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.

+1, it wasn’t just a bucket of money to use however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Because that costs way too much money to be available to 180,000 kids!

And look at your school’s plan, they are identifying kids in need and providing direct in personintervention in groups during school and sometimes outside of school hours. But that doesn’t cover all kids. Tutor.com does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is typical big govt.....why didnt parents get wyzant vouchers? actually can pick decent tutors, money goes to them and wyzant charges just a couple of bucks--which is really minimal--and yet even qyzant probably makes money---this is why I vote only one way...big govt is only good for non individuals...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Very good point. I think a lot of parents don't even know how far behind their elementary school kids are or what to ask a tutor to help with.

[Anonymous]

They didn’t charge that amount. That’s what it worked out to considering the very small numbers who used it.

And who could’ve guessed so few kids would use it. Easier for parents to complain on DCUM about FCPS than encourage their kids to try it (PP who tried it for a math problem excepted but that person should try it again — another tutor might be better. The report said most kids who used it gave it positive reviews).

[Anonymous]

#1 They are now using the pandemic funds to hire people. You can see it in everyone’s plans that are posted on the FCPS website.

#2 It’s totally unreasonable to make any calls about Tutor.com now. I mostly ignored it in the spring but have offered it to my high school kids a few times already. I don’t know anything about high school biology (anymore) or Geometry so when my children have been stumped I suggested they reread the slides/notes from the teacher and head over to Tutor.com if they still don’t get it. They have not needed it yet, but for high school I am very glad it’s there because I really can not help for most of my kids’ subjects.

[Anonymous]

They aren’t going to be able to fix the damage they did by insisting on keeping schools closed so long.

Parents with resources went private or homeschooled or hired tutors. Their children will have/will make up or even thrive academically regardless of Gatehouse.

They made the “achievement gap” over which they pretend to wring their hands much worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They didn’t charge that amount. That’s what it worked out to considering the very small numbers who used it.

And who could’ve guessed so few kids would use it. Easier for parents to complain on DCUM about FCPS than encourage their kids to try it (PP who tried it for a math problem excepted but that person should try it again — another tutor might be better. The report said most kids who used it gave it positive reviews).

Exactly, if more people used it, the per hour rate would have been less.

[Anonymous]

I’ll try it again. I think it works that you have to ask a question and then get assigned someone. Instead of saying you need help understanding the box method in math you have to have a problem to ask help on. Or in writing you can’t say you are having trouble with your intro paragraph or coming up with a topic for your personal essay. You have to word it specifically. I could be wrong. We just used it once and it didn’t seem helpful. I’d like to just ask a general question or ask for help in a general area.

[Anonymous]

My high school daughter has used it successfully for IB math homework. She’s very happy with it and is ticked that the students were never told directly about it. She didn’t believe me the first few times I mentioned it, but when she finally agreed to try it, she liked it (ish). By no means does this mean she is caught up in math, though. So much damage was done here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They didn’t charge that amount. That’s what it worked out to considering the very small numbers who used it.

And who could’ve guessed so few kids would use it. Easier for parents to complain on DCUM about FCPS than encourage their kids to try it (PP who tried it for a math problem excepted but that person should try it again — another tutor might be better. The report said most kids who used it gave it positive reviews).

This. Also, you don't need tutor.com (or vouchers for Wyzant). Just ask the school for the tutor list and ACTUAL teachers in FCPS can tutor your kid (for pay).

Quit your bi---ing and find a solution that works for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is typical big govt.....why didnt parents get wyzant vouchers? actually can pick decent tutors, money goes to them and wyzant charges just a couple of bucks--which is really minimal--and yet even qyzant probably makes money---this is why I vote only one way...big govt is only good for non individuals...

Exactly. And this is not “free money” but will ultimately be paid by the tax payer and/or feed into inflation.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn’t physical textbooks help more? If a child was confused, they could refer to their math textbook? It could also help parents explain if their child is using a method that they are unfamiliar with.

Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high school daughter has used it successfully for IB math homework. She’s very happy with it and is ticked that the students were never told directly about it. She didn’t believe me the first few times I mentioned it, but when she finally agreed to try it, she liked it (ish). By no means does this mean she is caught up in math, though. So much damage was done here.

My high schooler’s teachers all mentioned it in the syllabus. I looked into it and it seemed like voice or text help online. My kid did not do well with virtual school and it seemed like more of that. It seems like an organized student could take advantage of this if they had specific, targeted questions. That’s not my kid who’s basically like - I don’t know how to start this project so I didn’t do it.

[Anonymous]

The best and easiest plan of action was for FCPS to temporarily extensively offer summer school (essentially 11 month teacher contracts). Students who didn't want to or need to attend these schools would not need to but otherwise it would be widely available.

What happened is that summer school was a last minute rush so parents had already made plans like camp, etc. We were told our children could attend summer session a week before the school year ended. We had already spent thousands in camps/daycare, so it was a no for us, but I imagine many parents were in the same boat.

My view is summer school notices and plans should be firms set BEFORE spring break not the week before school ends.