FCPS Data shows that Tutor.com is a failture

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Page 27 of this slide show is heartbreaking. Less than 6,000 students received one-on-one or small-group math catch-up interventions outside of school hours. For reading, that number is less than 7,000.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CKMQEU68CF92/$file/Presentation--ESSER%20III%20Updates.pdf

Fairfax county got $188million and they only used a drop of that money for the most effective interventions. Not surprising.

There was a recent article (in WaPo maybe?) that said every school district was the same - barely were able to use any ESSR funds.

And what exactly would you have them use the funds for? Hiring more teachers, IAs, tutors, etc. would be the best use of the funds but there are no people to hire.

There were significant restrictions put on the money and it was not allowed to be used to hire staff, temporary or otherwise.

Yes, and anyway a one-time use of funds to hire temporary staff doesn't really make much sense. But even if the funds could be used to hire temporary staff, there was/is no one to hire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Page 27 of this slide show is heartbreaking. Less than 6,000 students received one-on-one or small-group math catch-up interventions outside of school hours. For reading, that number is less than 7,000.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CKMQEU68CF92/$file/Presentation--ESSER%20III%20Updates.pdf

This also does not tell us how long these interventions were put into place. Would love to know how many total hours were given to students.

At our school, the after-school one-on-one tutoring was only for 8 weeks once a week after school. Not enough time to really make progress for a child that is seriously behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Page 27 of this slide show is heartbreaking. Less than 6,000 students received one-on-one or small-group math catch-up interventions outside of school hours. For reading, that number is less than 7,000.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CKMQEU68CF92/$file/Presentation--ESSER%20III%20Updates.pdf

Fairfax county got $188million and they only used a drop of that money for the most effective interventions. Not surprising.

There was a recent article (in WaPo maybe?) that said every school district was the same - barely were able to use any ESSR funds.

And what exactly would you have them use the funds for? Hiring more teachers, IAs, tutors, etc. would be the best use of the funds but there are no people to hire.

There were significant restrictions put on the money and it was not allowed to be used to hire staff, temporary or otherwise.

Yes, and anyway a one-time use of funds to hire temporary staff doesn't really make much sense. But even if the funds could be used to hire temporary staff, there was/is no one to hire.

I was able to hire tutors to help my kids catch up and had plenty of people to choose from. There are plenty of parents who cannot afford $50-$100 an hour for a tutor. I see the wisdom in the suggestion that the parents should have had access to the funds to hire private tutors on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Page 27 of this slide show is heartbreaking. Less than 6,000 students received one-on-one or small-group math catch-up interventions outside of school hours. For reading, that number is less than 7,000.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CKMQEU68CF92/$file/Presentation--ESSER%20III%20Updates.pdf

Fairfax county got $188million and they only used a drop of that money for the most effective interventions. Not surprising.

There was a recent article (in WaPo maybe?) that said every school district was the same - barely were able to use any ESSR funds.

And what exactly would you have them use the funds for? Hiring more teachers, IAs, tutors, etc. would be the best use of the funds but there are no people to hire.

There were significant restrictions put on the money and it was not allowed to be used to hire staff, temporary or otherwise.

Yes, and anyway a one-time use of funds to hire temporary staff doesn't really make much sense. But even if the funds could be used to hire temporary staff, there was/is no one to hire.

I was able to hire tutors to help my kids catch up and had plenty of people to choose from. There are plenty of parents who cannot afford $50-$100 an hour for a tutor. I see the wisdom in the suggestion that the parents should have had access to the funds to hire private tutors on their own.

For every student who is behind?

We don't have vouchers in FCPS. Your publicly-funded-tutor-for-students-with-motivated-or-enterprising-parents idea is equally bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read about this on Twitter from one of the parent advocacy groups. Normally I discount everything that they say, but I'm glad that they highlighted this failure. In the wake of this report, the school board working session on November 1st to discuss this report and FCPS's learning loss efforts, more generally, was unexpectedly canceled.

The most informative quote from the report:

During the fourth grading quarter, 3,189 FCPS students and families, just 1.6% of the FCPS population, accessed the platform for learning support, which equates to a cost per participant of $153 for those who used it. With a median of 29 minutes among those using Tutor.com during SY 2021-22, data indicate that half of all FCPS users accessing the platform did so for less than 30 minutes while the other half did so for more than 30 minutes. The total time among all FCPS users logged into Tutor.com during SY 2021-22 (3,760 hours) translates into an hourly tutoring cost of $130 per hour. Furthermore, while the amount of time individual students or families were logged into Tutor.com ranged from 1 to 2,699 minutes, analyses indicate that almost three-quarters of student users (72 percent) used it for less than one hour, an amount of time that is unlikely to yield tangible benefits to student achievement, particularly for those with greater academic need.

