A High School Makes Good Use of Content-Area Tutoring
In this intriguing Kappan article, Massachusetts educators Julie Joyal Mowschenson and Robert Weintraub describe Tutorial, an academic support program at Brookline High School, where Weintraub is headmaster. The program was designed to address four problems:
- When students with mild learning issues were placed in special education, they often felt stigmatized.
- Teachers and psychologists referred these students to special education because it was the only place they could get the extra support they needed.
- Special-education teachers provided generic help in study skills and learning strategies, but weren’t addressing content-related problems in English, math, science, history, and world languages.
- Special-education services for these students were expensive.
Brookline High’s Tutorial Program addressed these problems by assigning a small number of content-area teachers to work intensively with targeted students. Since the program began in 2002, it has allowed more than 100 students to withdraw from special education, given teachers a highly personalized venue for interacting with students, and won raves from staff and parents.
Here’s how Tutorial works. Program leaders identify pairs of teachers, one from the humanities and one from math or science. Each pair of teachers is assigned 10 students for the year, with students’ needs matched to teachers’ strengths. Students meet with their Tutorial teachers once a day for 50 minutes and receive an academic credit for the course. Tutorial teachers preview their own academic work, reinforce work in other content areas, monitor their students’ academic lives, check in with other teachers, and communicate with parents. They also help students set goals and focus on the content in each subject. If students needs help in a subject not represented on their team (e.g., foreign language), other teachers are available in the same time-block.
Tutorial was evaluated by a team from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and found to be effective in improving students’ grades, test scores, and academic self-confidence. The program has also improved the work lives of participating teachers. Teaching only four classes a day rather than five and working closely with small numbers of students one period a day is a better deal than regular teaching. Tutorial allows teachers to develop closer relationships, communicate regularly with colleagues in other departments, and have a greater sense of efficacy. It’s no accident, say the authors, that Brookline’s teacher attrition rate is one third of the national rate. An additional benefit for the school is the reduction in special-education paperwork.
When it started, Tutorial served 40 students and was supported by a grant from the 21st-Century Fund, a non-profit organization founded by alumni, parents, educators, and community philanthropists. The program now has 200 students (out of 1,800 at Brookline High) and is covered entirely by the regular school budget. How is this possible? Because the number of special-education students has dropped from 260 in 2002 to 160 today, allowing a shift of $150,000 from the special-education budget to the regular-education budget to help support Tutorial’s eight teachers, director, and research.
“The Tutorial Program is a legitimate and compelling alternative to special education for many students,” conclude Mowschenson and Weintraub. “Researchers have validated our belief that students with mild learning issues benefit more from subject-based tutoring by regular-education teachers than from special instruction by certified special-education teachers… Schools across the country can implement similar programs with equal success.”
, and I can't wait to see many of you next month!
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