District Administration - October 2006 - (Page 55)

it ly endorses the whole notion that a in the school narrow the achievement variety of organizations should help gap. We see ourselves as a piece of the kids with academic proficiency, says puzzle, not a silver bullet, says Marcy Steve Pines, the executive director of Suntken, president of Knowledge the Education Industry Association. Learning Corporation School Part- Sometimes the reason to bring nerships. Our goal is to work with in an outsider is as simple as not schools that want to partner with us. having the personnel on hand to get In August, Suntken's firm pur- a job done. For the past two years chased SES provider Education Station in the Plano Texas Independent from Catapult Learning, increasing the School District, at-risk students in percentage of its business that's SES the 9th and 10th grades have been related to about half and providing able to access an online algebra tutoring services to more than 300 tutoring service provided by Socratic districts nationwide. In total, there Learning. We needed to make a could be about $2 billion a year in SES bigger impact that our own staff billing for the approximately 1,000 could provide, says Doug Otto, the schools that have been required to district superintendent, who adds implement SES, although the annual that the program has been very suc- total right now is about $350 million. cessf u l. There were a limited num- The lure of big-time federal fund- ber of algebra teachers we had who ing has proven to be a boon to the were available to tutor. It was a func- education outsourcing industry. The t ion of being able to reach out and amount spent on SES is growing It's not only schools every organization in America is moving in the direction of outsourcing. Arthur Levine, president, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation get as many tutors as we needed. rather significantly, says Tim Wiley, More often, administrators reach a senior analyst for K-12 at Eduven- for the phone when faced with an tures, a firm that provides education intractable problem, or one that market analysis. It's a huge market. requires some expertise that isn't There are at last count 1,800 provid- readily available in-house. Princeton ers that are approved by one state or Review's Formative Assessment another. It's also a very fragmented Program, which provides low-stakes market. Over 90 percent of the firms tests for students to monitor progress are in only one state and in many toward state standards throughout cases only a handful of districts. the year, is a good example. We don't Why Outsource? see school districts with the ability to build this kind of system themselves, Exper t s say that SES has had EXTRA HELP Tutor Doreen Strom helps says Kevin Howell, the executive vice another effect on educational out- a student at Sylvan Learning Center in president and general manager for the sou rci ng by simply highlighting the Bismarck, N.D. The learning center is one of 11 state-authorized supplemental edu- firm's K-12 services division. option of bringing in an outside cational services providers that tutor stu- While schools can and do create resource. No Child Left Behind has dents after school as part of the No Child their own curricula, education been a watershed because it explic- Left Behind act. October 2006 55 www.DistrictAdministration.com outsourcing.indd 55 9/15/06 1:50:38 PM http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - October 2006

Table of Contents
Editor's Letter
Snapshots
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
Administration Profile
District Profile
Disaster Recovery
Tech Trends
COVER STORY: The Chicago Team
Out Is In
Algebra's At-Risk Solution
Rural Quality
Struggling Readers
The Online Edge
Speaking Out
Principal Opinion
Problem/Solution
Research Corner
Leadership Books
New Products
By the Numbers

District Administration - October 2006