Betsy DeVos Has a Plan to Help Low-Income Students. History Suggests the Opposite Will Happen.
On the surprising way that the use of tutoring companies exacerbates inequality
With schools shifting to online learning, some fear a growing education divide.
In response, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has proposed an emergency funding package under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES). The emergency relief funds, which total $13.2 billion, are allocated to state and local education agencies and in “microgrants” to teachers and families. The aim is to assist low-income students with tutoring and other services.
The money, according to a press release by the U.S. department of education, has “very few bureaucratic strings attached” and targets the “most disadvantaged” students for assistance.
Existing education law, such as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which states can more readily access, already highlighted tutoring for disadvantaged students as a way to address the education gap. Yet if history is any guide, while tutoring services may help these students make some gains, the long-term benefits could flow to students who already have access to ample resources.
Tutoring Goes Mainstream
Tutoring is a mainstay in education. Federal dollars to tutoring companies for disadvantaged children have been tried before. No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the George W. Bush administration-era education reform legislation, was premised on trying to address the divide in outcomes across racial groups and between wealthy and poor districts.
From 2002–2015, NCLB dedicated significant resources to private tutoring companies. Yet, the differences in outcomes for students participating in such programs were minor and not statistically significant. A child targeted by NCLB was likely to do as well in math without tutoring as with it.
But the failure to achieve the intended impact on disadvantaged youth does not mean that NCLB’s funding to private tutoring had no meaningful effects. The money helped grow the size and legitimacy of private tutoring corporations in public education.
Kumon, a tutoring company, has grown nearly 200 percent since 2002. Mathnasium has partnered with the National Parent Teacher Association to bring its instruction inside schools and is one of the fastest growing franchises in the country. They even hold events inside schools. The federal government has endorsed and helped grow these companies, so it makes sense that parents take them seriously as partners in education.
Well-Off Children Getting the Fast Track
As tutoring companies proliferate in cities buoyed by money from federal programs, it’s not just disadvantaged kids taking part. Families with children in highly-ranked schools, who should be the most satisfied with their schools, increasingly seek out the extracurricular learning these private companies offer. As a result, many of these centers serve a clientele with disposable income.
Having spent considerable time with parents who pursue extra education for their young children, I have witnessed and written on this trend. Marketing dollars are targeted to households with incomes over $125,000, for instance. A founder of a learning center told me her company picks areas with well-regarded schools when deciding where to open new locations. And many of the parents of the kids she kids tutored at her centers are “very well educated — professors, doctors, or lawyers. They earned their money through education.”
The operating belief is that high-income families already living in areas with well-ranked schools are most likely to prioritize education and pay for supplementary learning. Centers advertise themselves not only to families whose children are struggling with academics but also to those who are already ahead of grade level and need “an extra challenge” beyond schoolwork.
The Popularity is Rising
These marketing pitches are working. The families I spoke to report that centers are “packed,” as one mother told me. Traffic patterns had to be altered in one suburb during active after-school hours. The popularity of centers has grown in response to the heightened competition for student success in school rather than just in response to poorly-resourced schools.
The parents I spoke to have kids who already do well in school. The point, for them, is not to overcome debilitating knowledge gaps or learning deficiencies. Instead, these families pony up significant money for tutoring as a way to help their children become even more academically competitive.
The closing of physical centers during the pandemic is no reason for them to stop attracting new customers. Centers increasingly offer online options, with a structured curriculum and adult instructors to guide children through the learning. While free online tutoring sites are popular, some parents still pay around $200 per month for their children to participate in-person or online with a teacher using a structured curriculum.
This trend is only going to grow. As tutoring services receive more funding from the DeVos relief packages, their ability to expand their operations will inevitably increase. Tutoring companies clearly aim to serve lower-income students and want to help such kids. But the market for providing cognitive advantages to already-resourced children has grown significantly in recent years. Which means that demand from all kinds of families, not just the ones whose children most need it, is set to increase. The switch to at-home learning has led parents to wonder if children are receiving sufficient homework and instruction time, and parents want more academic work for their children.
Learning centers are apt to take advantage of this. Their growth market is in virtual learning, which has been a popular choice for families even before the pandemic. Disadvantaged students may get some relief from DeVos’s emergency package and receive school tutoring assistance and better internet access. But even if they do, middle and upper-class families’ better existing access to these ever-growing opportunities will help ensure their continued advantage.
With more federal money now heading towards tutoring, we can expect what we’ve observed in recent years’ efforts to put federal money towards tutoring for disadvantaged students to continue: the widening rather than shrinking of the education gap.
