I operate one of the tutoring companies that offers services to children through the NCLB act (please see my website at www.WenatcheeTutoring.com for further information). There are many reasons I hope SES will continue, but with some significant adjustments that would both benefit students and satisfy taxpayers funding the program, which I will outline below.

I want to share the impact we have been able to have on low-income students from these under-performing schools. Last year, ALL of our students made measurable gains during the limited hours they had with us. Some, in as few as 10-12 hours of reading instruction, gained 2-3 YEARS in reading level. That is, quite frankly, remarkable, and I attribute much of that success to our small or individual classes and certified teachers, coupled with our specialized teaching method. Moreover, the students we serve seem to be those who have never had individualized attention, and once they do, they THRIVE. (If it would be helpful, I can be contacted via Facebook or on my website and I happy to provide data on our actual student results from last year.)

I see two major issues with the SES program. Of greatest concern is the selection process of tutoring agencies for which the inclusion criteria are too broad. Some agencies have repeatedly produced poor results and yet are allowed back in, year after year. These are companies who exploit the program, pairing under-trained "tutors" with far too many students. There seems to be no real system in place for districts to evaluate providers' performance and determine the effectiveness of their services. I strongly suggest that law-makers revise the SES program to allow districts to assist in the selection of tutoring agencies, based on their actual performance, student gain, and parent/school reports. There must be a way for the good tutoring agencies to be distinguished from those that simply roll into town, bombard everyone with fancy incentives ("Enroll with us and you get an iPod"), and then employ sub-par strategies. SES should be affiliated with companies hiring certified teachers who are qualified to instruct students in reading and math. As it is, some tutoring companies employ high-school students to provide instruction! That is inappropriate for a federally-funded program. No one less-qualified than a certified classroom teacher should be administering tutoring services to students struggling with foundational skills like reading and math.

Finally, I would suggest that policy-makers entertain the idea of having SES not be restricted to after-school hours, but that QUALIFIED agencies be let into schools to work with students during the day. Many of them are not making any progress at all in their regular classes, and if a student who is failing a pull-out reading class could be instead paired with a proven tutor, we would see remarkable progress without the necessity for students to elongate their already exhausting day. Parents wouldn't have to rearrange schedules, and classroom teachers could have first-hand knowledge of the extra tutoring, letting teachers and tutors work together.

We are a WASC accredited supplemental education service and serve students through the Free Tutoring provision of the No Child Left Behind Act as well as students whose parents are celebrities..Both receive the same quality attention,which is why WASC has given us our accreditation.Individual intervention by a qualified provider is the only way that many children, at all levels of ability, can make progress. The tragedy is that we are able to offer too few hours in a program which is on a wait-list basis because it is increasingly popular and insisted upon by the parents of the children who so desparately need it.

Free tutoring programs are needed to help our students because there are too many children in a classroom to reach every child effectively. Working with small groups helps to give the child the attention they need to receive the help to become successful
in getting the knowledge they are required to know.
The tutoring program that I'm in (Rocket Learning)is unique in their creative strategies to engage children in learning such as kinesthetic movement, music that relates to the topic or skill, and activities that help the students remember what's being taught. The children are our future and we need something in place for our students to get the help they need to become succsseful in life. We need doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, bankers, carpenters, auto mechanics, plumbers, computer programmers, technologists, scientist,entrepreneurs etc. to help people effectively. We are helping ourselves as well as the student because we have to deal with them in handling our business affairs. We want to mold minds and create responsible knowledgable people who can produce quality work to help us survive as well as themselves.

our government should spend taxpayers' money on improving schools, class sizes, and hiring of better instructors instead of spending $900 million a year for tutoring services. just a waste and junk!

I have seen and experienced first hand tutoring through NCLB and I think a major reform is needed if the government really wants to improve Education for our children in Title 1 schools. The "tutoring" has basically no measures or accountability, it is all smoke and mirrors. Money can be used to improve other areas that are working or the feds need to change the "tutoring" scope.

