September 2011 Volume 24, Number 5 The Abell Report

September 2011Volume 24, Number 5

What we think about, and what we’d like you to think about

Published as a community service by The Abell Foundation

The Abell Report

By Joan Jacobson

Each year, under the federal pro-gram called Supplemental Edu-cational Services (SES), the Bal-

timore City Public School System(City Schools) pays educational ven-dors millions of public dollars to tutorthousands of its poorest students in itslowest achieving schools. Establishedin 2002 by the federal No Child LeftBehind Act, SES was created toimprove academic achievement forstudents whose math and readingscores are among the lowest in thenation’s public schools. Like otherlarge urban districts, Baltimore CityPublic Schools is a prime beneficiaryof this federal program.

However, despite this large expensein public funds, the Maryland StateDepartment of Education (MSDE),like other state education agenciesacross the country, has no credibleevidence that SES is making a differ-ence. As required by federal law, CitySchools has spent $55 million on theprogram over the last nine years.1 In the2010-11 school year alone, CitySchools was required to allocate $12million for SES tutoring to serve 5,769students in 41 schools.

This study finds that although thefederal law expects the SES program toimprove academic performance, it nei-ther sets standards for evaluating stu-dents’ progress nor does it require state

education agencies or local school sys-tems to provide evidence of improve-ment to the U.S. Department of Edu-cation or to the public.2

In Maryland, state education offi-cials have declined to annually analyzestandardized test scores of SES studentsin order to evaluate the program’s effec-tiveness, arguing that the tutoring is toovaried –both in number of hours andtype of instruction – and the sample sizeof tutored students is too small to ade-quately measure progress.3

Instead, Maryland instructs SEStutoring providers – for-profit and non-profit vendors who rely on public fund-ing - to perform their own evaluationsof student progress. This autonomy ‘toself-evaluate’ is one of the most discon-certing facets of SES.

During the same decade when pub-lic schools across the country, includingthose in Baltimore and WashingtonD.C., have been investigated for falsify-ing standardized test results, MSDEallows SES providers in Baltimore (andthroughout Maryland) to not only teststudents with assessments of theirchoosing, but to also administer themwithout public educators present, andthen report the results on an honor sys-tem that does not require school officialsto see the original tests.4 Although this“self-evaluation” system is allowed byfederal law, it is not mandated and ishardly an ideal, objective assessment of amultimillion dollar program.

“We have to assume people tell thetruth,” says one state official.5

There was no evidence during thecourse of this study that SES providersfalsified their test results. However, afinancial motivation to do so is never-theless present. According to federal law,SES providers that do not show aca-demic progress for two years on their“self-evaluations” are disqualified fromthe program, thus threatening a poten-tially lucrative business for some.

Officials at MSDE say Maryland’sprivate SES providers always ‘self-report’test results that, not surprisingly, showacademic improvement. These ‘self-reported’ results, however, are refuted byUniversity of Memphis researchers whostudied Maryland SES student testscores from 2005 to 2007, and foundthat any improvement “rarely reachedstatistical significance.” In trying to ana-lyze Maryland’s standardized tests,known as the Maryland State Assess-ments (MSA), the researchers were alsoskeptical of detecting improvementbased on only 20-30 hours of SES tutor-ing.6 As a point of reference, BaltimoreSES students received an average of 36hours of tutoring during the 2008-09school year.

MSDE has never “fired” an SESvendor for failing to show academicprogress (though they have been dis-qualified for other reasons, such as fail-ing to obtain liability insurance). To do

Sending Out An S.O.S. For SES (Supplemental Educational Services)No Child Left Behind’s “free” tutoring program for poor children costs the public millions,

but is it working in Baltimore City and Maryland schools?

continued on page 2

2

so, say Maryland’s SES administratorsin the Division of Student, Family andSchool Support, would infringe on thevendor’s right to conduct business.7

This study also found that whilecity and state school officials areattempting to monitor SES, the federallaw is designed to give autonomy totutoring providers, giving them almostfree rein to set hourly fees, administeracademic tests without school supervi-sion, and hire tutors without specifiedacademic qualifications. The federal laweven warns state education agencies thattheir focus “should not be on micro-managing the SES marketplace.”8

In addition, despite the fact that SESis a program based on parental choice(parents choose which provider willtutor their child), neither the state norCity Schools is proactively helping fam-ilies make informed decisions abouttutoring. Maryland does not provide allthe pertinent public information – suchas a “report card” that reviews the per-formance of each SES provider – that isneeded for parents to decide whichprovider could best tutor their children.State officials say they are not allowed tolimit the number of tutoring providersvying for SES funds, quoting the feder-al law requirement to promote “maxi-mum participation by providers toassure…that parents have as manychoices as possible.” As a result, Balti-more City’s program has becomeunwieldy, mushrooming from two to 29providers in nine years, with some of thelargest tutoring companies potentiallygrossing more than $1 million a year, ifall of the sessions are completed. Eachfall, recruiters aggressively compete “likeused car salesmen” (as described by one

former school employee), to sign upparents whose children are eligible. Thecity program is so popular and cumber-some that the tutoring doesn’t beginuntil late December or early January,after school officials sift through nearly8,000 applications.9

The large number of tutoring com-panies makes it all the more difficult forthe city and state to scrutinize the pro-gram because federal SES funding can-not be allocated for program monitor-ing. Officials at both MSDE and CitySchools use other public funds to payfor teams of educators to observe tutor-ing sessions of each provider and checkstudent work plans, a requirement ofthe program. These monitoring visits,however, can result in minimal oversighton that day. For example, one companythat registered 1,285 students for the2009-10 school year, was evaluated dur-ing its annual site visit while only threestudents were being tutored.10 Statereports for each provider are supple-mented by more frequent monitoringconducted by school districts. Never-theless, the law does not require daily

supervision by school officials, eventhough most of the tutoring sessionstake place in public schools.

Further, from a standpoint of finan-cial accountability, the program lacksadequate safeguards to assure thatproviders are accurately paid for hourstutored, and the law does not directlyaddress consequences for providers whooverbill the system. Invoices are accom-panied by attendance sheets, signed onlyby children, if tutored at school (or byparents of students, if tutored at home).Although there is no evidence of over-payment, these are documents that evenproviders admit can easily be forged.

The policing of attendance forthousands of students is a difficult andexpensive task: City Schools spent anextra $166,836 in the 2010-11 schoolyear to send attendance monitors to 41schools with SES programs. Whileschool officials say the monitors takehead counts and check sign-in sheets,this study found that in past yearsattendance monitors were often notpresent during tutoring sessions to scru-tinize the accuracy of time sheets. Inaddition, City Schools has no systemfor validating attendance sheets of morethan 1,000 students tutored online orat home during the 2010-11 schoolyear; in fact, the city has no fullaccounting of the exact number of stu-dents tutored outside school. This lackof financial accountability is a seriousconcern, especially in light of the recentcriminal conviction and 18-month jailsentence of the owner of a tutoringcompany who stole more than$150,000 from a different federallyfunded Baltimore tutoring program forspecial education students, which useda similar time-sheet system for verifyingpayments to vendors.

continued from page 1

The Abell Report is published quarterly by The Abell Foundation111 S. Calvert Street, 23rd Floor, Baltimore, Maryland 21202-6174 • (410) 547-1300 • Fax (410) 539-6579

The Abell Reports on the Web: www.abell.org

!

“The Maryland StateDepartment of Education

(MSDE), like otherstate education agencies

across the country,has no credible evidence

that SES is makinga difference.”

