According to a recent article in Raleigh's News & Observer, NCLB's mandate that persistently low performing schools must give students the option of free tutoring isn't going down too easily in the Tar Heel State?which probably means anywhere else as well. The law is forcing schools to give up teachers for tutors.

Under current NCLB provisions, any school that fails to meet its testing goals three years in a row must redirect its Title I federal funding to extra tutoring for any student who wants it. And to make sure the money is in the bank, school systems are obligated to hold back 20 percent of their Title I funds from their schools' annual budget. Easier said than done. Since the inception of Title I funding nearly 50 years ago, schools have looked to this money as the primary way to beef up staffing shortages, and it's often been the only substantial source of discretionary money accessible to principals. This year, for instance, the Durham school district is holding $1.6 million dollars from its schools for tutoring.

Deborah Pitman, Durham County?s assistant superintendent of elementary curriculum, states the issue plainly: ?There is an impact that schools feel. They do not have as many dollars to hire people?. I understand the requirement to give children additional help, but when it comes from the same bucket of dollars, the schools are losing certified personnel for the tutoring programs.?

How sympathetic schools systems really are to the impact this requirement has on their schools remains to be seen. Schools systems could bank the 20 percent and apply what's left to school budgets for the following year?and early indications are that the lion's share of tutoring funds may go unspent. However, it's not hard to imagine that most school systems will just invent new ways to spend that 20 percent within the confines of the central office, leaving schools to face a permanent but unnecessary 20 percent cut in Title I funds.

There's genuine reason to worry about the quality of instruction under tutors, with structures that are less accountable for results than what classroom teachers face. Shifting significant amounts of money into any area with little oversight or guidance is certainly dangerous ground to tread, no matter how good it sounds, and tutoring does sound good. Ironically, though, the daily oversight of these tutoring programs will most likely be in the hands of individual schools, the very schools that may be feeling a tad resentful for having to give up a good portion of their discretionary funding.