I do not like the fact that school district administrators and union related supporters paint SES tutoring organizations as deceptive ineffective organizations. They do this to end after school tutoring and capture the tutoring money. Granted, there are a few bad providers, but the state can and should remove them. If a state has a few bad schools, should the public label the entire school district as a failure? From my 15 years of working with kids through tutoring, I know that tutoring works most of the time. If you have an educated qualified tutor who cares about the kids and the tutoring organization's curriculum is align the school district's curriculum, you are going to see gains. Also, out of all the parents I have seen, I have never had a parent end services because they see the tutoring as not working. Most of the time parents are upset because they did not know about the free tutoring program or that only some of their kids can get the services. Parents are for free tutoring, but the school districts want to end it to control the money. It is that simple.

Listening to this story reminds me of two things. Firstly that most tutoring services are unable to address the needs of kids with learning disabilities (I've asked a few). Secondly that in order for a parent to be reimbursed or the tutor to be paid directly by the DOE (at least when using Carter Funding), the tutor's qualifications need to be the same as a NYC school teacher, but most people who fit that bill are NYC school teachers and can't double dip... catch22.

If, as a standard, teachers were better and more thorouughly trained to identify and properly address the needs of the non-typical students (there are far more non-typical learners in the school system than one might be lead to believe by how unfamiliar with learning disabilities an average teacher is...), there would be a drastically reduced need for all of this tutoring. To be honest, a child doesn't need to be learning disabled to benefit from the sort of training I'm talking about, but special ed training is mostly focused on the phyiscally disabled -- learning disabled are not always as easy to spot.

In 2003/2004, My dyslexic son got tutoring when in response to seeing his program card and that College Now was not reflected in his schedule, I testified at City Hall about what was happening in the schools. Compared with finding a qualified tutor, getting the approval for said tutoring was a breeze. My son benefited, but he unneccessarily had to go through so much pain first.

I have found that most tutoring situations are of minimal benefit for students with real needs. Prior to the No Child Left Behind Program, I paid for tutoring services for my child. Despite the skills of the tutor a once a week, or twice a week hour or half hour is not sufficient to turn things around. . Most students with needs require specific, consistent skilled assistance throughout the school day. The most important elements to school success are skilled teachers who are able to think outside the box and constant parent collaboration. Private tutoring services, paid for by the government is another complete waste of the public money as our leaders continue to look for the magic answer to societal problems.

Surreal, doesn't the DOE see that class size effects
performance for everyone? The kids who need the most
are suffering the most. An appropriate child teacher
ratio has got to be less expensive then the tutoring
or taking care of those who drop out later.
The $900 million per year seems like a very expensive
small piece of tape keeping the enormous system from
falling apart.

My child has used the private tutoring that NCLB offers. It has been very helpful for him to learn algebra. Before the tutoring was offered, he would complain that the algebra class did nothing but talk. My kid's tutor comes to my home twice a week for 1.5 hour each session. During the tutoring session, the tutor makes sure make kid understands how to do the work. Between sessions, the tutor leaves homework. According my son and my son's grades, the tutor is helping.

SES Tutoring reaches the most at-risk, disadvantaged students in the United States. It engages families who would never have their students participate in after school programs and has been proven effective in several studies conducted in large urban school districts. When properly administered, it provides valuable one-on-one and small group intervention for disadvantaged students. SES does need some changes and enhancements, but should absolutely be included in the rewrite of ESEA.

Our company has been tutoring students for over 10 years and has served hundreds of schools. On average our students make 30% gains in reading or math as a result of the federally funded SES program. We survey our parents and the teachers of our students every year. Both groups report major improvements in our student’s skills as well as in their confidence, attitude toward school, and motivation to succeed. I hear reports from the U.S. DOE that question the effectiveness of this program. But our experience is that our students, parents, tutors, and classroom teachers uniformly praise what we are accomplishing. There are providers out there who are not good and who are just chasing a federal buck. But there are many who are experts at what they do and who achieve exciting results. It seems that Mr. Duncan is motivated by politics and is going to through the baby out with the bath water. The State DOE and School Districts know which providers are good and those who are not. Instead of eliminating this much needed funding for struggling disadvantaged students, the U.S. DOE should free the States and School Districts to weed out the providers and focus on the ones who are great. The great providers are experts at what they do and the School Districts will not match the results if they try to do it in-house.

