My proposal for maximizing the use of our federal coronavirus relief funds included spending $200 million to hire additional tutors, teachers, and educational technology specialists to help kids regain the educational progress they’ve lost due to the pandemic’s disruption of our schools.
School reform advocate and Johns Hopkins Professor Robert Slavin says a tutoring Marshall Plan is just what our kids need:
Our research center at Johns Hopkins University studies the evidence on programs of all kinds for students who are at risk, especially in reading (Neitzel et al., 2020) and mathematics (Pellegrini et al., 2020). What we and many other researchers have found is that the most effective strategy for struggling students, especially in elementary schools, is one-to-one or one-to-small group tutoring. Structured tutoring programs can make a large difference in a short time, exactly what is needed to help students quickly catch up with grade level expectations.
My colleagues and I have proposed a massive effort designed to provide proven tutoring services to the millions of students who desperately need it. Our proposal, based on a similar idea by Senator Coons (D-Del), would ultimately provide funding to enable as many as 300,000 tutors to be recruited, trained in proven tutoring models, and coached to ensure their effectiveness. These tutors would be required to have a college degree, but not necessarily a teaching certificate. Research has found that such tutors, using proven tutoring models with excellent professional development, can improve the achievement of students struggling in reading or mathematics as much as can teachers serving as tutors [Dr. Robert Slavin, “An Open Letter to President-Elect Biden: A Tutoring Marshall Plan to Heal Our Students,” blog, 2020.11.09].
In addition to the long-term economic stimulus provided by ensuring millions of kids get better educations, a tutoring Marshall Plan would provide immediate economic stimulus in the form of putting 300,000 people to meaningful work:
The Tutoring Marshall Plan will also provide employment to 300,000 college graduates, who will otherwise have difficulty entering the job market in a time of recession. These people are eager to contribute to society and to establish professional careers, but will need a first step on that ladder. Ideally, the best of the tutors will experience the joys of teaching, and might be offered accelerated certification, opening a new source of teacher candidates who will have had an opportunity to build and demonstrate their skills in school settings. Like the CCC and WPA programs in the Great Depression, these tutors will not only be helped to survive the financial crisis, but will perform essential services to the nation while building skills and confidence [Slavin, 2020.11.09].
Our kids need help in school. Let’s hire more help: new tutors for every school!
I have often wondered why we don’t do something like this. It would seem that if we can mobilize and transport thousands of soldiers to foreign countries, it should be much simpler to train and mobilize an army of tutors to work in schools, but also after school programs, youth centers, etc etc.
Curfews could be actually enforced on the streets- kids are either at home or a tutoring center. Perhaps recruitment could be tied to student loan forgiveness. The Marshall Plan sounds like the most important thing we could do.
Caroline, Noem doesn’t do it because it would put money and power in the hands of teachers and not her business cronies. It would improve education, increase the population’s total critical thinking skills, and make it harder for her to get by with political tricks and low wages.
South Dakota continues to be dependent on the backs of blue state revenue. It’s easier to get a subsidy than to demand better. “Decades of Republican Mismanagement Have Left Red States Mired in the Past & at the Bottom” GNOem/and her cabal will not do anything for education…unless it’s for something like Gear Up that they can steal from. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/10/1994653/-Decades-of-Republican-Mismanagement-Have-Left-Red-States-Mired-in-the-Past-at-the-Bottom
We should have nurse health all around our state testing and tracing this trump virus. Instead, we watch as Lee and The Hag blather about how great they’re doing. They are Q and will never figure out they’ve been conned.