June 23, 2010

Princeton Review ends free tutoring program

by Associated Press, originally published in boston.com on 5/19/10

FRAMINGHAM — Test prep and online learning company Princeton Review Inc. said yesterday it will no longer offer its free after-school tutoring program once the current school year ends.

The company said it will close certain program offices and offer severance to full-time employees. The company didn’t state how many jobs will be affected.

Calls to the company were not immediately returned.

Princeton Review said it will incur about $2.6 million in expenses for the quarters ended June 30 and Sept. 30 relating to lease termination and layoffs.

The company said “recent philosophical changes at the state and federal levels have significantly altered the landscape’’ for such programs and hurt growth opportunities.

The program, called Supplemental Educational Services, worked with about 100 school districts across the country to create free tutoring services for students. The decision does not affect Princeton Review’s test preparation business.

Click here to read more.

Filed under: Admin/Management,Commercial

June 6, 2010

Former student turns quest to find tutoring into business

by Sheri Gassaway, originally published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on 3/30/10

As a Clayton High School honors student, Charles “Chuck” Cohn struggled to find a tutor to help him with several of his advanced placement and honors classes. He sought help from national tutoring firms, local university department heads and some of his friends who had used tutors. However, he could not find a personal tutor to help him with all four subjects.

“It’s tough to find tutors in advanced subjects,” Cohn said. “The national firms don’t offer one-on-one tutoring in specific subjects and when I did find a tutor, he was only able to tutor me in one subject.”

As undergraduate student at Washington University in 2007, Cohn took an entrepreneur course. He recalled the trouble he had finding a personal tutor to help him with multiple subjects and used that idea as part of a class project.

“I wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was 6 years old,” he said. “I came up with a lot of mediocre ideas, but realized from my experience that high-end tutoring would help fill a substantial need, and it was scalable.”

At the beginning of the course, Cohn created a website for his new business endeavor, called Varsity Tutors, and hired two friends as tutors. The group contacted local middle and high schools about providing one-on-one tutoring services.

“The feedback we received from the first two clients was great,” Cohn said. “We completely booked our first two tutors, and by the end of the course, we had hired seven or eight more tutors.”

Click here to read more.

Filed under: Admin/Management,Commercial

August 12, 2009

Administrators agree that tutoring is key

By Cain Madden, The Natchez Democrat, originally published Friday, June 19, 2009

Vidalia — Administrators collectively say solving the issues with after-school tutoring programs is the path to raise test scores in Concordia Parish.

On Thursday, administrators met with the school board to discuss growth in LEAP and iLEAP scores.“Tutoring and one-on-one are the best methods for improving scores,” said John Bostic, Monterey High School Principal. Vidalia Junior High Principal Whest Shirley said the before-school math tutoring and after-school programs on all four subjects helped improve their scores. “We were able to hire a math resource teacher and offer after-school tutoring programs that helped lead to the success of our growth,” said Dorris Polk, Principal of Vidalia Lower Elementary.

Monterey Junior High School offered after-school tutoring programs, as well, which helped lead to their growth. “I consistently saw the parking lot full of cars, like they were attending a football game, at Mrs. Julia’s tutoring program,” Bostic said.

Ferriday High School assistant principal Derrick White said they witnessed a small increase from students who attended their after-school tutoring program regularly.

Unfortunately, many schools faced problems with keeping students around after school. Monterey High School and Ferriday Jr. High combated this problem by offering in-school tutoring, to little success. Ferriday Upper Elementary School had to cut its tutoring program due to cuts in its funding.

Schools also tried other methods to improve scores. Both Ferriday Upper and Lower Elementary Schools offered family learning nights. “The family learning night was a huge success this year,” said Sheila Allwood, Ferriday Lower Elementary School Principal. At Vidalia Upper Elementary, Vidalia Junior High and Vidalia High they offered rewards for students on good behavior. “Students who achieved and had good behavior were rewarded with ice cream days,” said Phillis Cage, Vidalia Upper Elementary School Assistant Principal. Shirley said that his school also offered mock testing to help improve scores. “Practice makes perfect,” he said.

Schools also released estimated scores to help discuss their growth.

Click here

to read more.

 

Filed under: Admin/Management

July 13, 2009

No Faith in No Child Left Behind Tutoring

By Allison Davis, originally posted on 4/27/09 in MissionLocal

Once again students in San Francisco’s public schools are sitting down this week to statewide tests. As in other years, many in low-performing schools have been tutored since January by one of more than a dozen companies that earn $1,442 per student.

Teachers and administrators in the Mission District schools, however, said the tutoring is unlikely to make a difference in test scores. “I think tutoring, the way it’s set up, is not as effective as it can be. It’s very disconnected from the school and the curriculum,” said Adelina Aramburo, principal of Cesar Chavez Elementary for the last three years. Aramburo and others said tutoring fails for a number of reasons, among them a lack of coordination between tutors and teachers, and, with one to three hours a week, the too few hours of tutoring that students are offered.

Low-income students become eligible for Supplemental Education Services (SES) funds if their school fails to meet improvement targets set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Cesar Chavez has failed to meet those targets for six years in a row, making it among the worst-scoring schools in the district. Three of the five other Mission District elementary schools have also failed to meet their targets for more than four years—Leonard R. Flynn Elementary, Marshall Elementary and Bryant Elementary. George R. Moscone Elementary and the bilingual immersion school Buena Vista are the only two Mission District elementary schools not in Program Improvement.

Click here for more of this story…

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Admin/Management,NCLB

May 29, 2009

Using best-in-class hires to boost business

By Joyce Hanson, crain’s new york business.com, originally published on 5/22/09

Paying staff four times the competition’s going rate may seem like a crazy formula for success, but the strategy works for test-prep firm Manhattan GMAT.

When founder Zeke Vanderhoek used his savings and a credit card to start his business in 2000, he earned $50,000 that first year. By 2008, the firm grossed $10 million because, he says, Manhattan GMAT hires only instructors who score in the 99th percentile of the Graduate Management Admission Test, and it pays them $100 an hour.

“The idea that teachers are a core part of the experience of learning is not an original idea. The only innovation is that we were willing to pay for it,” says Mr. Vanderhoek, a Yale grad and former Teach for America teacher at I.S. 90 in Manhattan.

He stepped down as chief executive of Manhattan GMAT in 2007 to start up a charter school in Washington Heights, where he will duplicate his formula by paying teachers a salary of $125,000.

Though no longer involved with Manhattan GMAT’s day-to-day operations, Mr. Vanderhoek remains on as “something like a chairman,” noting that his company is not really into titles. He had this same flexible attitude at the start when supplementing his teacher’s income by tutoring everyone from elementary school students to M.B.A. applicants. Over a few years, he received so many word-of-mouth referrals from GMAT test-takers that when he left Teach for America in 2001, his business was already up and running.

Manhattan GMAT has tapped into the recession-proof market of test-takers who want to ace the exam and get into the best business schools so they’ll be M.B.A.-ready when the economy picks up. Far from viewing high staff pay as an indulgence, the firm sees it as an essential.

Chief Executive Andrew Yang says the firm’s formula depends on three key variables:

Click here to read more…

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Admin/Management,Business Practices,Commercial

« Newer PostsOlder Posts »
Resources
Tutoring Foundations Tutor Training