"

Both city and state school officialshave expressed concern about the edu-cational quality of the federal SES pro-gram, but say they are prevented by thefederal law from increasing control ormaking major changes. The law, how-ever, allows an entire school system ingood standing to apply to the state tobecome a provider, enabling it to com-pete with external providers to tutor itsown students. Baltimore school offi-cials are considering doing just that, asa way to have more control over theacademic quality of the program.11

Despite the shortcomings found inthis study, Maryland is consideredahead of other states that lack evenrudimentary monitoring systems forSES. One national report praised thestate for its “exemplary” program basedon its system of screening providersbefore they are hired, monitoring themonce tutoring begins, and for its onlinedata collection system.12

City Schools has also been success-ful in enrolling eligible students andspending its annual allocation of SESfunds, far outperforming school sys-tems across the country that have had apoor showing of students signing up.Because there is not enough money tocover all eligible students in Baltimore(only 8,228 of 18,871 students eligiblewere served in 2009-10), there is a fluc-tuating waiting list of elementary andmiddle school students. Baltimore highschools do not receive Title I SES fundsand therefore students in grades 9-12are not eligible for SES services.13

While the federal law has mandateda flawed program in SES, the MarylandState Department of Education and theBaltimore City Public School Systemstill have opportunities to increase theeffectiveness of millions of public dol-lars with better academic evaluation,financial oversight, and communicationwith parents.

Problems With the Federal LawThe Supplemental Educational

Services, or SES, tutoring program ispart of the No Child Left Behind(NCLB) Act of 2001, which was a reau-thorization of Title I, Part A of the Ele-mentary and Secondary Education Actof 1965 (ESEA).14

Lesser known publicly than otherprograms of NCLB, SES is an after-school tutoring program for lowincome children attending Title Ischools (designated based on high per-centages of children receiving free andreduced-price meals) that have notmade adequate yearly progress (AYP)on state tests for three consecutiveyears.15 In order to be eligible for SES,students in these designated schools

must also qualify for free lunch asdetermined by the Free and ReducedPriced Meal (FARM) application forthe current year.

The goal, according to the federallaw, is for SES to provide “high quality,research-based” instruction that willincrease student academic achievement.16

A unique element of the program isthat NCLB gives control to parents tochoose the companies (called providers)that will tutor their children.

Funding for SES is determinedbased on a federally mandated formulaequal to 20 percent of Title I fundsgranted to school districts by the U.S.Department of Education. (Theamount includes money used to trans-port students who select the “School

3


State Department of Education Responsibilities:• Recruit, approve, and when necessary, remove providers• Establish ethical and business standards for providers• Review providers’ educational curriculum• Monitor quality and effectiveness of services by provider

to determine renewal or removal. Services provided:– are aligned with district/state standards– address students’ individual needs– increase academic proficiency

• Review parent feedback and other evaluation results• Monitor school district implementation of SES• Ensure participation of special education students• Require that providers give SES parents individual academic

progress reports

Local School District Responsibilities:• Determine eligible students• Make arrangements for eligible students to receive services:

Set up opportunities for providers to recruit students• Make sure parents have access to descriptions of SES providers

and obtain SES applications• Process applications and assign students to providers• Contract with each provider chosen by parents: Create work plans with

parents and providers to set achievement goals for students, monitorprogress, and set timetable

• Provide space in school for after school SES tutoring• Pay providers for hours tutored

Summary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Title I, Part A Regulations C.F.R. 34 Section 200

Choice Transfer” option to move fromtheir underperforming school to a moreeffective school within the district.)17

No Child Left Behind outlines howthe SES program is to be administeredand monitored, and divides responsibil-ities between state education agenciesand local school districts.

Perhaps the deepest flaw in the feder-al law is that SES does not require a suf-ficient amount of tutoring to producesignificant improvement. The law offersno guidance for the number of tutoringhours, tutor-student ratios, and the typesof instructional programs that could beexpected to produce an acceptableamount of progress. And, while the lawoutlines an oversight role by the state(and in some cases the local school dis-trict), in practice, the program gives widelatitude to providers. Given a per childSES allotment from the participatingschool district, these providers can setthe number of hours they will tutor,establish their own hourly rates, andchoose when and where to conducttutoring sessions that do not requiresupervision by school personnel.

The law also addresses options forevaluating academic achievement -although some are too weak to make areliable accounting of student perform-ance - and describes the rights of par-ents seeking tutoring services for eligi-ble children.

While the law requires a state tomonitor for improved achievement, itdoes not mandate how students shouldbe tested, or require that overall SESresults be shared with the U.S. Depart-ment of Education, parents, or even localschool officials.

Instead, the law relies on the stateeducation agency to evaluate achieve-ment by choosing from mandated stateassessment tests, local school districttests, unspecified tests administered byproviders, “or other measures to assessthe academic achievement gains of stu-

dents receiving SES.” A state maychoose to mandate a particular assess-ment and may also elect to share per-formance results of its providers withthe federal government and the public.

The law requires no professionalguidelines for tutors (and in fact bansany requirement that a tutor be a ‘high-ly qualified” teacher) and does not allowthe local school district to approvetutors before they are hired.

One particularly glaring omission inthe law, however, is its failure to provideextra funds to monitor either the aca-demic component of the program, orthe financial portion, to assure that chil-dren learn and hours billed by providersare in fact accurate.

Gauging Academic AchievementThe key goal of SES is to improve

academic achievement, but measuringsuccess is the program’s biggest chal-lenge. Without federal evaluationfunds to study academic performance,state education agencies often leave thejob to private providers to ‘self-evalu-ate’ versus mandating specific testing.Though legally permissible, it’s hardlyan objective process.

Independent of school systems andstate education agencies, academicresearchers have completed numerousstudies on the SES program, facing thedaunting task of evaluating studentswho receive a varied number of tutor-

ing hours (SES students typicallyreceive 30-40 hours of tutoring peryear), and are instructed by diverseteaching methods not easily compara-ble. Researchers have also grappledwith incomplete records of tutoringvendors that do not provide accurateaccounting of the exact hours attendedby each student.

A 2008 study of Tennessee’s SESprogram by Ross et al. at the Center forResearch on Educational Policy(CREP) at the University of Memphis18

sums up the dilemma:“Determining the impact of 30-40

(hours) of tutoring on a child’s aca-demic performance is highly challeng-ing. Add to the mix a lack of fundingfor evaluation, personnel, and expertiseand it is little wonder that most stateshave been slow to monitor and evaluateprovider effectiveness in accord withNCLB (2001) requirements.”

Ross, et al. also note that “it remainsan open and critically important ques-tion, both scientifically and education-ally, as to whether SES programs, inindividual states and nationally, are pos-itively impacting student achievement.”

Two researchers who have studiedSES extensively, Carolyn J. Heinrich, ofthe University of Wisconsin, Madison,and Patricia Burch, of University ofSouthern California (USC), recentlyreleased a paper analyzing their ownresearch, as well as SES studies by otheracademics.19

They found Chicago Public Schoolssaw gains for SES students receiving atleast 40 hours of tutoring in grades 4through 8 (between 2003 and 2008),while Los Angeles students had low SESparticipation and little academicimprovement. Studies in Minneapolis(2007) and Milwaukee (2010) foundlow attendance with no improved aca-demic achievement.

Heinrich and Burch note the frustra-tion in local school districts whereadministrators cannot control the qualityof tutoring or evaluate its effectiveness.

4


!

“Perhaps the deepestflaw in the federal law

is that SES does notrequire a sufficientamount of tutoring

to produce significantimprovement.”

"

5

With the largest number offailing schools, City Schools reapsthe bulk of Maryland’s Title I SESfunds, with 90 percent of statefunds allocated to city students in2009-10.21 The city’s annual SESallotment has increased signifi-cantly over the years, from$500,000 in 2002-03 to $12 mil-lion in 2010-11.22

While the number of studentsserved in the past four years has alsogrown overall, the 2010-11 schoolyear indicates a rapidly escalatingbudget serving fewer students.

