| The world as we know it is changing in leaps and | | | | fell behind in education. |
| bounds on a daily basis. Our children are growing up | | | | Supplemental Educational Services |
| knowing and using iPods and computers with | | | | In 2004-2005, there were more than 22 million children |
| gigabytes of data storage for all their music and video | | | | eligible for "supplemental educational services", which |
| files. High-speed Internet has become a way of life | | | | includes tutoring. About 19% of those students got |
| where more young people subscribe to read, chat, and | | | | those services, or roughly two out of every ten |
| communicate with friends online than ever before. As | | | | students who were not proficient in core subjects, |
| the Internet marketplace continues to expand rapidly, | | | | received aid. A good analogy would be a physician |
| and technologies afford education access from the | | | | telling the parents of ten children that that they need |
| ease and convenience of home, it is imperative that | | | | medicine to cure an illness and only two out of the ten |
| parents and educators recognize the benefits involved | | | | children can receive the medicine that they need. |
| in education online. | | | | The need for tutoring is obviously there. Why then is |
| The public education system in the United States grew | | | | the current method of tutoring inadequate? There are |
| out of an economy based upon single income | | | | principally four reasons why tutoring has been |
| workers, zero competition from outside markets for | | | | ineffective: |
| internal education consumers, and more manufacturing | | | | 1) Schools can recruit tutors for students in rural areas |
| jobs than service jobs. The baby boomers born during | | | | and even fewer for those students in those areas |
| the post World War II era, enjoyed the benefits of | | | | with disabilities. |
| President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Servicemen's | | | | 2) School districts do not tell parents that tutoring is |
| Readjustment Act or the GI Bill of Rights, which | | | | available. When letters are sent home they often |
| granted affordable access to college education. The | | | | arrive late and are hard to understand. |
| baby boomers of the United States catapulted into | | | | 3) Tutors are not allowed into schools and do not |
| growth as a result of this, enjoying an unprecedented | | | | coordinate with teachers or the curriculum in the |
| level of abundance and prosperity. | | | | classroom, leaving the student confused. |
| One of these baby boomers is President George W. | | | | 4) State education departments do not evaluate the |
| Bush, who enacted the No Child Left Behind Act | | | | quality of tutors, as the law requires. |
| (NCBA), offering the societal challenge of making | | | | On one hand we have American schools and students |
| every child proficient in reading and math by 2012. A | | | | failing and in need of remediation, operating under an |
| schoolteacher for more than thirty years, who now | | | | outdated system of education, and money going to |
| runs a management company for teacher training, | | | | waste, and on the other hand we have an emerging |
| described the resultant effect of this act upon the | | | | technology platform based on high speed broadband |
| public school system as one which far exceeded the | | | | technology that is leveling the playing field for people, |
| capabilities of what American public schools can | | | | and companies worldwide. This technology is one that |
| currently offer. | | | | not only attracts our children, but also captivates them, |
| Despite the grandiose claims of the NCBA, actual | | | | so that they return to computers and multimedia |
| school performance began to decrease after the | | | | repeatedly for entertainment. |
| passage of the act and the United States, as a whole, | | | | |