I’ve been meaning to write about supplemental services (publicly funded tutoring under No Child Left Behind) in the wake of the Secretary’s letter to the chiefs a few weeks back but haven’t had time. In sum, that whole policy needs a lot of work from the fundamentals underpinning the initiative through the implementation and I still don’t think the administration gets it.
But, that said, today’s Washington Post has a big splash about how rural school districts cannot implement the provisions. Now rural districts (and rural communities more generally) do face some unique challenges as a result of size (or lack thereof) and geographic isolation. And there can be little doubt that brick and mortar tutoring companies are not going to locate in all rural areas. But when Montana tells the WaPo that only 20 of 14,000 eligible students at 66 schools have received tutoring because of these issues, the BS detectors should go off and some hard questions should be asked about how vigorously the state and school districts are implementing the provisions and genuinely trying to serve those kids brick and mortar or otherwise. And on the otherwise, while I’m certainly not a technotopia type and think that a lot of ed tech is over-hyped, the WaPo also has a story today about how DC-area Somalis keep up with goings on back home in real time using technology, it’s an interesting juxtaposition with the attitude of the rural states/school districts that there is just no way to do this stuff…not saying we’re going to deliver tutoring over cellphones, just that there is more play there than 20 of 14,000 if the state really wanted to see those kids served. Readers are left wondering how hard WaPo’s Goldstein pushed them on that point…
Also, good a time as any to note that there was a lot of bloggy grumbling about the appropriateness of former PA state chief and Bush Admin. Deputy Secretary of Education and current lobbyist/advocate for supplemental services Gene Hickok’s WaPo op-ed about the tutoring provisions because he obviously has skin in the game. I don’t carry any brief for Hickok but I don’t think the Post did anything wrong by publishing the piece since they disclosed that he is a player. In the ideas debate sometimes people who are players have insights worth sharing (sometimes more informed insights than just observers) and disclosure is the key ingredient. But, it would have been good for the disclosure to note that WaPo Company property Kaplan is a player here, too, and is involved with a key Hickok client. The disc did fall short on that front.