Market for NCLB Tutoring Falls Short of Expectations

Five years after the federal No Child Left Behind Act spawned a new tutoring market for students in low-performing schools, experts say some companies are struggling to keep afloat, and others have outright failed.

Private-sector providers received $400 million in federal money for what are called supplemental educational services in 2005-06, according to a new report on K-12 tutoring by Eduventures, a Boston-based market-research firm. But that’s far less than the potentially $2.5 billion earmarked by the U.S. Department of Education in Title I funding for the SES provision, which provides free academic help to students in schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress under the law for three consecutive years.

Though the number of approved SES providers—which include nonprofit groups and school districts as well as companies—almost doubled from 2002-03 to 2005-06, as many as half may not have viable businesses, say education market experts such as Tim Wiley, a...