Sometimes students need more time.

The education system is generally designed with the optimistic model that all kids keep up with the class. But what happens when they don't?

To support a student who needs more help, nothing beats one-on-one time with a well-prepared tutor. A qualified personal tutor can help a student focus on learning exactly what they need to know to catch up, or move ahead.

Tutoring is costly

The operational premise of school is that students can learn together efficiently. One-on-one tutoring is a powerful way to help a student on a temporary or emergency basis, but it is prohibitively expensive, and schools don't have unlimited staff. Most of the time, teachers have little choice but to power through the curriculum, explaining subjects as best they can in a way that will work for most kids. Mostly they "aim for the middle," pulling aside kids who need extra help. But there is only a certain amount of time in the day.

America briefly flirted with wide-scale publicly-funded tutoring - it didn't work out. Here's what happened:

A provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB - 2002-2015) guaranteed children in some low-performing schools access to tutoring services, known as Supplemental Educational Services (SES), at a parent's request. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but over time, an increasing number of schools and districts qualified SES. This led to a boom in business for tutoring services. Some districts created their own tutoring programs; others hired outside firms. At its peak, the program diverted billions from schools to tutoring companies, with results that harmed more than they helped. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) eliminated the mandate to provide tutoring time, beginning in the 2017-18 school year.

Improving the use of time in school

A central problem of education is that students need different things at the same time. Teachers have to slice their attention to make the best use they can of the time they have with students, mostly in groups. Educators take many approaches to cope with challenge of educating students at different levels at the same time. Perhaps because the challenges are so complex, educators can become very philosophical about them.

When educators become philosophical they tend to invent new jargon. Buckle up.

Tracking decisions can be biased

Tracking: The term tracking (or, more neutrally, grouping) describes the approach of separating students into groups based on what they are ready to learn. This approach assumes - or acknowledges - that not all kids advance through school with comparable skills, knowledge, and speed. Tracking is efficient — it enables groups of strong, motivated students to learn and progress quickly, unencumbered by slower learners. It also allows students who need more time to have it. Large classes can function if students are ready for the material.

A disadvantage of placing kids on tracks is that placement decisions tend to be permanent. Students can easily down-shift to a slower track, but the decision is one-way. Once placed on a slower track, it is fiendishly hard to catch up, especially in math, sciences, and world languages. Another important disadvantage is that placement decisions involve judgment, and judgment can be clouded by bias.

Differentiated instruction: Because tracking decisions are hard to reverse, most teachers try to avoid grouping students based on ability if they can. It's not easy. Teachers have to be creative to meet the authentic needs of students at varying levels of learning readiness. It can be a difficult feat even for experienced teachers, in part because it is not always easy to tell which students are "getting it" and which aren't.

To intervene effectively before students fall seriously behind, schools need ways to detect problems and act on them in timely ways. To do this systematically, it helps for teachers to use consistent approaches to teaching and testing.

Jargon related to grouping and supporting students

Schools and districts have taken many creative approaches to giving students extra help. As you might expect, each program gets a new name, which makes for a glorious alphabet soup of acronyms. As of 2023, the currently ascendent term appears to be Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). The California Department of Education has declared the related term Response to Instruction and Intervention (RtI²) out of vogue. Grouping students is also a common tactic for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS).

Decades ago, California schools used to set aside time specifically for students who were identified as Gifted and Talented (GATE). These programs have been almost entirely eliminated. If there is a gifted program in your school, it is because your school district committed local funds for it. (See the Ed100 blog for much more about this.)

Leveraging technology to make learning time more effective

Blended learning personalizes education with technology

Technology has become increasingly important to the effective use of time for learning. Web-based systems can help teachers give students the instruction and practice that they need to understand and master some academic skills. When technology is deeply incorporated into the operation of the school day, it's sometimes called blended learning. Rocketship Schools, a charter school network, received a lot of attention as an early pioneer of this approach.

Preston Smith, the co-founder and CEO of Rocketship, explains it this way:

The next lesson examines the unequal role of summertime in education.

This lesson was updated December 2023