The number of City Schoolsparticipating in SES has fluctuatedonly slightly in the past four years.23

Yet while nearly 19,000 studentswere eligible for SES last year, only30 percent of those eligible for SESactually received services.

With thousands more students eligible for SES thanfunds available, Baltimore has had no trouble spendingmost of its SES funds each year.

When a parent chooses an SES provider, each childis assigned to a set number of tutoring hours, depend-ing on the hourly rate charged by the provider and theannual allotment available for each student, called the

“per pupil allocation.” BaltimoreCity’s allocation for each tutoredstudent has increased over recentyears, and stood at $2,554 perchild in 2010-11, a 30 percentincrease in cost over four years.

The average number of hoursoffered to each student was 51 in2008-09, but the average numberof hours completed was only 36.24

Because students often do notattend all of their assigned ses-sions, money is reassigned totutor other eligible children. As aresult, Baltimore City over-enrolls in order to serve more stu-dents. Still, the average billingper student was less than the perpupil allotment.25

Baltimore City Public Schools SES by TotalBudget Allocated 2002/03 – 2010/11

2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11

Total SES Budget (millions)Number of students served (thousands)

0.5

2.4

6.23.5

4.7

4.56

6.55.7

7

9.79.1

12.2

A Snapshot of SES in Baltimore City

Baltimore City Public Schools SES Schools/Studentseligible and served 2007/08 – 2010/11

2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11

Number of students eligible for SES Number of students served

48 Schools15,090students



4,596students

6,039students

6,572students 5,769

students


6

“Because the law intentionally offersSES providers wide-ranging flexibilityin the design of their programs, assess-ing program fidelity is a somewhat elu-sive task,” they write.

They called the self-reported infor-mation that states require of providers“relatively feeble data gathering efforts.”

The pair of researchers found thatstate educational agencies have been laxin evaluating providers, setting mini-mum standards for tutoring quality, andfailing to request information needed tomonitor quality. They also found thatstate agencies failed to follow up on localschool district complaints aboutprovider incompetence or misconduct.

“The best available evidence to datesuggests that SES has been minimallyeffective, producing only small effectsfor a relatively small fraction of students,primarily elementary-aged, who get asufficient number of hours of tutoring.If SES is to continue and to do a betterjob of increasing student achievement inreading and math, participating stu-dents not only need to get more hoursof instructional time, but they also needto receive higher quality and appropri-ately differentiated instruction,” Hein-rich and Burch write.

In her book, Hidden Markets: TheNew Education Privatization, Burch, anassociate professor of education atUSC, spent two years studying a largeschool district and raised serious con-cerns about how privatization stymiespublic educators from monitoring aca-demic progress.20

“SES policy places new limits ongovernment authority to monitor theactivity of private firms and to ensurehighly vulnerable populations’ basicrights,” she writes.

Burch also concludes, “The theoryof government contracting is that com-petition and choice bring innovationand change. Based on my analysis,however, the changes that may matter

most for students have not occurred, atleast not yet.”

Maryland’s SESEvaluation Program

Officials at MSDE have declined toanalyze the performance of SES studentson an annual basis using the MarylandState Assessment (MSA) scores or thosefrom another assessment, even thoughthey cited an “ongoing concern of theeffectiveness of the program” says assis-tant state superintendent Dr. Ann E.Chafin.26 According to Chafin, samplesizes from different providers are not bigenough to use in a bona fide researchstudy. She says, “I do not believe we havea structure in place with enough kids get-ting identical services” to evaluate SES. Inaddition, if MSA scores improve, it ishard to determine if SES is the reason. “Idon’t know if it’s SES or the weekendprogram at the Y or a wonderful teacherin the classroom,” adds Chafin.

This view is shared by Dr. Steven M.Ross, a Johns Hopkins University profes-sor at the Center for Research andReform in Education. Previously, Ross

was executive director of the Center forResearch on Educational Policy (CREP)at the University of Memphis, wheremany credible SES studies have beenconducted, including the 2007 and 2009studies commissioned by MSDE thatfound little statistical improvement inMaryland’s program (see below).

Ross agrees that it is difficult to com-pare one provider’s tutoring program toanother. He also notes that it is difficultto look at the effects of a limited numberof SES tutoring hours for students whoare already lagging behind by severalgrades, to compare their below-gradelevel tutoring with a “high stakes test”such as the MSA, which is at grade level.

For that reason he questions the fair-ness in using standardized tests to judgeproviders’ effectiveness.

“Pick your poison. On one hand wecan get rid of every provider, or we canlet providers report (their own) resultsand maybe get rid of the bad ones foranother reason,” says Dr. Ross.

Despite the difficulties evaluatingSES progress, CREP did study Mary-land’s SES students during the yearsbetween 2005-06 and 2006-07.27 In the2005-06 Maryland study, researcherslooked at small samples of the 10,985students receiving SES tutoring from 29providers in six school systems. Sixty-eight percent of the students were fromBaltimore City. Researchers studiedMSA scores before and after the tutoringseason, and then compared them withscores for non-SES students.

The study found that most SESproviders had a “positive or neutral effecton students served but that this effectrarely reached statistical significance. Amore pervasive and substantive issue isthe degree to which state assessmentshave adequate sensitivity to detect thecontribution of only 20-30 hours oftutoring during an entire year.”

Student samples for the study wererestricted for several reasons, includingincomplete records and a limit to studyonly grades with available MSA test


!

“The best availableevidence to date suggests

that SES has beenminimally effective,

producing only smalleffects for a relatively

small fraction ofstudents, primarilyelementary-aged,

who get a sufficientnumber of hours

of tutoring.”

"

7

scores. The authors reported that theycould only focus on students in grades 4-8 who took the MSA tests the prior year(2004-2005 in grades 3-7) as a “baselinefor determining growth in 2005-06.”

The studies were disaggregated byprovider, so the analysis could comparonly progress among students tutoredby the same private company. Thoughthe reports concluded that there waslittle or no statically significantimprovement in MSA scores attrib-uted to SES tutoring, a handful ofproviders did show a slight improve-ment in scores.

These studies, along with thenames of successful providers, wereprepared for MSDE and shared withschool districts, but they were notmade publicly available to help SESparents make choices. Further, none ofthe data showing which providers fellshort of improving academic achieve-ment were used in deciding whether toremove a provider from the state-approved list.

Baltimore’s InternalSES Review

During the program’s early years,local school systems and state agenciesscrambled to follow the complex federalrules, vet providers, and inform parentsand school staffs about the program.

In Baltimore, City Schools strug-gled to track the program as well. Inearly 2004, for example, the schoolsystem’s then chief executive officerwrote to The Abell Foundation statingthat City Schools’ Division ofResearch, Evaluation, Assessment andAccountability was about to release areport that would help parents “makemore informed choices” about SES.28

That report apparently was neverreleased, and today city school officialshave no records that it ever existed.29

But a few years later, in 2006, theCity Schools Title I office that coordi-

nates the SES program began conduct-ing its own internal analysis of aca-demic progress for SES students, eventhough the law did not require suchanalysis from a local school district.30

The two most recent studies avail-able, completed in school years 2007-08 and 2008-09, compare test scoredata of SES students with the samedata for students who qualified forSES tutoring, but did not participatein the program.31

Unlike the CREP studies for Mary-land (and numerous studies in otherstates), the City Schools studies for2007-08 and 2008-09 showed thatSES students generally outperformedeligible students who did not receiveservices. The one exception was a low-er performance by SES students ingrades 5-7.32

Findings:• More SES participants scored in the

75th National Percentile (NP) orhigher for reading and math for thetwo school years combined, com-pared to nonparticipants. Similarly,more SES participants scored at orabove the 23rd National Percentilefor reading and math compared tononparticipants (see table below).

