On October 19, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that enrollment of public school students in free tutoring programs has exploded to four times what it was last year, and that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials are prepared to do a much better job responding to the increased enrollment. After-school tutoring at low-performing schools is a central component of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, and last year CPS was criticized for poorly managing the programs and waiting well into the school year to begin tutoring most students.

Not so fast, Chicago. A follow-up piece in the Tribune two days later reported that federal officials are telling CPS it should not have started in-house programs this year, because they will likely ?have teachers in failing schools tutoring kids.? The feds argue that if teachers can?t raise achievement during a normal school day, what sort of impact can parents expect them to have after hours? There may be some truth to this viewpoint, but it?s an oversimplification of the dysfunction that besets high-poverty schools.

Instead, the feds want CPS to rely solely on the services of private tutoring companies. Right now, 58 percent of the eligible students select CPS teachers for tutors, while the rest are choosing private vendors. The problem is that these private vendors cost the city more money?as much as four times what the in-house program costs. In fact, these private tutoring companies are so expensive that CPS will be forced to discontinue tutoring to 75% of those students now being served if fund are directed solely towards private options. (This is without counting the 139,000 qualified students that CPS on its own turned away this year due to lack of funding.)

Because CPS is labeled as ?needing improvement,? federal law mandates that the city shift as many of the 37,000 CPS-tutored students as it can afford to private tutors (and likely lose upwards of 30,000 kids). Or it can find a way to fund the $11 million program locally, sacrificing the federal contribution, and serve all of the students who signed up for tutoring. City education leaders cannot believe this is the intent of the law, and think this ?shows how far out of touch federal bureaucrats are with reality?.

We understand that federal officials don?t want to continue to spend money with no returns or finance a tutoring program with underperforming tutors. But how would anybody know? There don't appear to be any tools in place to assess whether the tutoring, private or public, is working. Is anyone charged with monitoring these programs with a yardstick? The apparent presumption of the feds that private is automatically better ignores lessons learned from such disappointing models as Head Start, which for years has steered public money to private entities with no accountability for results. In addition, to assume that a child is failing in a school labeled failing because the teachers cannot help the child under any circumstances is a presumption that may not bear out in fact.

If we're all about accountability and paying attention to outputs NOT inputs?as the education reform movement prides itself upon?then it shouldn't matter who is doing this tutoring, provided that there are clear benchmarks for progress or the lack thereof. There'll never be enough money to serve all of the children who want tutoring, but there should be a structure that reaches the most students possible, while making sure someone knows what is or isn't working.