As you know, our school system is currently failing our students. We need to protect the welfare of children in our lowest performing schools. I'm calling because I want to make sure that Supplemental Education Services (SES) is included in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Tutoring must be available to the students that need it, free after school tutoring is an important lifeline that must continue to be required. Thank you.

SES tutoring for No Child Left Behind is a well intentioned program plagued by questionable implementation, poor metrics and a handful of unscrupulous tutoring companies that give all of us a bad name. HighPoints Learning has provided SES online math tutoring for 5+ years in 27 states with positive results. The average student's improvement from their first assessment to the final post assessment is 17 points or 49% when you use the sum of the averages. We are definitely working with under performing students. The average pre test score for last year's students was 45.9%! When they finished with us they averaged 62.9%. That is not a passing grade but much closer than where they started; many students had to be over 70% to make that average so high. If we get them next year they will readily move into the passing category. That is what we are here to do.
The program implementation is problematic due to an intense amount of paperwork required. We do everything online yet most school districts make us print out hard copies of everything and snail mail them to their offices. It would be much easier if we could just email our data but not many school districts are willing to accept it. due to the difficulty for most companies to track and document their success many states do not even look at how a company is performing. We perform very well and welcome it when a state does analyze our performance and make them known to parents.
As with virtually all federal programs there are companies that push the limits and try to beat the system. They give the group a black eye.
Our hope in this era of SES waivers is that the states look at the companies who performed well under SES and continue to utilize us in the new world order, however it turns out.

We have a unique tutoring program in that we are non-profit and offered through the Utah Education Association - yes, the union. We comply with all of the regulations that for-profit tutoring agencies meet and offer another option for parents. We hire only certificated teachers who work at the school offering the tutoring. Our "tutors" are teachers. They know the students. They know the parents. They know how to integrate the tutoring with the core and with work being done in the classrooms. Most have additional certifications in math, reading, special education, EEL and other areas. We have had no behavior problems and our parent surveys show 95% satisfaction. Teachers love the program because they finally get a manageable size group (5-6)and can target their knowledge and skills in an optimum setting. And we pay them accordingly. This is our fourth year and every school in which we have worked has met their AYP goals that year. The added bonus is that the "profit" that we make actually goes into our foundation to provide grants to teachers and students in Utah schools. We think that we're proving that teachers don't need "Superman" to fly in and save their schools. They just need to be given small class sizes and the resources and freedom to do what they do best.

I work as a district coordinator for an SES company, and SES tutoring, when administered properly, brings positive results to the students with whom we work. We have a low tutor to student ratio (1:1 or 1:2), and we are able to help students who, for whatever reason, do not receive individual attention otherwise. We tutor at schools, public libraries, boys' and girls' clubs, rec centers, and in the homes of our students. We become friends and advocates for the families of our students. I wish that there was more accountability for SES tutoring companies, as we compete with some who do not seem to care about anything but the money. They come into a school district, and offer incentives to sign up with their program, and then in the end, provide very little benefit to their young students. But that is not every company....most do very good work, and provide valuable assistance to children who are being left by the wayside, so to speak. My company employs both teachers, and certified para-professionals, from the districts where we provide services. We have produced positive, measureable results throughout our years of service, and have an 'excellent' service rating with the state DOE.

Free tutoring must be available to our most needy students. SES provides individualized instuction to students who are performing well below grade level. For many students, free tutoring is an opportunity to catch up and gain academic self confidence that leads to better behavior and outcomes. Tutors make connections with staudents and families who lack other supports. We all must work together to improve opportunities for all students!

As the Director of Supplemental Educational Services for the Urban League of Essex County, a nonprofit organization that offers many services to the community, i see firsthand how valuable and important the tutoring services are to our community. A vast majority of the schools in our community are considered failing and our goal is to help them get out of that status. We want to be a part of the solution to the problem by lending assistance to the students who may not be able to afford additional outside sources. Moreover, we want to lend assistance to the schools that may not have the budget to hire more teachers to offer students smaller class sizes. When properly operated and the providers are in the tutoring business for the right reasons, students make significant academic improvement from tutoring. We have worked with over 1500 students in our six years as a provider and year over year over 90% of our students served made academic improvement. We provide a small setting (1:3- 1:5 ratios) and the students get individualized instruction. In addition, parents constantly submit testimonials as to how valuable the services are to their children's success in school. It is sad to say, but there are a few providers out there with gimmicks and subpar results who give us all a bad name. With a better weeding out process of money hungry providers, SES could continue to be a great resource for our community. A reformed SES should definitely be in the rewrite of ESEA.

