based and worksheet-based programs. Unfortunately, this type of
instruction program is necessary with most private tutoring companies
because of the inexperience of their instructors, who are often
university graduates who are entering the job market and in search of
part-time employment. The wages are low and the turn-over tends to be
high in these tutoring companies, so by adopting a worksheet-based
program, a student can continue the program regardless of who the
tutor happens to be on any given day. This clearly is not the most
effective way for students to learn, however, it is easy to administer
and produces hard evidence that a child is improving through the
worksheets.
- The York Region District School Board and
many private learning centres are missing the point completely when it
comes to providing students with extra help. The creation of a
parallel curriculum merely provides a child with a second education
program, albeit within a small-group setting which is much more
enjoyable and effective than the current public system for most
students. This parallel education program is only available to parents
who have the ability to pay. Furthermore, the program that is being
offered by York as well as the programs offered by many of the private
companies, work out to approximately the same cost; roughly $2.00 per
minute of direct attention from the tutor.
What most children need is one-on-one tutoring, or attention from a
Professional Learning Coach. That cost is no more than $1.00 per
minute, usually takes place in the child's home which is where he/she
must learn on a regular basis, and is much more effective in the long
run.
The Greater Sudbury Learning Clinic, for
example, has
established a system where parents can secure the services of a
Professional Learning Coach for 90 minutes of direct one-on-one
instruction, within their own home, for a cost of $212 a month (based on
2008 rates).
Compare that to the attention you receive
from most learning centres who provide you with a maximum of 160 minutes
of direct individual instruction for a cost of approximately $320, or to
the York Board which provides you with a maximum of 48 minutes of direct
individual instruction, for a cost of $96, and you be the judge.
It would be like a business person trying to
sell you 5 litres of water for $10 because his is cheaper than his
competitor who sells 20 litres of water for $20. Of course it is cheaper.
But you are getting less water for your money.
The message to parents from all of this activity with respect to
tutoring and learning coaches is that everyone, including one of the
largest school boards in the province, recognizes that many students
require additional help to bridge the gaps or to nudge their marks higher.
There is a general acceptance that the current system is not working
properly and will likely never be able to do so without incurring
phenomenal increases in funding for education. The additional help is
going to have to come from the private sector and it will be only
available to people who can afford to pay. Yes...we do have a two-tier
education system in Ontario. The question is, should the public school
boards be allowed to enter into the battle for revenue from private
citizens who already pay taxes for the public schools in the province.
Nevertheless, expect to see the rest of the
School Boards in the province soon follow suit and implement their own
after school tutoring programs to compete with the private sector. |
