The Best Investment in Education: A Class of One

After coming across my February column for GOOD–A Tutor for Every Child– Seth Linden contacted me about his work as Founding Director of Tutorpedia and President of the Tutorpedia Foundation. He asked if I would be interesting in sharing his op-ed about individual tutoring with my True/Slant audience, and I agreed to do so. The piece is below; I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Feel free to leave comments for Seth. He’ll either respond to them directly or will e-mail me his responses.

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The Best Investment in Education: A Class of One

By Seth Linden

As a former teacher and educator in the Bay Area, I challenge us–our private foundations, our public corporations, our federal and local governments–to put more funding into more personalized education. We funnel millions of dollars into new technologies, smaller class sizes, better teacher pay–all of which are useful–yet all of which are two or three degrees away from creating more individualized, customized learning experiences. We would be better off spending that money on personalized, one-on-one tutoring.

Instead of a class of 30, 20, or even 10, we need to bring a “Class of One” to our neediest students. By doing so, we can close the racial and economic achievement gaps, graduate more students from high school, and prepare more students for college and beyond.

How do students learn effectively in a classroom where the student-to-teacher ratio is 30:1? Even the small class sizes that benefit most private schools rarely get below 15. If a teacher were to spend individual time with each student in a 60-minute class, that’s a meager four minutes per student!

We know that students learn at different paces, in different styles, with different levels of awareness, ability, and aptitude. Yet why do we assume that we can teach them the same way?

That is why we need a Class of One. Personalized tutoring brings a Class of One to every student.

How is this scalable with 6 million K-12 students in California? First of all, not every student needs state-subsidized tutoring, as many parents can and do pay top dollar for one-on-one instruction. Let’s say that 50 percent of parents can afford the roughly $100 per hour that most competitive tutoring companies or individuals charge. That leaves 3 million students who cannot afford to pay out-of-pocket. If we then focus on the lowest-performing 10 percent, that leaves 300,000 students whose personalized education could and should be paid for by outside resources. At $35 per hour, including program and administrative costs, the Tutorpedia Foundation can provide one year of one-on-one tutoring to an underserved student – about $1,000 per year. Scaling that to 300,000 students would cost the state about $300 million. I certainly understand this is a lot of money, but considering that Arne Duncan’s Race To The Top fund provides more than $4 billion to innovative initiatives in education–and California could receive $700 million–the money is there, it’s just a matter of priorities.

Let’s use these same calculations with the San Francisco Bay Area, home to about 1 million K-12 students. If 50 percent can afford tutoring, that’s 500,000 students who cannot, so providing for the lowest-performing 10 percent, that’s 50,000 students who would benefit most from 1-1 tutoring.  At roughly $1,000 per student per year, that’s investing $50 million in the Bay Area’s future. The numbers are roughly the same for Los Angeles Unified School District.  This is a lot of money to be sure, but let’s put it in perspective: The Gates Foundation just committed $30 million to expand KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, and the Ford Foundation just gave $100 million to transform secondary education in urban schools across the country. By involving teachers in the tutoring (or giving them some planning or breathing time during their busy days), and incorporating a volunteer model, this idea has real and lasting staying power.

What are the alternatives? Achievement gaps will continue to persist (Berkeley Unified has the greatest racial achievement gap anywhere in the state); California’s high school drop-out rate will increase to 50 percent (it’s already 70 percent in Oakland and East Palo Alto); and more students will enter the workforce without a college degree and therefore less pay and promotion ability. That means more under-educated students on the streets, and more youth in jail and prison. The cost of our prison industrial complex will soon exceed that of our education system. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, “by the 2012-2013 fiscal year, $15.4 billion will be spent on incarcerating Californians, as compared with $15.3 billion spent on educating them.”

The answer to fixing our broken education system does not have to be complicated. Yes we need better pay, better training, and better professional development for teachers. Yes we need more computers and adaptive technology for our students. But what we need most of all is more personal attention. We need to build trust and confidence in our students. We need to build lasting, influential relationships. Research shows that one-on-one tutoring improves social interactions, classroom attention, and positive teacher attention. In order to close the achievement gaps, graduate more students from high school, and prepare them for college, a more personalized model is needed. Another research article shows that students engaged in 1-1 tutoring show significant gains versus those engaged in conventional (30-1) teaching models. And a third study shows that academic performance and attitudes improve by 1-1 tutoring.  There are countless other studies and research done on 1-1 tutoring, and it all points in the same direction: improved academic and social performance.

We all grew up with The Three R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic. Now we need to focus on the New Three R’s: We need to make education more Real, Relevant, and Rigorous. All of these foci need to be built on personal relationships. And the best relationships are formed in a Class of One.