Help Wanted: K-12 tutors

Mar 18, 2024

With help from Mackenzie Wilkes

Phoenix Blalack, 6, works with a tutor on his laptop in his Indinapolis home, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

Phoenix Blalack, 6, works with a tutor on his laptop in his Indianapolis home on March 7, 2023. | AP

ASSIGNMENT PROBLEM — President Joe Biden’s ambition to flood K-12 schools with tutors and mentors is facing challenges. Billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds for academic programs are running out. And a potentially massive source of classroom help — college kids — is proving tough to tap.

— The Education Department has asked that higher education institutions pay their students with Federal Work-Study funds to tutor younger kids. But policy wonks agree bureaucratic and logistical hurdles make it tough to scale a novel solution to an urgent problem, almost two years after the White House marshaled a call to do just that.

— Education policy reports have documented a series of tension points this year. Taken together, their concerns amount to an alarm bell that the administration, Congress and higher education institutions could answer before an opportunity is lost.

— “We know that tutoring works,” said Liz Cohen, the policy director at Georgetown University’s FutureEd think tank. “The real question is, how do you get that many tutors to students? One of the most clear answers is the evergreen population of college students — who both have some flexibility in their schedule, [and] who need or want to earn some amount of money while they are in school.”

— Uneven bureaucratic standards present one set of hurdles. Organizations looking to build regional or national tutoring partnerships with universities must negotiate with individual campuses on pay rates, application and hiring processes, or other administrative tasks. Standardized approaches could be needed, especially for sprawling state systems with lots of reach and available talent.

— Competition for Federal Work-Study funds is another concern. Institutions use the federal program to pay students for everyday on-campus tasks, and that can crowd out eligible community service opportunities such as tutoring. Cohen said the government should incentivize college and university participation in K-12 tutoring programs. FutureEd has also suggested Congress consider a national pilot program where FWS funds are used for tutoring programs that pay students a direct stipend.

— It’s also tough to align the class and school schedules of K-12 and college students, Saga Education noted earlier this year, creating an administrative burden that could be alleviated with new scheduling technologies. Transportation — literally the process of just getting a potential tutor to a school — is a major challenge. The Center for American Progress further added that limitations in the FWS program funding formula and regulations can “prohibit the program from more effectively benefiting communities.”

— “The sense of urgency on this should be real,” Cohen said. “I think it would just be tragic if a sort of politics got in the way of what kids really need right now.

IT’S MONDAY, MARCH 18. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Spending update: The final six-bill funding package to close out fiscal 2024 could be unveiled today, after weekend negotiations over border security snagged the package that includes the Labor-HHS-Education measure. Funding for the Education Department and all the other agencies covered under this minibus is set to expire March 22. (h/t Jennifer Scholtes)

Reach out with tips to today’s host at jperez@politico.com and also my colleagues Bianca Quilantan (bquilantan@politico.com) and Mackenzie Wilkes (mwilkes@politico.com).

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White House

President Joe Biden arrives to speak after being greeted by House Speaker Mike Johnson (left) at a Friends of Ireland luncheon.

President Joe Biden. | Andrew Harnik/AP

A NEW FUNDING PITCH — Biden's budget includes an $8 billion academic recovery proposal that could help schools pay for tutoring and other programs. But the idea might tee up a spending fight with Congress as nearly $130 billion in Covid-19 begins to dry up a little over a month before November’s election.

— “We have in clear mind the fiscal reality in school districts and states,” an Education Department official recently told reporters. “As [relief money] comes to a close this September, we really wanted to make sure that we had a number of additional funding proposals in this budget to help supplement and shore up those academic improvement strategies and sustain them.”

— The department is still sharpening the details of what would be a new Academic Acceleration and Achievement Grants program, but the administration has outlined a competitive program funded with billions in mandatory funds awarded over five years. Grants could be used for high-quality tutoring, shoring up attendance and extended learning time through after-school or summer programs.

— Schools and states “still have significant American Rescue Plan funds within school systems, but that funding is going to be ending in 2025,” White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden told reporters at a recent convening on summer learning. “Our goal is to really make the case to Congress as to why they should fund this through mandatory funds.”

— The pandemic aid has been repeatedly criticized by congressional Republicans, who have questioned whether the funds were actually spent on academic recovery and if the dollars were necessary for reopening schools. House Republican appropriators also cited the relief aid as justification for its proposed cuts to Title I funding in fiscal 2024.

— But the White House seems optimistic about support for the proposed grant program, with Tanden pointing to the bipartisan support that the relief dollars had among state leaders.

— “Our hope is to drive Republicans and Democrats to come together,” Tanden told POLITICO when asked if the grant program would get congressional support. “Now, budget issues are always challenging. It’s not so easy to just fund the government.”

Higher Education

CALLING TIME — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wants more colleges and universities to delay their financial aid application milestones as the department continues to address a botched FAFSA rollout and transmit critical student information to schools.

— Cardona and department officials will update the industry about ongoing agency efforts to process aid applicant information today at noon ET during a webinar on the department’s progress.

— Yet Cardona is expressing concerns that some colleges aren’t fully prepared to receive so-called Institutional Student Information Record information the department finally began sending schools in recent days.

— “Based on some of the requests we received from schools … we believe some schools are still not fully prepared to receive ISIRs,” Cardona said in a Friday update to presidents and chancellors. “It’s critical that your team is ready to receive student records and can begin putting together student aid packages as efficiently as possible.”

— In the meantime, Cardona is calling on schools to adjust their timetables.

— “We’re encouraged to see many of your institutions change their decision dates and payment deadlines to give students and families that time to make the best college decision possible,” Cardona said in Friday’s letter.

— “If you have not done so already, we encourage you to reconsider aid application deadlines so that all students have time to submit and correct their FAFSA forms, and to ensure funding remains available so that all students will have equitable access to aid,” he added.

First Look

BILL ON DECK — Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) plan to introduce legislation on Tuesday that would establish a new Department of Justice grant for after-school programs.

— Dubbed as the Advancing Frequent and Tailored Education to Rebuild Safe Communities and Help Orchestrate Opportunities and Learning (AFTER SCHOOL) Act, the legislation would establish a $100 million grant program aimed at reducing violent crime among young people.

— School districts may be eligible to receive these funds if the rate of violent offenses committed by juveniles, when compared with the total number of violent offenses committed by all age groups, is more than 10 percent. Here’s a one-page summary of the legislation from Blackburn’s office, and the proposed bill’s text.

SURVEILLANCE CONCERNS — Dozens of civil rights and education groups are demanding the Biden administration address a rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and big data technology in K-12 schools, citing its potential to target students from marginalized communities.

— “We are alarmed by the growing use of surveillance technologies to expand police presence in schools and expose students to greater police contact, exclusionary discipline, and school pushout,” the groups write today in a letter to Cardona and department officials. “We view these developments as a dangerous new chapter in the school-to-prison pipeline and mass criminalization of Black, brown, and Indigenous youth and other marginalized young people.”

— The groups want the government to ban the purchase of school surveillance technologies with federal funds, and emphasize enforcement actions against algorithmic discrimination and other “unethical and unlawful uses of AI and other data-driven technologies” in public schools.

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Syllabus

— After the pandemic, young Chinese again want to study abroad, just not so much in the U.S.: The Associated Press

— Rep. Virginia Foxx remains optimistic about her top legislative priorities: POLITICO Pro

— The rough years that turned Gen Z into America’s most disillusioned voters: The Wall Street Journal

— Supreme Court stays out of dispute over drag show at Texas university: The New York Times

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