• Fewer SES participants scoredbasic in reading and math on theMaryland State Assessments. Inaddition, the percentage of studentsscoring proficient or advanced inreading and math was higher forstudents participating in SES (seetable below).

• However, fewer SES-participatingstudents in grades 5-7 scored profi-cient or advanced in MSA readingthan nonparticipants.


Stanford 10 Results for Grades 1 and 2 Combined:SY2008 and SY2009

Based on National Percentile (NP)

Stanford % 23NP or higher Stanford % 75NP or higherReading Math Reading Math

SES Participants 68.20% 78.80% 18.10% 32.00%Non-participants 66.00% 74.50% 16.70% 27.60%Difference 2.20% 4.30% 1.40% 4.40%

(SES minus non)

MSA Grades 3-8 Combined

% Scoring Proficient% Scoring Basic or AdvancedReading Math Reading Math

SY2009: SES Participants 34.1 39.7 65.9 60.3SY2009: Non-participants 37.9 50.5 62.1 49.5Percentage Point Difference -3.8 -10.8 3.8 10.8SY2008 & SY2009:SES Participants 33.9 35.9 66.1 64.1SY2008 & SY2009:Non-participants 41.3 53.7 58.7 46.3Percentage Point Difference -7.4 -17.8 7.4 17.8

8

Because these studies do notaccount for prior achievement of stu-dents or selection bias (the potential forthe more motivated families to sign upfor SES in the first place), it is difficultto draw conclusions. More importantly,these studies were never shared outsidethe city school administration, eitherwith individual school principals, par-ents, or MSDE.

Privatizing WithinA Public System

In practice, NCLB gives wide lati-tude to SES providers. In addition tosetting their own hourly rates (the statemay only crack down on “exorbitant orunrealistically low rates”), providers canoften choose when and where to con-duct tutoring sessions with no requiredschool staff supervision.

Also, while the NCLB Act requirespublic school teachers to be certifiedand highly qualified, the federal govern-ment takes the opposite view when itcomes to SES tutors: The law actuallybans establishing professional standardsfor tutors, and it does not allow stateagencies or local school districts toapprove tutors before they are hired byprivate providers.

A state education agency, states thelaw, “may not, as a condition ofapproval, require a provider to hire onlystaff who meet the ‘highly qualifiedteacher’ requirements…” of the NoChild Left Behind Act.33

The law also establishes other pro-tections for SES providers to operateas independent businesses with mini-mum government oversight. Forexample, the law allows state agenciesto “establish certain program designcriteria” such as setting a “range” oftutor-student ratios, but it prohibitssetting an “absolute” ratio, “so as notto unduly restrict providers’ servicedelivery options.”

And while the law gives a state

agency some oversight of programdesign, it actually restricts local schooldistricts from meddling in a provider’scurriculum. In fact, local school dis-tricts “may not impose requirements onproviders’ program design.”34

This legal restriction is particularlydistressing because academic researchershave found that the SES program is dis-connected from classroom instruction.One study of SES in Kentucky publicschools found that “the relatively littlecontact and communication betweenproviders and teachers raises some con-cern and would seemingly help toexplain, in part, the absence of SESeffects on achievement.”35

It is also noteworthy that the lawallows – but does not require - states toclamp down on questionable ethicalpractices by providers, such as offeringmoney or gifts to encourage enrollmentin their program. (Maryland chose toban this practice and expects each dis-trict’s Title I office to enforce it.) Thelaw goes even further to protect SESvendors by suggesting that a state educa-tion agency “consult with providers onthis issue” to make sure any statewidepolicy “does not bar standard marketingpractices.” The law, however, does pro-hibit an SES provider from bribingschool officials.

Selection of SES ProvidersProviders allowed in the SES pro-

gram run a wide gamut, according tothe law. They can be for-profit, non-profit, or faith-based organizations, acollege or business, an individual, oreven an entire school system or singlepublic school in good standing. InMaryland, the majority of SESproviders are for-profit organizations.

MSDE’s selection process for SESproviders includes an annual six-hourseminar for prospective tutoring compa-nies to discuss technical and financialcriteria as well as two six-hour work-shops to coordinate curricula withMaryland standards. Three-personteams (with one or two members repre-senting local school districts) reviewproposals and scrutinize each applicant’scurriculum, and financial and opera-tional capacity to run the program. Bylaw, individual school systems, such asBaltimore City Schools, are not permit-ted to hire providers directly.36

Although the state cannot dictateacademic qualifications of tutors,MSDE does ask prospective providersapplying to the SES program todescribe the “minimum education lev-el” and the kinds of instructional expe-riences that their (often yet to be hired)tutors may have, as well as how tutorswill be trained.37

Providers establish the student/tutorratio and set their own hourly rates,38

although these must ultimately beapproved by MSDE. An exhaustivesearch of individual provider applica-tions posted on MSDE’s website showsa wide range of rates proposed from$33/hour for a 60-hour program to$60/hour for a 30-hour program.39

Nevertheless, because each Baltimorestudent comes with a set price tag of$2,554 (in 2010-11), the higher thehourly rate charged, the fewer hours oftutoring a student receives. While thefederal law claims that this level ofautonomy gives parents more choices, itactually can leave parents at a disadvan-

continued from page 7 !

“NCLB gives widelatitude to SES providers:

providers can oftenchoose when and where

to conduct tutoringsessions with norequired school

staff supervision.”

"

9

tage; when shopping for an SES tutor-ing program, families are not told thatsome providers will offer their childrenfewer hours than others because of thehigher fees charged.40 The City Schoolshandbook of providers given to eligibleparents does not show the hourly ratecharged or the number of hours oftutoring provided.

Once vetted and approved byMSDE, providers are given unusualindependence from public school over-sight. They can choose the times theywork and hire tutors without specifiedqualifications. Maryland requiresproviders to ‘self-report’ (using a statedatabase) the results of academicachievement tests, parents’ customer sat-isfaction surveys , the number of tutor-ing hours received by each student, andwhether students met their academicgoals. Providers submit some of thesedata to the local school district, but stateofficials do not verify the accuracy of theinformation by reviewing original tests,surveys, or attendance records.

Despite questions regarding mar-keting and oversight of vendors, Mary-land is way ahead of other states when itcomes to imposing ethical standards onproviders. Elsewhere, SES vendors arenot prohibited from using financialincentives to get parents to sign up, orlimited in rewarding a child’s goodattendance record.

“We had people who were givingkids iPods for signing up or giving them$100 if they completed their 26 hours,”says the SES director in one unnamedschool district in another state that wasstudied in Burch’s book, Hidden Mar-kets: The New Education Privatization.41

Recruiting SES Students inBaltimore City

Each school year begins with a flur-ry of recruiting activity as approved SESproviders flood Baltimore City schoolfairs to compete for eligible students.

The increase over the years in thenumber of providers (from two to 29vendors) has made for such intensecompetition that one veteran providerrecalled a Baltimore principal threat-ening to call police on one unusuallyaggressive recruiter.

Another former employee of a cityschool where a large number of stu-dents receive SES tutoring, remembersrecruiters unduly pressuring parents asthey entered the school to sign up theirchildren, then going to students’homes, telling parents if they didn’t signup with their company, they would bedenied services.

“They came off as used car sales-men,” he says. “It was obvious theirgoal was to make money.”

In theory, the large number ofproviders should give parents morechoices in selecting a tutoring program,but in reality the pressure tactics andbureaucratic complications created byso many SES tutoring agencies hamperthe program and delay the start oftutoring sessions in Baltimore by sever-al months each year. Often, eligiblechildren do not begin actual tutoringsessions until January – halfwaythrough the school year.