It is amazing to see that fitting after-school programs in the governments budget is even a question, let alone it be something that the people have to fight for. To be perfectly honest, there are many things that I see wrong with our school system, and SES programs are stopping (or better said) slowing the leak of this sinking ship we like to call the educational system. SES programs exist only because 'someone' stopped doing what they were supposed to be doing to maintain high standards in educational services in the first place! Tutoring and/or Supplemental Services SHOULD (should being the operative word) only be an aid and/or a way for students to better their grades, not to help them pass. So, being that it is obvious that the practices, funding and/or emphasis to educate our nation's children doesn't seem like it is going to be a priority ever again....thank g*d that SES providers are around and available for our children to enhance their education. Education shouldn't have a price and shouldn't be a burden...so let's for a moment forget about how to make 'private tutors' pockets grow by taking away from the public schools standard tools of learning, and let's continue to fund at least those programs that are available to help those in most need.

I only need to address this topic with a few simple comments. #1 What could be more important than arming our young people with the tools and skills they may need to open their minds up to learning, becoming organized, and becoming confident at an early stage in life. #2 What will we say to those left behind in the coming worlds challenges to those who may have not have had the resources that others have had to think productive and become intelligent. #3 What will become of those peolpe? Will they become our future military? our future police force? or our future teachers or aids in the school system. Our future starts now! and requires attention now! Not later when it's too late!

There seems to be the perspective that only certified teachers should be the only ones that are qualified to tutor through SES. I would disagree. There are many certified teachers who do a horrible job both in the classroom and during the tutoring sessions. Some of the best tutors that I have worked with have not been certified teachers. They have been educated individuals who truly care about helping the kids. As long as there is proper training, testing of content area, and the tutor is monitored and mentored, the tutor can become a great tutor. Granted, I would want to have a certified professional working with a kid with disabilities.
In addition, we need a population that sees our youth's education as everyone’s responsibility. If we eliminate SES tutoring and allow the school districts to control all facets of education, we have simply put our eggs in one basket. The parents will have to rely 100% on their local school system. If the school system fails there child, the parents will no longer have any avenue to pursue. SES tutoring has allowed many parents to seek additional educational support through outside vendors. How is this bad for parent involvement?

I have three boys that are enrolled in one of the tutoring services called Achieve High Points and I can tell you this much the program is awesome and my boys testing grades as well as school grade has improved by at least 10 points on the state testing and at least 5 points each semester in the classroom. The representative that I first dealt with was straight forward and honest about the program and what it offers as well as some of the parents who signed their kids up for the program said the program wasn't for their student. I love the program and my kids love the program. Not only have their math grades improved but their attitude towards math has changed for the better as well. Now some of the tatics that other companies are using to recruit students are a bit crazy for me because as a parent I want a program that not only my child will benefit from but also enjoy the program.

I have found that the tutoring program does work, but the problem is the school systems are not making the parents aware of the programming available. They are using the tactic of not getting the word out to claim the tutoring does not work, but it only works if you work it. I, by chance found out about the tutoring from another parent. I have 7 children in the public school system and so far have utilized SES for 4 of them. Their test scores did improve using the online program Achieve High Points. I think the government should find some way of making sure the districts are actually utilizing these programs becuase most of them do not want them in the first place. i have been shocked to discover how little the districts actually know about SES and Title 1, and how little parents know as well. there does need to be some reform, but the Tutoring works, it must be utilized

I have been a teacher as well as a tutor. I have noticed that parent involvement in crucial to success in school, but many children do not have parents that are able to help them understand the work that is to be done. With Club Z, we pretest and posttest the students and put together an individualized learning plan. The parents are always pleased at the progress of their children and the posttest shows measurable progress as well. I must add, though, that healthy diet and physical exercise are another factor that must be addressed in order to help the whole child.

