Federal

Ed. Dept. Grants N.Y.C., Boston Waivers on NCLB Tutoring

By Catherine Gewertz — November 15, 2005 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

In its continuing bid to ensure free tutoring for as many eligible students as possible, the U.S. Department of Education has granted waivers allowing two more urban school districts to provide the extra help.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings informed Boston and New York City in letters this month that for the 2005-06 school year, they would be exempt from a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act that prohibits districts from serving as federally financed tutoring providers if they are deemed to be “in need of improvement” under the law.

Before Boston and New York City got their exemptions, the Education Department extended a similar waiver enabling Chicago to provide tutoring. In addition, the agency granted a slightly different waiver to a group of four Virginia districts, allowing them to offer tutoring to low-income students in struggling schools before they offered the choice of transferring to another school—a reversal of the usual timing in the law. (“NCLB Waiver Lets Virginia Offer Tutoring Before Choice,” Sept. 7, 2005.)

Education Department officials view the agreements as pilot programs designed to boost the number of children receiving the tutoring. Fewer than 20 percent of eligible children enroll in such tutorings. Districts are required to offer the services to pupils from low-income families in schools that fall short of meeting state academic goals for three consecutive years.

In exchange for being allowed to use federal Title I money to run their own tutoring services, the districts in the pilot programs agreed to certain conditions, such as having the effectiveness of their services evaluated, and making sure parents are notified of their options.

More to Come?

As many as seven other large districts could be granted similar waivers. The Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington-based urban education advocacy group that worked with the Education Department to obtain the agreements with Boston, Chicago, and New York, is trying to secure similar ones for districts also barred from serving as tutoring providers, said Michael D. Casserly, the group’s executive director.

“There is very little evidence to think that these districts couldn’t provide solid programs just because they are in district- improvement status,” he said last week. “It’s also clear that if districts are unable to provide services, it means fewer kids get after-school tutoring.”

But there is some concern, he said, that the timing of the waivers will put districts that re-enter the tutoring field at midyear at a disadvantage when their programs are evaluated alongside those of private providers who have tutored students for a full school year. How such differences can be taken into account in the evaluations is “an open question,” Mr. Casserly said.

In the 2004-05 school year, 87,000 students in New York City received tutoring from private state-approved providers. The city had halted its own program in the fall of 2004 because officials believed most of its subdistricts would fail to make adequate yearly progress, as required under the No Child Left Behind law, rendering them ineligible to serve as providers. Most of the subdistricts did fall short of state targets last year, as well as this year.

Before the city stopped its own tutoring, half or more of the New York students who used the service enrolled in the city-run program. Currently, 45,400 students are getting NCLB tutoring in the city, including some who enrolled in programs offered by three subdistricts that met state targets. The citywide district is planning how it might expand its offerings under the waiver, said district spokeswoman Kelley Devers.

Boston officials thought last year that they might have to suspend their program because the district fell short of targets for attendance. The district successfully appealed that finding to the state, however, arguing that its absence figures were too high because they included “medically fragile” students, said district spokesman Jonathan Palumbo.

When the attendance numbers were revised, the Boston district was found to have made sufficient progress, and was able to continue serving as a tutoring provider, Mr. Palumbo said. The city’s own programs served about 1,170 of the approximately 2,200 children who received tutoring under No Child Left Behind last year, district records show. The rest were served by 13 private providers.

District officials chose to proceed with securing the waiver for this school year, however, to ensure continuity of the program and “as a matter of policy,” Mr. Palumbo said.

Events

School & District Management Webinar Fostering Productive Relationships Between Principals and Teachers
Strong principal-teacher relationships = happier teachers & thriving schools. Join our webinar for practical strategies.
Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Artificial Intelligence Webinar
Promoting Integrity and AI Readiness in High Schools
Learn how to update school academic integrity guidelines and prepare students for the age of AI.
Content provided by Turnitin

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Data: Which Ed. Dept. Offices Lost the Most Workers?
Cuts disproportionately hit the agency’s civil rights investigation and research arms, according to an Education Week analysis.
3 min read
Chloe Kienzle of Arlington, Va., holds a sign as she stands outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education, which were ordered closed for the day for what officials described as security reasons amid large-scale layoffs, Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Washington.
Chloe Kienzle of Arlington, Va., holds a sign as she stands outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Washington. The department this week announced it was shedding half its staff.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Federal Ed. Dept. Says SEL Can 'Veil' Discrimination. What Does This Mean for Schools?
A document from the Education Department flags social-emotional learning—a once bipartisan education strategy—as a means of discrimination.
Deeper learning prepares students to work collaboratively and direct their own learning.
There has been an uptick in political pushback against social-emotional learning, with the Education Department recently saying some schools "have sought to veil discriminatory policies" with terms like SEL.
Allison Shelley for All4Ed
Federal Civil Rights, Research, and More: What’s Hit Hardest by Massive Ed. Dept. Cuts
An analysis of the Trump administration's cuts to the agency shows its civil rights enforcement and research arms are hit particularly hard.
Chloe Kienzle of Arlington, Va., holds a sign as she stands outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Eduction, which were ordered closed for the day for what officials described as security reasons amid large-scale layoffs, Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Washington.
Chloe Kienzle of Arlington, Va., holds a sign as she stands outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Washington. The department this week said it was cutting nearly half its staff.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Federal Opinion The Threat to Federal School Data Is a Threat to Us All
The erosion of this fundamental information will create immediate blind spots for districts and states.
Ronald L. Wasserstein
6 min read
A bar graph melts into a puddle.
iStock/Getty Images