These questionable and confusingmarketing practices have resulted inparents signing up their children withmultiple providers. The city has evenreceived batches of dubious SES appli-cations with signatures of several par-ents in the same handwriting, all mailedfrom the same address, implying thatseveral vendors are either signing up thesame parents or that the dubious appli-cations may be fraudulent. Alreadyoverburdened by nearly 8,000 applica-tions each year, school officials are leftto sort out and disqualify the duplicatesand those appearing to be fraudulent.42

An uneven playing field has alsoresulted in very small nonprofit tutorscompeting with large, national for-profit companies that have recruited thelion’s share of students.

During the last school year of 2010-11, for example, several Baltimore Cityproviders signed up fewer than 20 stu-dents each, while the largest provider,the for-profit HigherSchool Tutoringcompany, signed up 1,249 students.43

With the per student allocation of SESfunds at $2,554, HigherSchool Tutor-ing stood to gross more than $3 millionfrom tutoring Baltimore City students.

In the early days of SES in Balti-more, recruiters would harass parents inthe mornings when they dropped theirchildren off at school and offer freecomputers to students who signed upwith them.44

Now, fortunately, recruiters in Balti-more are permitted at schools only dur-ing specially-designated times. The statehas sought to curb unscrupulous busi-ness practices by banning incentivesduring the recruitment period andrequiring providers to sign a “Code ofProfessional Conduct and BusinessEthics” in which they promise not topublicly criticize competing providers,host carnivals or dinners to lure stu-dents, or disseminate advertisementswithout prior approval of MSDE. Nev-ertheless, one provider reported seeingother tutoring companies offer incen-tives of t-shirts, Frisbees, and candy atschool fairs where parents sign-up forSES. No providers have been sanc-tioned for these activities.

MSDE has also established a limit of$5 on the value of any incentive, or gift,for each student after he or she isenrolled, as a reward for good atten-dance. However, the state’s rules do notspecify how often that $5 gift (such asschool supplies or McDonald’s giftcards) can be offered to students duringthe school year.

Qualified Teachers as Tutors?NCLB gives SES providers sole

control over hiring their employees;providers are prohibited from estab-lishing professional standards fortutors and do not have to report on the


10

credentialing of their employees. As aresult, there are no data regardingqualifications of tutors available toeither individual schools, districts, orthe state, and there is a wide range ofexperience levels among the tutors.

“Tutors range from college stu-dents to someone who has a Ph.D. ineducation,” says Dr. Tasha FranklinJohnson, Baltimore’s director of feder-al programs.45

In fact, providers are allowed to hireteachers from the very low-performingschools where SES students are locatedto work as tutors after school. There arepros and cons to this practice. A teacheralready working in a school with an SESprogram may be more likely to be ableto coordinate a student’s tutoring pro-gram with classroom work. And theteachers are more likely higher qualifiedthan other SES tutors, since they have tobe certified, while there is no profession-al qualification for an SES tutor.

On the other hand, some questionthe rationale for hiring a teacher from anunderperforming school to continueworking with those same students afterschool. These teachers might also havean unfair advantage during the recruit-ment period because they potentiallyhave a relationship with parents, makingit easy to steer them to their provider.

One former employee of a cityschool with a large number of SES stu-dents recalls that so many teachersearned extra money (as much as $75 anhour) after school that the principalbanned SES tutoring on the one day aweek when he held faculty meetings toensure their attendance.

This same former employee ques-tions the ethics of one teacher workingas a recruiter for a provider, giving thatprovider an unfair advantage becausethe teacher could steer parents and stu-dents toward her SES employer.

MSDE reports that some Marylanddistricts avoid these problems by not

permitting employees in certain posi-tions to work with vendors; others donot allow school employees to work forSES providers during the school day.

To underscore the degree of auton-omy granted to providers, City Schoolsofficials report that they do not knowhow many of their own teachers work asSES tutors after school. Nor are theyaware of the qualifications of any of theSES tutors in their schools.

Monitoring SES in Baltimoreand Maryland

NCLB requires the Maryland StateDepartment of Education to monitorthe program, spot check students’records, pre-approve advertising used torecruit students, and make sure tutorspass criminal records checks.

A 2009 survey of state SES pro-grams by the Center on Innovation andImprovement reported that Maryland isone of only a third of states to conductroutine monitoring visits of privateproviders. Those that reported a lack ofmonitoring blamed staff shortages.46

That survey singled out Maryland asa state that runs a credible monitoringsystem with site visits for its SES pro-gram. Authors Ross, Harmon andWong also acknowledged Maryland’sonline data collection system, whereproviders must ‘self-report’ attendancerecords, parent satisfaction surveys, andprovider-administered academic test

scores. This information, however, is notavailable to the public.

According to these researchers, “SESmonitors in Maryland have easy accessto continually updated records that per-mit review of participation, goals, andprogress for the students served by eachprovider.”47 Not mentioned were theunchecked veracity of the informationreported by providers and the fact thatthis information is not made availableto SES families or the public.

At the local level, City Schools isleft to more closely observe the SESprogram, despite the fact that theschool system has no legal right to ousta provider, or dictate curriculum or anyother changes.

In 2006, City Schools formed teamsof retired school professionals who makevisits – some unannounced – at leastonce a month to SES tutoring sessionsand review student work plans to makesure instruction matches the originalplan. Like the state, they also reviewcriminal records checks for tutors.48

In Baltimore, thousands of SES stu-dents spent hours in tutoring sessionsat 41 schools in 2010-11, but noteacher or administrator from theseschools was allowed to supervise thesessions to ensure that tutoring planswere coordinated with school-timeinstruction, that tutors and studentsshowed up on time, and that the ratioof tutors to students followed agree-ments with private providers.

In addition, SES tutoring does nothave to be delivered in a school build-ing. In Baltimore City last year, morethan 22 percent of SES childrenreceived services outside the school,when providers were approved to offerservices in a different location.

In such a disjointed program, thelaw assigns the job of monitoring themulti-million dollar program to stateeducation officials who work outsidethe schools.

Each provider also gets an annual vis-it from a team of MSDE educators, usu-


!

“In such a disjointedprogram, the law assignsthe job of monitoring the

multi-million dollarprogram to state educationofficials who work outside

the schools.”

"

11

ally prescheduled so providers can beprepared with management staff present,although announced visits are notrequired by law. The state team, sayMSDE officials, has managed to keep upwith the growing number of providers(from two to 47 statewide in nine years),despite the lack of federal funding setaside for monitoring. The state teamsvisit schools, as well as homes for thoseproviders that offer home tutoring.49

Some monitoring visits were com-pleted without observing tutoring ifstudents didn’t show up or if the team

visited after the tutoring session wasover. In those cases the monitoringteam could only check studentrecords, whether the curriculummatched state standards, and back-ground check completion.50

The state also does not monitorproviders proportionally according tothe number of students they tutor. Aprovider tutoring 15 students a year willhave the same once-a-year site visit as aprovider with 1,200 students. For exam-ple, in the case of one of the state’s larg-er SES providers, which signed up 1,285

students during the 2009-10 school yearin City Schools alone,51 MSDE’s teamobserved only three SES students beingtutored by that provider in that year.

However, it would be difficult tomonitor larger providers more oftenthan smaller providers, says an MSDEofficial, because MSDE often beginsmonitoring even before registration endsand does not know total enrollment byprovider until the end of the school yeardespite its online reporting system.52

But the director of federal programsfor City Schools expresses frustration

Fairfax County, Virginia, has set up a decentralized,school-based model for monitoring its SES program that,school officials say, gives them more oversight of tutoringsessions, promotes higher student attendance, and assurestighter scrutiny over its payments to providers.59

Fairfax’s program, however, is much smaller andmore manageable than Baltimore’s. It had 1,000 stu-dents in six elementary schools, while Baltimore’s pro-gram in 41 elementary and middle schools tutored5,769 students in 2010-11.

