Untutored

"Costly Tutoring May Be Too Late" by Dave Weber in Sunday's Orlando Sentinel is a great example of how to use numbers in a powerful way. Weber unearths testing and budget data to reveal how Florida schools are falling far behind on offering tutoring required by the No Child Left Behind Act. What makes the story work especially well are the examples Weber gives us. For example, he describes how in the Miami/Dade County schools only 12 of 37 tutoring services that students were supposed to be able to use had opened shop by Feb. 1.

Looking at the issue from a national perspective, Susan Saulny of the New York Times reports that of the 2 million or so U.S. students eligible for tutoring, only 226,000, or about 12 percent, got help in 2004. In "Tutor Program Offered by Law Is Going Unused," Saulny clearly explains the complex reasons why so few students are participating.
nytimes.com/2006/02/12/education/12tutor.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin