Mandated tutoring costing EP school districts millions

For many students in El Paso, the end of the school day doesn’t mean their studies are over. Low performing campuses that fail to meet federal standards are obligated under the No Child Left Behind law to provide tutoring to low-income students. But a law meant to help under-privileged kids, may be indirectly hurting them.

“When you miss the adequate yearly progress for so many years in a row you kind of go into a stage of sanctions,” said Canutillo Spokesman Gustavo Reveles. “When you hit a certain level, year three, then the state automatically tells you must, must hire outside tutors.”

Canutillo Independent School District estimates it spends $479,000 paying teachers and college students $20-25 an hour to tutor students, out of a $60 million total budget.

That number is low compared to other districts because Canutillo doesn’t have to use tutors, it chooses to.

But the city’s largest school districts say in order to comply with the law, they’re having to take money from other programs, like summer school, that have a track record of success, and divert it into tutoring.

“It did tie up funding because we are a Title One district and the district had to set aside 20 percent of our total Title One allocation for the district because of this one campus,” said Secondary Education Executive Director Dr. Eileen Wade. “So the district wasn’t about to spend that money on other interventions that we might have been able to put in place.”

Wade says Hanks High fell into Stage 2 from 2009 to 2011. For two school years, Yselta Independent School District spent about $4 million out of a $400 million budget on tutors for about 1,000 students, providing a list of 100 companies approved by the Texas Education Agency that parents could choose from. Many companies were from out of state or offered online tutors. Some would meet students on campus. All were paid about $1,500 per student.

At El Paso Independent School District , the largest district in the area with a budget of $600 million, mandated tutoring at Irvin High cost a million and a half for about 1,100 students.

But is it working? Both Ysleta and El Paso have climbed their way out of Stage 2 sanctions by getting enough of their students to pass standardized tests.

But Ysleta and other districts aren’t attributing their improvements to tutors, which is why the Texas Education Agency wants scrap the law all together.

TEA Commissioner Michael Williams has asked the U.S. Department of Education to waive several parts of NCLB including the tutoring mandate, in hopes Texas school districts might no longer have to spend million of dollars. Williams is not optimistic about the progress.

Right now Canutillo chooses to use tutors, but with two schools in Stage One, they may have no choice if they can’t meet end-of-year standards.

“We’re hoping we don’t have to resort to that and we’re on our way out of two schools being deficient in AYP,” Reveles said.

If not, the half a million they currently spend could balloon and their entire budget be compromised for just a handful of low-performing students.