Nevertheless, some aspects of Fairfax’s program couldbe examples for Baltimore to consider. SES tutoring ses-sions take place only on Saturdays when students get freebus transportation, an additional cost to the school sys-tem. Each school is assigned a ‘facilitator,’ a district pub-lic school teacher acting as a ‘Saturday principal.’ TheFairfax County facilitator manages tutoring sessions,checks attendance of both students and tutors, and makessure time sheets are properly documented. The facilitatoralso evaluates the educational quality of the tutoring ses-sions and does the job of Maryland and Baltimore’s mon-itoring teams by checking student work plans to makesure they match actual work given during sessions.

Facilitators in this Virginia school district have alsoremoved students from substandard tutors and, after con-sulting parents, assigned each child to a parent’s nextchoice, says Debbie Jones, Fairfax’s SES coordinator.

As for attendance, the facilitator takes note of tardystudents and docks a provider’s pay if a tutor is late.Attendance rosters require two signatures – the tutor’sand the facilitator’s - before payment can be made. (Bal-timore’s attendance sheets only require a student’s signa-ture or initials.) Most providers, says Jones, are honest

regarding their invoices, but the school district hasencountered providers who bill the school district fortutoring that never occurred.

While Fairfax’s monitoring program may keep clos-er tabs on its in-school tutoring program, it does nothave similar controls for the small number of studentstutored at home.

And like school systems across the country, the localschool district has to rely on providers approved by thestate and selected by local parents.

Academic achievement tests, administered to demon-strate that tutoring is improving students’ performance,are also ‘self-administered’ by the provider without over-sight from school officials.

“We are not supposed to see the tests,” says Jones.This school-based monitoring program is duplicated

throughout 95 percent of Virginia’s school systems, saysAnn Sheehan, SES coordinator for the Virginia Depart-ment of Education.60

School systems that don’t have on-site monitors dur-ing all tutoring sessions “are struggling with billing issuesand attendance. They’re billed for kids who aren’t there,”she says.

Like Maryland and many other states, though, Vir-ginia does not analyze standardized tests to gauge aca-demic achievement of SES students, although CREP hascompleted studies of Virginia’s students.

“There’s not enough data to assess whether a singleprovider has made an impact,” says Sheehan.

Unlike Maryland, Virginia does not send monitoringteams to observe tutoring sessions and check studentrecords, leaving that job to the local schools.

VIRGINIA: Setting an Example for SES Monitoring at the District Level

12

that the city school system has so littlecontrol over the program in its schools.53

“We cannot take a provider off thelist,” says Franklin-Johnson, who over-sees the SES program for City Schools.

“We don’t have a lot of insight tocurricular tools (the providers) use(or) how they design their program.”One provider tutors a student for 60hours and another for 100 hours, shenotes. “It’s a mixed bag.”

She also expresses skepticism thatall the providers’ programs areimproving academic achievement, asthey have reported on their self-administered tests.

“I am perplexed,” she says.MSDE does make the monitoring

reports from its site visits available on itswebsite, but there are not reports postedfor all providers.

Limited Financial Oversight:Paying Providers

The federal law does not addresspayment methods for providers – oracknowledge the complications of pay-ing dozens of vendors competing forstudents. And while the city schooladministration has no legal authority tofire tutoring companies educating itsstudents, it still shoulders the burden ofpaying them. Making sure tens of thou-sands of invoices match up with theactual hours tutored is no easy task.

Most of the tutoring in this looselyregulated program (offered in 41 Balti-more City schools in 2010-11) takesplace after the regular school day, whereschool attendance monitors employedby the Title I office collect attendancesheets signed by participating children.Later, school officials match up thetime sheets with invoices sent byproviders for payments.

The monitors also have a role inmaking sure SES students attend theirtutoring sessions. Because the federal lawprovides no money for a financial track-

ing system, City Schools dips into otherfederal funds from its Title I program tofinance the monitors, allocating$166,836 in 2010-11 to run an atten-dance program that pays monitors $16to $18 an hour for six hours a week. Theattendance monitors go above andbeyond what is required by federal law.54

City Schools officials say the moni-tors may not be able to confirm the timeof arrival, or length of stay for every stu-dent and tutor, but Franklin- Johnson,director of federal programs, says, “Wehave many internal controls to supportthe presumption of accuracy.” She saysthey perform “random scrubbing” tomake sure students’ initials appear ontime sheets and that the attendancesheets match invoices.

Providers interviewed say atten-dance monitors are doing a better job atbeing present during tutoring sessionsthis year, contrary to past years whenthey were not always present whiletutoring was in session and would oftenpick up attendance sheets after sessionsended. One provider was surprised thatCity Schools pays providers based oninitials signed by a child as young as 5

years old, a notation that can so easilybe forged. There are no state require-ments about sign-offs.

In the program’s early years, nearlyall the SES students were tutored atschool, so having a school-based atten-dance monitoring system made sense.55

But now, SES tutoring takes place inhomes, online, and in locations outsideschool, where there is no attendancemonitoring system to determine theveracity of attendance sheets.56

City Schools officials could not pro-vide a breakdown of how many of their5,769 SES students in the 2010-11school year were tutored outsideschools, but incomplete documentationshows it was at least 1,263 students.“We don’t have a way of validating”time sheets from home, says Franklin-Johnson, and adds that City Schools hasno internal system for tracking the timestudents are tutored online.

This lack of a system to ensure thatCity Schools is not paying vendors forwork they don’t perform is a seriousconcern, especially in light of the recentconviction of Tracy Queen, owner ofQueens Mobile Education, for stealingmore than $150,000 from a differentCity Schools program for the tutoringof special education students. Queenpleaded guilty in April 2011 to chargesof submitting false invoices with forgedparents’ signatures that billed theschool system for 3,966 hours of tutor-ing for 250 students that neveroccurred over a three-year period.57

Queen had also been an approved SESprovider for several years, but her busi-ness was removed from the programafter criminal charges were filed in thespecial education case in 2009.58 Shehas not been charged with stealing fromthe SES program. Although Queen’sfraud scheme involved a program sepa-rate from SES, the attendance recordkeeping of both programs is similar –and equally open to fraud. The SEStime sheet system, though, is especiallyproblematic because only students’ ini-

continued from page 11 !

“Despite the fact thatstate education

departmentsand local school districts

are required to postSES information ontheir websites so thatparents can have easy

access to programoptions, Maryland’s

communication is spotty.”

"

13

tials (and not parents’ signatures) arerequired for most tutoring sessions.

Lack of Communication toFamilies and the Public

Despite the fact that state educationdepartments and local school districtsare required to post SES informationon their websites so that parents canhave easy access to program options,Maryland’s communication is spotty.SES-eligible parents in Maryland arenot given a provider ‘report card’ oranother easy way to determine if aprovider has a good track record.

MSDE’s website includes extensiveamounts of information geared prima-rily to providers, including advertisingand ethics guidelines for providers, thestate’s monitoring reports from visits totutoring sessions, and instructions forproviders to ‘self-report’ results ofachievement tests and parent evalua-tions into a database. Although thestate posts its annual monitoringreports for most providers on its web-site, they are hard to locate and do notinclude student achievement data, thevendors’ hourly rates, or total numberof hours of tutoring provided. Similar-ly, Baltimore City’s website posts a listof providers with a description of theirservices (written by the providers), aswell as a list of eligible schools, theamount of money available, and thenumber of students enrolled.

Parents looking for information onthe performance of individualproviders, including the hourly rate, thenumber of tutoring hours provided,and measures of parent satisfaction willcome up empty.

To its credit, in June 2011, Balti-more’s Board of School Commissionersestablished a complaint system for par-ents specifically for SES.61

Findings and RecommendationsThe fundamental flaw in the SES

program is the federal law itself. It wascreated to finance an agenda that pub-licly funds tutoring businesses with animplementation and accountabilityplan misaligned to the goal of increas-ing academic achievement. This mod-el has resulted in a disjointed systemthat hinders public educators fromadministering and scrutinizing mil-lions of dollars of public school tutor-ing funds in Title I schools.