As the former Secretary’s Regional Representative ( US Department of Ed - Secretary Paige & Spelling) of Region II (NY, NJ, Puerto Rico, & US Virgin Islands), I received a great amount of positive feedback from teachers and parents about the SES program.

Many teachers told me that they believe the program has been a crucial tool in helping students, who need extra assistance, achieve grade level progress or at the very least achieve significant progress in trying to reach grade level. Several teachers spoke honestly that they receive students in their classes who are two and sometimes more grade levels behind in reading and/or math. According to them, the extra help the SES program gives students is an essential tool and is beneficial not only for the student himself but also the wider society of the classroom.

It’s been estimated that Americans purchase more than $2 Billion in tutoring services each year. Obviously, tutoring is considered a valuable resource by many parents. I have had my children tutored and personally know many students who have had access tutoring services from teachers in the neighborhood or tutoring companies such as Huntington, Sylvan, etc.

Parents who can afford such services will continue to do so; thus, giving advantages to those students whose parents can afford the tuition charges as compared to those students whose families cannot afford tutoring.

The federally funded Supplemental Educational Services program has helped to give needy students equal footing in the private tutoring arena.

Tutoring is not unique to America. International statistics (a United Nations Study) points out:

Japan – 70% of students have private tutors by the time the student reaches middle school

Greece – Greek Parents spent close to $1 Billion Euro’s a year on private tutoring

Brazil – Over 50% of Rio de Janeiro students receive private tutoring

Eqypt – 65% of urban primary school students receive tutoring
Korea – the average household spends $1,950 on tutoring per child per year (Asiaweek 1997)

Morocco – 53% of secondary science teachers provide after school tutoring

Our students are competing in a global economy for their professions, their futures, and our nation’s future. We need to provide as many learning tools as possible to help them excel.

The American and the international experience show that tutoring is a regular part of the education system.

The greatest accomplishment of NCLB is its’ focus on poor, minority, and disabled students. The SES program is a tool that helps to directly relate to the individual student’s needs. It helps the student, the student’s classroom teacher, and the class as a whole.

It most certainly would be a mistake to take such a good program away from our neediest students.

After 6 years of tutoring and after over 300 students served, I have seen how much the SES program can help students achieve and that is supported by what our parents and students tell us. They report that grades have gone up, performance on standardized tests has improved, more homework is being completed and behaviors have improved all due to our services. The only students, who did not make significant progress, were the students who did not regularly come to tutoring. That is the single biggest problem with the program. The students who need the help the most are the ones most frequently absent or the ones who never enroll in the program at all.
As providers, we take pride in our ability to work with the schools to align our tutoring to the classroom concepts currently being taught. Our tutors are certified teachers who are experts in designing instruction to match the student’s learning styles. We only tutor in small groups and provide assessment aligned to the state standards in order to target the areas that provide the biggest benefit to the students. In other words, we use all the techniques and strategies research says improves student achievement
The second biggest problem about the tutoring, like most programs, is that there are more effective providers and less than effective providers. It seems the single biggest predictor of effectiveness is the philosophy. Is it a business that helps students or is helping students the business? I am proud to say that, for us, helping students is the business and we take the steps needed to make that happen. SES can and does supplement the work of the schools. The students are the winners.

I have taught in several environments. I am most proud of my tutoring services to those within the foster care system. The most notable experience was with a hispanic girl who was abused and not allowed to go to school for a number of years. As is my custom, I had an interview with her, reviewed her scores and discovered what her objective was. Her only objective was to get her GED before age 18. The foster system throws them into the streets at age 18. I was able to tutor her to sucess! She was very weak in math, and due to the language issues she was deficient in english literacy. We were able to move her up two grade levels in her scores in reading, math and comprehension. That summer two months before her 18th birthday she got her GED.
These programs are absolutely imperitive! A large number of kids are doing poorly and are ashamed within the classroom to appear that they dont know something. However in the tutoring environment its much more intimate and conducive to expression by those same kids. These kids merely need to have the opportunity to succeed and achieve. I cant count the number of times that kids grades turned around when they recieved positive feedback and encouragement. I believe that its easier to build a child, rather than repair an adult. Tutoring programs are absolutely essential !

