Nickfury21's List: Research - Education Industry

• “Nationally, the single greatest academic barrier to student success is mathematics,” said Michael Moore, senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies at the university.
• letting computers do the teaching.

• Too many students ''don't have the attitude necessary or the kind of habits needed to do good work,'' said Matthew Goldstein, the CUNY chancellor. ''We need to teach those things.''
• • I wonder what research he is referring to....
• ''All the research shows that if you do them alone, for a modest amount of time, they have a modest positive effect, but it doesn't last,
• But CUNY officials point to one particular reason for optimism: the college's intensive, case-management approach to students is based partly on the program Ms. Linderman leads at six other community colleges, Accelerated Study in Associate Programs. ASAP, open only to low-income students, requires frequent workshops, advising and tutoring.

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• • Great resources for learning more about the tutoring industry.
    
    - Education Industry Association
    - EduVentures 
    - National Tutoring Association
• Spending on tutors is growing at more than 5 percent a year, said Steve Pines, executive director of the Education Industry Association. This is down from yearly growth of 8 to 10 percent in 2007, when the education research firm EduVentures estimated the size of the tutoring industry at $5 billion to $7 billion a year.
• Education Industry Association
• education research firm EduVentures
• National Tutoring Association
• While tutors once focused on helping children who were falling behind in particular subjects or had a learning disability, they are now being used far more to guide students through particularly tough courses, insure their grades are equal to or above their peers’ and, in the end, polish a child’s college application.
• Yet even in Manhattan, where tutors are particularly popular, plenty of parents are shopping around for less expensive options
• “People have been pulling back for tutors charging $250 to $400 an hour,” said Sandy Bass, editor and publisher of Private School Insider, an online newsletter. “They’re still using tutors, but they’re searching around for more reasonably priced help. In Manhattan, $85 to $150 is the acceptable range for reasonably priced.”
• Mr. Pines of the Education Industry Association said he had seen the same reassessment in the rest of the country, where the average rate was $45 to $65 an hour. Parents who once would have had in-home tutors are going to tutoring centers, while some using the centers have cut back on hours or moved to online-only platforms.
• But the bigger question that springs from this is, How do you make sure the money you’re spending is benefiting your child?
• chool competition is clearly part of parents’ thinking, but it’s not just for college. “Parents are concerned about how their children rank against their friends, their neighbors, kids in the next town over, the next state over, even the next country over,” Mr. Cohen said.

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• The chains' methods and philosophies vary, but all start with a diagnostic test. "We go back and pinpoint the causes of a student's learning problems, and that's a big difference between us and traditional tutoring, which is so often focused on preparing Johnny for tomorrow's test in school," said Ray Huntington, founder of the chain bearing his name, which has 90 outlets in 20 states.
• • A diagnostic test may be something to include in my tutorial program.

• One question raised by the so-called madness is why? Do parents hire tutors because of deficiencies in the curriculum or the system, or because of the college admission feeding frenzy and the bottomless pit of parental anxiety it generates? Administrators say it's the parents, and parents say it's the other parents.

   

    ''People in Westfield seem generally pleased with the schools, and in terms of statewide assessments, our numbers are good to excellent,'' said Dr. William Foley, the superintendent. ''They hire tutors, in many cases, because they want to give their children a leg up. With so many advanced placement and honors courses available -- they want their children to get into, and to take those courses.''

   

    Parents, on the other hand, point to peer pressure in the community.