For now, it seems, the future of theSES program is up in the air, as Con-gress has yet to extend, alter, or repealNCLB. Given the evidence, it is fairto suggest that SES, as currently con-figured, be ended and the funding re-appropriated.

I. FEDERAL LEVEL

Findings• NCLB does not hold states account-

able for improving academicachievement with SES, even thoughthat is the program’s stated goal. Thelaw does not require states to submitstudent academic outcome data tothe U.S. Department of Education.Although SES providers are requiredto show academic improvement overtwo years or face disqualification,the methods allowed to evaluateproviders (e.g., self-reported results

of tests given without public educa-tors present) are dubious.

• States are not allowed to limit thenumber of SES providers, in thename of fair market competitionand parental choice. But, in reality,the large number of providers posesproblems for individual school dis-tricts, like Baltimore. Not only is itconfusing to parents, who are bom-barded by competing providers, butit is also so bureaucratically compli-cated that tutoring is delayed for sev-eral months and doesn’t begin untilhalfway through the school year.

• The U.S. Department of Educationdoes not set aside funding for statesor districts to evaluate academicachievement, to monitor providers,or to pay for staff to compare actualattendance of tutors and studentswith time sheets and invoices sub-mitted for payment.

• The law is designed to give littleeducational control of providers tostate education departments andlocal school districts. Providers canestablish their own hourly rates, setup their own academic programs,choose assessment tests, and hiretutors with no credentials. Stateeducation agencies can review SEScurriculum, but federal law pro-hibits local school systems frommeddling in the tutoring methodsof their own students.

• State education agencies and localschool districts are not allowed toimpose professional guidelines forhiring tutors. In fact, they are pro-hibited from requiring tutors to be“highly qualified.”

Recommendations1. The law should establish general

educational standards for SESregarding number of tutoring hours,tutor-student ratios, and research-based instructional programs thatwill reasonably be expected to pro-duce academic progress.


!

“Given the evidence,it is fair to suggest

that SES, as currentlyconfigured, be ended

and the fundingre-appropriated.”

"

14

2. The law should require states andthe U.S. Department of Educationto evaluate the academic impact ofSES providers on student achieve-ment with bona-fide assessmentsthat are monitored for accuracy bylocal and state educators. SESproviders should no longer beallowed to ‘self-evaluate’ theirprogress without allowing publiceducators to review actual testresults.

3. States should be allowed to set capson the number of providers so thatprograms can be manageable foreach school district to process appli-cations quickly enough for tutoringto begin in a timely manner. Thiswill also ensure that parents have anadequate number of choices, but arenot bombarded by numerousproviders seeking their business.

4. The federal government should setaside a percentage of SES funds toallow states and districts to monitorand evaluate providers, and to hirestaff to ensure the veracity ofproviders’ invoices.

5. According to Dr. Steven M. Ross ofJohns Hopkins University, the SESprogram should be redesigned toenable states and districts to pro-vide intensive monitoring so thatschools can connect tutors andteachers to ensure coordinationbetween school-day and after-school instruction. Teachers andprincipals should also be consultedso that their views can be incorpo-rated into the SES curriculum.

II. STATE LEVEL: MARY-LAND STATE DEPART-MENT OF EDUCATION

Findings• MSDE has expressed concerns about

its ability to evaluate the quality ofthe SES program due to the autono-my given to providers.

• The state does its best to keep up withthe growing number of providers,making annual site visits and review-ing providers’ records, but it has yetto remove a provider based on poorstudent outcomes because it doesn’thave a set of standards for collectingand analyzing performance data.

• The state also allows providers to ‘self-evaluate’ their own programs with atest of their choosing, hardly a profes-sional indicator that they are improv-ing student achievement.

• MSDE does not make achievementdata from providers available to thepublic so it is nearly impossible forparents to make informed decisionsabout the best tutor for their children.

• It is questionable whether the statehas complied with the requirementto dismiss providers that do notimprove academic performance aftertwo years; it has never dismissed aprovider for failing to increase aca-demic performance.

Recommendations1. In the absence of federal funding for

monitoring, the state should allocate

adequate funding to annually moni-tor and evaluate the performance ofeach provider regarding the increaseof student achievement.

2. MSDE should adopt standards for allSES providers to use approved pre-and post-assessments of academicachievement. Testing should be proc-tored by district educators, and testscores should be reviewed by MSDE.

3. To better educate parents whenchoosing a tutoring company, MSDEshould make publicly available a rat-ing of each provider, based on moni-toring from the previous year, so as tobetter educate parents when choosinga tutoring company. The District ofColumbia Public Schools has donethis in past years. In its “Title I Sup-plemental Educational ServicesGuide for 2009-2010,” it rated allproviders who had worked in previ-ous years on a scale from 1 to 5 (1:poor, 2: below average, 3: average, 4:above average or 5: exceeds stan-dards). These ratings appeared underthe description of each provider,making it easy for parents to review.

4. Any provider not showing academicimprovement should be dismissedafter two years.

5. Individual school districts should bepermitted to dismiss an SES providerthat routinely violates ethical stan-dards for recruitment.

III. DISTRICT LEVEL:Baltimore City Public Schools

Findings• The student recruitment process is

at best disorganized, at worst perni-cious. In the name of free marketentrepreneurship, SES providers areallowed to strong-arm parents intosigning up with their SES program.

• City Schools’ SES program maybegin as late as January due to abacklog of applications.

• Parents are not told that providersoffer a varying number of hours for


!

“The law shouldestablish general

educational standardsfor SES regarding number

of tutoring hours,tutor-student ratios,and research-based

instructional programsthat will reasonably

be expected to produceacademic progress.

"

15

each child, depending on the hourlyrate they charge.

• City Schools teachers can be hired asSES tutors (and recruiters), raisingethical questions about giving SESproviders who hire them an unfairadvantage in recruiting students.

• The financial accountability systemlacks safeguards as reimbursementsto providers are based on child sig-natures. Further, City Schools hasno system to verify the accuracy oftime sheets used for hundreds ofstudents tutored at home, online orat other nonschool locations.

• Although City Schools has conduct-ed evaluations of academic achieve-ment of SES students as comparedto non-SES students in the past, itdoes not share these results withstate education officials, local schoolprincipals, teachers, or parents.

Recommendations: City Schools

1. City Schools should consider its owncapacity to provide SES services inorder to better coordinate academicservices and provide oversight.

2. City Schools should reevaluate itsSES student sign-up process, beallowed to reduce the number ofproviders, and streamline its systemso tutoring can begin earlier in theschool year. According to MSDE,City Schools can also rewrite its SEScontract with providers to clarify itsrequirements and strengthen itsoversight role.

3. The financial accountability systemof SES should be overhauled. Fol-lowing the example of many Vir-ginia school districts, time sheets forstudent attendance in a school set-ting should include the signature ofa school employee. City Schoolsshould immediately set up a systemof verifying time sheets of studentsand tutors meeting at home or in

another setting, by randomly callingparents to verify times and datesrecorded by providers. It should alsobegin routinely monitoring atten-dance of online SES tutoring pro-grams to verify invoices sent byonline providers.

4. The School System should contin-ue to monitor the professional con-duct of SES providers during therecruitment process.

5. Information given to parents abouteach provider should include a reportcard with academic outcomes fromMSDE as well as the hourly ratecharged and the number of tutoringhours offered for each student.

6. City Schools teachers should be pro-hibited from recruiting for SESproviders because parents may beunduly influenced.

7. City Schools should share the resultsof its annual SES academic evalua-tions with teachers, principals, par-ents, and state officials. These studiesshould be posted on its website.