Hello. I have been an SES tutor for 2 years. I consider myself a strong male role model for my students, and I take my job very seriously — such that by the end of my tutorial sessions, I have developed a good bond with my students, so that they WANT to learn and excel. I have tutored many young boys and girls successfully in pairs of 1 and 2. For the child to have a 1 on 1 or 1 on 2, 1 on 3 relationship with their tutor, the children get a LOT out of the sessions — English and mathematics. All of these young souls are GOOD ones, but they need help to keep on the straight and narrow. Cutting Federal SES tutoring to save money is not the answer; it will worsen the situation. Cutting big union bosses, superintendent salaries and other excessive expenses is the answer. Maybe changing the hierarchy up top so that all of the bureaucrats start working at substitute teacher salary pay without benefits is the true cure. How about some cuts in those areas?

Tom Roberts
Substitute Teacher, Lee County, Florida,
Federal SES Tutor, AHA! Tutors, LLC.

The SES tutoring program is an essential program for providing interventional support to hundreds of thousands of low-income students throughout the country. Although there have been a lot of criticisms of the No Child Left Behind Act, its stated purpose of not leaving any child behind is a fundamental principle that must not be lost no matter what the political winds or budgetary constraints are at the moment. Typical class sizes and diverse student learning types do not allow all students to maintain pace with their peers. Low-income and ESL students face additional challenges that often cause them to fall behind in the classroom. Without the support of an interventional program like SES, these students will never catch up. Sadly, they will fall further and further behind. However, the individualized attention available through SES can and does provide them a path to closing the achievement gap. So many middle-income and advantaged children have the benefit of obtaining private tutoring services when they need extra assistance. Let's not allow so many low-income children to lose the one resource that can help make a difference. If budgets are tight, eliminate waste, eliminate bureaucracy, but do not eliminate the individualized teaching that makes a positive difference in so many children's' lives.

It is a proven fact that tutoring helps students. Millions of students across the country seek private tutors on a daily basis. They are the lucky ones that can afford to pay for it. The Federal Department of Education is seeking to unilaterally eliminate Supplemental Educational Services, a program designed to make private tutoring available for low income, low achieving students. How can the Federal Department of Education want to eliminate a program specifically designed to close the achievement gap when every day we read how much wider the income and education divide is becoming. The Department of Education does not seem to care that the Supplemental Educational Services program which provides free tutoring to children who have fallen behind in the classroom was implemented under No Child Left Behind to provide critical interventional tutoring to students who have fallen behind in the classroom but cannot afford private tutors. The primary purpose of the program is to close the achievement gap. The children who will be affected are already dealing with parents who have lost jobs, more students in their classrooms and fewer after-school programs at community centers due to local budget cuts. Additionally, free after school tutoring is oftentimes the only instructional support many SES students have, with parents working multiple jobs, facing language barriers or just absent from their children's lives. If America wants to make sure all of our children get a proper education to prepare them for a productive future, private tutoring for low income, low achieving students should be a cornerstone of our efforts to close the achievement gap. If there are weaknesses in the program, then let's fix them and make it stronger. There may be problems with "No child left behind" but eliminating SES will clearly leave too many low-income students behind.

- Marcy Franz, President, AHA! Tutors,LLC

Yesterday, I was tutoring an 8th grade boy in one and two step equations. As he worked independently with a few problems, I watched him and pondered the question about the continuation of SES tutoring. He is an ESL student who is working hard to improve, and he is taking advantage of his tutoring and his school. He is showing improvement and he is happy to have a tutor who cares about him and his future. With this in mind, I asked myself why Secretary Duncan and the school districts would want to take this kid's tool to be successful. Is it money? Well, our country spends billions of dollars on wasteful things, but tutoring a poor kid and helping him build himself is not wasteful. It is an investment into the future. What is my point? Why do the parents, students, and tutoring providers have to defend its position to continue tutoring? Parents, tutoring providers, and the public should be asking Secretary Duncan why he wants to end tutoring and the tools to help kids succeed.