You would think that this would mean that Gatehouse would recommend that FCPS terminate the contract. Nope!

Recommendations to the Superintendent
Based on the conclusions in this report, ORSI offers the following recommendations to the Superintendent.
• Increase communication regarding use of Tutor.com as an intervention resource for students with greater academic need.
• Continue to monitor usage of the Tutor.com resource during SY 2022-23.
• Monitor equity of access to the resource by student academic risk and student group.
• Explore differences in responses to academic intervention by academic risk group.

Ridiculous!

Read the rest of the report here: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CKQJTV4EC65A/$file/Tutor.com%20write%20up%20%20mf.pdf

Tutor.com fleeced FCPS. They charged FCPS $153 an hour while turning around and paying the people they employ to work as "tutors" $15 an hour. Gross.

[Anonymous]

I think adoption of tutor.com is slow and I see, at least at my children’s two schools, a concerted effort to teach them how it use the resource this year as well as educating the parents on how to help their children access this resource. I think this years numbers will be more telling.

[Anonymous]

People are tired of online school, including tutoring. They should have used the funds to hire in person tutors to come to the schools before or after the school day or on weekends for consistent help for the students who really need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think adoption of tutor.com is slow and I see, at least at my children’s two schools, a concerted effort to teach them how it use the resource this year as well as educating the parents on how to help their children access this resource. I think this years numbers will be more telling.

My daughter's ES doesn't even mention it in the weekly email anymore. I never saw the use for it. My 4th grader doesn't need homework help as she doesn't get homework. She needs help learning how to spell and write. And learn her multiplication tables and do fractions. Which is why I now pay for 2 tutors a week. There is no one way that random tutors every session were going to be able to help her. Her actual tutors (both local ES teachers) know her and are helping her catch up. I wish they'd just use the money for something else. Tutor.com seems useless for a vast majority of kids.

[Anonymous]

“My 4th grader doesn't need homework help as she doesn't get homework. She needs help learning how to spell and write. And learn her multiplication tables and do fractions. ”

+1
Is the lack of any homework for non-High school kids part of the findings? My ES kid I am sure could use more help but he has zero homework.

[Anonymous]

I find it depressing that parents and kids couldn’t be bothered to use free tutor.com help. At least try it before assuming it doesn’t work.

There is no staffing to hire in person tutors. And you can’t use ESSER money to hire staff (and there is no one to hire anyway).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's clear in the wake of this report that online hw help cannot be the primary answer when it comes to how FCPS addresses learning loss.

Instead, FCPS must level with parents where students are behind & provide direct academic intervention to those students most in need.

As a parent, how do you NOT know where your kids are deficient? I get that there are some parents who can't or don't have the time to know this information. The vast majority, however, do. So pick up the slack and do it.

You can rest on righteous principle ("It's not mY rESponsIbIlTy!") or make sure your kids succeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it depressing that parents and kids couldn’t be bothered to use free tutor.com help. At least try it before assuming it doesn’t work.

There is no staffing to hire in person tutors. And you can’t use ESSER money to hire staff (and there is no one to hire anyway).

My kid tried it for a math problem. The tutor couldn't understand the method that they had been taught in school. I didn't really understand the box method either, so we watched a youtube video together which is what we should have just done in te first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it depressing that parents and kids couldn’t be bothered to use free tutor.com help. At least try it before assuming it doesn’t work.

There is no staffing to hire in person tutors. And you can’t use ESSER money to hire staff (and there is no one to hire anyway).

My kid tried it for a math problem. The tutor couldn't understand the method that they had been taught in school. I didn't really understand the box method either, so we watched a youtube video together which is what we should have just done in te first place.

I’m so sorry. It should not be acceptable for the FCPS to push this ineffective “service” on families.

Do any of the SB members have a financial stake in Tutor.com?

[Anonymous]

FFS - "parent advocacy group"? You mean those losers at openFCPS or whatever it's new fake name is?

HI JOANNE AND RORY?? FORK YOU BIT_HES!!!

[Anonymous]

why didn't they contract with a reliable in-person tutoring company? there are a million around here. X number of tutoring hours for all kids identified as being behind.