8. Now that the Board of SchoolCommissioners has approved anSES policy establishing a complaintsystem, there should be a centraloffice (with a phone number andemail address) so that parents mayask questions or file complaintsabout SES providers.

Endnotes

1 Figures from Baltimore City Public Schools.2 “No Child Left Behind: Supplemental Education Services Non-Regulatory Guidance.” US

Department of Education, January 14, 2009; www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.doc.3 Interview with Ann E. Chafin, MSDE Assistant State Superintendent, Division of Student,

Family and School Support; Mary Cross, Coordinator, Supplemental Educational Services;Maria Lamb, Director of Program Improvement and Family Support branch.

4 The Baltimore Sun: “Cheating, Tampering Found in City Schools,” by Erica L. Green, June 23,2011:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-md-ci-city-cheating-schools-20110621,0,5931688.story USA Today: “When standardized test scores soared in D.C., werethe gains real?” Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello, March 30, 2011;http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28 1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm; TheBaltimore Sun: “Widespread cheating found at city elementary school; An 18-month investiga-tion shows thousands of erasures on state test booklets,” Liz Bowie, May 27, 2010;http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-05-27/news/bs-md-school-cheating-20100526_1_test-scores-cheating-students-tests .

5 The Baltimore Sun: “Alonso orders investigation into plummeting test scores at elementaryschool: Abbottston Elementary's MSA scores plunge from 100 percent,” July 23, 2010, By Eri-ca L. Green. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-07-23/news/bs-ci-abbottston-msa-investiga-tion-20100722_1_maryland-school-assessment-test-annual-reading-and-math-scores .

6 MSDE interview with A. Chafin.7 Pribesh, S., Nunnery, J., Ford, M.J., Harrison, L., and Alberg, M. Study of Supplemental Edu-

cational Service Providers in Maryland: Student Achievement Analyses: three reports for theyears 2005-2006 (released in October 2007); 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 (released in June2009) and 2006-2007 (released in May 2009). Memphis, TN: Center for Research in Educa-tional Policy (CREP), University of Memphis.

8 MSDE interview.9 US Department of Education. No Child Left Behind: Supplemental Education Services Non-

Regulatory Guidance. January 14, 2009. www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.doc -Page 7.

10Interview with Dr. Tasha Franklin-Johnson, Director of City Schools Office of Federal Pro-grams and other staff.

EDITOR’S NOTE:A copy of the report, Sending Out An S.O.S. For SES, is available in “Publications” onthe Abell website, www.abell.org.


16

11Data from Baltimore City Schools, MSDE monitoring reports.12Ibid, City Schools interview, data from City Schools.13Ross, S., Harmon, J., & Wong K. (2009). Improving SES quality:

Promising practices for states. Lincoln, IL: Center on Innovation &Improvement. http://www.centerii.org/survey/

14City Schools interview.15No Child Left Behind: Supplemental Education Services Non-Regula-

tory Guidance, US Department of Education, January 14, 2009.www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/suppsvcsguid.doc

16Title I description, U.S. Department of Educationhttp://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html

17Ibid: No Child Left Behind.18Ibid; No Child Left Behind.19Ross, S., Potter, A., Jangmi, P., McKay, D., Sanders, W., Ashton, J..

(2008). Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk. Vol. 13.Issue 1 January 2-8. P. 26-58.

20Heinrich, C, and Burch, P. The Implementation and Effectiveness ofSupplemental Educational Services (SES): A Review and Recommen-dations for Program Improvement. Prepared for “Tightening Up TitleI”, a conference sponsored jointly by the Center for American Progressand the American Enterprise Institute. March 11, 2011. This is a draftstudy quoted with permission from author Heinrich.

21Burch, Patricia. “Hidden Markets: The New Education Privatization.”Chapter entitled: Shadow Privatization Local Experiences withSupplemental Education Services.

22Data from the Maryland State Department of Education.23Data from City Schools.24Data from City Schools.25Data from City Schools.26Data from City Schools.27MSDE interview.28Pribesh, S., Nunnery, J., Ford, M.J., Harrison, L., and Alberg, M.

(2007,2009). Study of Supplemental Educational Service Providers,Maryland: Student Achievement Analyses.

29Letter to Robert C. Embry Jr., president of the Abell Foundation fromBonnie S. Copeland, CEO, Baltimore City Public Schools, January22, 2004.

30Communication from Tasha Franklin-Johnson at BCPS.31Interview with Fred Cusimano, former Director of Federal Programs

for City Schools.32Supplemental Education Services Program School Year 2007-2008;

Discussion of student participation, service hours provided, and assess-ment data (4/1/2009), Office of Federal Programs – Title I, BaltimoreCity Public School System. Supplemental Education Services ProgramSchool Year 2008-2008; Discussion of student participation, servicehours provided, and assessment data (1/2/2010), Office of FederalPrograms – Title I, Baltimore City Public School System.

33Ibid.34Ibid; No Child Left Behind.

35U.S. Department of Education policy letter to Chief State SchoolOfficers, August 24, 2006.

36Munoz, M.; Potter, A.; and Ross, S. (2008). Supplemental Educa-tional Services as a Consequence of the NCLB Legislation: Evaluat-ing its Impact on Student Achievement in a Large Urban District.Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), v13 n1p1-25 Jan 2008.

37Retrieved from http://www.msde.maryland.gov/NR/rdonlyres/917715FF-9106-4FEB-B99E-3FD03540F1E4/28656/WebpageUpdateonRFQPosting.pdf .

38Correspondence from MSDE’s SES coordinator, Mary Cross.39Federal law and MSDE interview.40Retrieved from http://www.msde.md.gov/MSDE/programs/

esea/Provider_List.htm on 8/22/11.41City Schools interview.42Burch, Patricia. (2009) “Hidden Markets: The New Education Privati-

zation .”New York: Routledge. The Critical Social Thought Series.Chapter entitled: Shadow Privatization-Local Experiences with Sup-plemental Education Services.

43Baltimore City Schools Interview.44Data provided by Baltimore City Schools.45Interview with F. Cusimano.46City Schools interview.47Ross, S.; Harmon, J.; & Wong, K. (2009). www.centerii.org48Ibid.49City Schools interview, F. Cusimano interview .40MSDE interview, state monitoring reports.51Retrieved from http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/

programs/esea/Supplemental+Educational+Services .52Student enrollment for HigherSchool Tutoring in 2009-2010, former-

ly called HigherSchool Publishing, was provided by City Schools.53Correspondence with Mary Cross, Coordinator of SES for MSDE.54City Schools interview.55City Schools interview, correspondence between the Abell Foundation

and BCPS.56F. Cusimano interview.57City Schools Interview.58Maryland State Prosecutor’s office, State of Facts for Tracy Queen plea,

April 7, 2011. This Abell researcher was one of the parents whose sig-nature was forged for hours of tutoring for her child that neveroccurred.

59MSDE interview, documents provided by MSDE.60Interview with Fairfax County, Virginia SES coordinator Debbie

Jones.61Interview with Ann Sheehan, SES coordinator for the Virginia

Department of Education.62Franklin-Johnson, City Schools.63District of Columbia Public Schools:64Retrieved from: http://osse.dc.gov/seo/cwp/view,a,1274,q,563580.asp .


Joan Jacobson is a former Evening Sun and Sun reporter, now working as a freelance journalist and researcher. Sherecently co-wrote a series of articles for The Daily Record about Baltimore's largest redevelopment project, now stalledin East Baltimore She is also the author of three previous Abell studies about inadequate vision screening in publicschools, the demolition of Baltimore public housing and millions of dollars in uncollected taxes from illegal video gam-bling machines.

September 2011 Volume 24, Number 5 The Abell Report

Documents

Transcript of September 2011 Volume 24, Number 5 The Abell Report