EDUCATION REPORT - Teacher or Tutor? For Kids in Rochester,

EDUCATION REPORT - Teacher or Tutor? For Kids in Rochester, N.Y., the Answer May Be One in the Same
By Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Thursday, July 07, 2005

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report.

Teams of teachers and school administrators¹ from at least fourteen American cities are at a conference in Washington. The meeting through Sunday is a place to share ideas and discuss programs that could be copied. The American Federation² of Teachers, a labor³ union, holds the Quest conference every two years.

This year, one of the subjects is a tutoring program that provides extra help to students in Rochester, New York. The Rochester City School District was one of five in the nation recognized by the Bush administration for their tutoring programs.

Tutoring is big business in the United States these days. There are private learning centers where parents can take their children after school. Test preparation companies are also doing well.

 
Tutor and Student
One reason for all this tutoring is the growing competition for places at top universities. Another influence is the Bush administration's federal education law, called No Child Left Behind. The law requires services like free tutoring for poor students at schools that fail to meet educational goals for three years. In some cases, tutoring may also be provided after two years of a lack of school progress.

There is federal money to pay the tutors. But the No Child Left Behind law does not say who must do the tutoring. It can be a private company or local teachers. The law does say, however, that the provider must have shown a record of effectiveness in helping⁴ students learn.

In Rochester, the tutoring is provided by a teachers union, the Rochester Teachers Association. The program began in the spring of two thousand three with forty-seven students and fifteen tutors. This year, eight hundred students received help from two hundred tutors.

Each tutor works with only four students. The program is supervised at each school by a lead teacher who designs programs to meet student needs.

The tutors are well paid. And the program uses teachers from the schools that need to improve. Critics in the private tutoring business question if that is such a good idea. But the teachers say they know the students best. And they say the difference is that each tutor works with only a few students, instead of big classes.

Now, members of the Rochester Teachers Association are tutoring educators from other cities to help them design similar programs.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach.  I'm Gwen Outen.

1 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

2 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。