I have been providing SES services for over nine years and strongly believe that it is a very good program if implemented correctly. There are students who do not benefit from it, while there are many who excel in school because of SES. The only thing that needs to be changed is a number of SES providers in each state. I hope that SES will be in place next year and many more to come. I adore every student who signs up for my program and do my best to make sure that each students learns and benefits from attending the program every session.

I am a parent, the VP of Academics for our elementary PTA (which includes the in-school volunteer reading tutor program), and someone who spent six years as a writing tutor. I can not stress enough the importance of one-on-one guidance for a child who is struggling to learn a critical academic skill. The teachers in the public schools are doing a great job, but theirs is an issue of intangible resources (i.e., time).

From what I can see based on my time volunteering in the school, not nearly enough students have a parent at home who can (or will) provide the extra help that our kids need to develop the necessary fluency, especially in literacy and basic math. Without those skills, our kids lack the foundation upon which they will succeed in higher grades, or even in the ever-important standardized tests. It behooves the public schools to make sure that their students have functioning reading and math skills because without them, standardized test scores can not possibly reach required levels. If the teachers lack the time, and the majority of parents lack the time/experience/ability/interest to teach these kids what they need to know, then it falls on the shoulders of tutors.

As a tutor, I worked with college-aged students, many of them athletes, and a few of whom were barely functionally literate. (This was at a high ranking private university that graduates 100% of its student athletes.) It is shameful that students who can read only well enough to skim along are pushed all the way through the educational system. Under my tutelage, one of these students went from failing to a B grade in his freshman English class. This young man said time and again how much he wished that he'd had someone willing to work with him one-on-one earlier so that he could have learned more in high school.

If we are to raise intelligent, self-sufficient, learned adults, we must give them what they need as students. Tutoring can be the answer. Tutors have the benefit of a personal investment into a child, a relationship that is as much mentor as educator. Children need - and desperately want - to be heard and to feel like someone is taking a real, invested interest in them. Tutors can do that in a way that teachers and parents can not. Too many of our kids will fall if we can't provide them with personalized, intentional, one-on-one teaching. We may not see the ramifications immediately, but we will see them; and the ramifications of an under-educated society will be bleak to be sure.

The SES program is a great way for students who come from families who cannot afford private tutors to get the one on one education they need and deserve. As a tutor working for the AHA tutoring company, I can tell you that the students I teach have improved in many skills. A 3rd grade student that I have been tutoring can now tell time, multiply, divide, and has learned other essential math skills. A 4th grade student that I have been tutoring can now understand fractions, decimals, problem solving etc. But more importantly, both of these students are finding enjoyment out of learning. The improvements are there and if the federal government is even thinking about cutting this essential program, it has to be because they either do not have the documentation of the improvements that have been taking place at hand, do not understand the documentations, have not bothered to read the documentations, or they simply do not care. Whatever the reason, if the department of education decides to cancel the SES program, it will only show how short-sighted and incompetent the department is.

SES tutoring services are critical to the success of the student who has limited (if any) access to additional resources. The majority of these children live in homes where parents work several jobs, income is limited, and few hours are spent working individually with these students to teach basic skills. As a teacher myself, tutors fill in the gap between what teachers are able to provide and what parents actually provide in the home. This is one area where President Bush was right. Please do not dissolve this program as it will only hurt poverty level students.

If tutoring ends, the lives of over 750,000 low income, school age children will be affected. Free tutoring should be made available to all low-income students. Not only do students benefit from high quality academic programs in reading and math, but they are able to apply these skills in everyday practical situations. These students are already trapped in under-performing schools and there is little chance to improve their education if free tutoring is discontinued. The SES program is the tool to help our children.

As a provider of tutoring services, we believe in providing quality services and opportunities for students that they would not otherwise have. Many of the children we serve do not often have the chance to participate in extracurricular activities. Tutoring provides a safe environment for students with adults who are qualified and concerned about their academic and social welfare. Students have the ability to learn without the looming threat of performance tied to every activity. This freedom to learn increases academic performance and provides other positive reflections in daytime performance including behavior, self esteem, relationships, and achievement. Afterschool tutoring is a blessing for many of these students and our company has shown gains in student performance.