Test-Prep Firms Bribing Students Just To Show Up

[Rose Siding]

With record numbers of students signing up for a free federal tutoring program but not attending the classes, test-preparation companies are offering such incentives as tickets to sporting events, MP3 players, and $100 Visa gift cards just for showing up.

The program, known as Supplemental Educational Services, was created by the federal No Child Left Behind Act to provide tutoring to poor children at high-needs schools that have failed to accomplish "adequate yearly progress" for two consecutive years. In the past, the city Department of Education conducted the tutoring itself, but, starting this school year, private test preparation companies and community groups took over.

Well-known national tutoring companies - among them Newton Learning, Princeton Review, Education Station, Platform Learning, and the Washington Post Company's Kaplan K12 Learning Services - could collectively earn more than $100 million by coaching the high-needs New York City students in math and reading. But there's a hitch: The companies get paid only if students actually show up.
...
...The company offers its students Visa gift cards worth $100 if they post perfect attendance for the entire 80-hour after-school program, which stretches over about half the school year. Children with lower rates of attendance get gift cards in smaller denominations.

http://www.nysun.com/article/8230

[drkedjr]

1. Don't forget the "Sylvan Learning Centers" -

I'd really like to know what they get from the Feds! They are notorious for testing kids and giving
really low scores then promising parents a years worth of growth in reading etc. Naturally, the kids make
some growth that looks good - even if it's just from positive one-to-one attention. Who wouldn't?
But it's a sham and the next wave of impossible crap for the public schools to defend against. The
republicans are bound and determined to privatize education and it's a train out-of-control, down the
track.....