Use tutors, not transfers

The federal No Child Left Behind Act often conflicts with common sense. For example, many schools that earn an A under Florida's FCAT-based grading system flunk under the NCLB guidelines. But NCLB also has at least one common-sense solution that deserves more emphasis: tutoring.

Schools that fail under NCLB three years in a row must offer free tutoring. Because of the three-year requirement, tutoring has been slow to become a major issue. Last year in Palm Beach County, for example, only 1,800 students were eligible, and 500 signed up for it.

This year, 11,000 are eligible in Palm Beach County. Tutoring is not much of an issue in Martin, which is much smaller, has relatively few poor students and has had more success with NCLB. In St. Lucie County, 9,057 students are eligible for tutoring or transfer to a better-performing school. Fifty-four have signed up for tutoring, but because those programs have not been finalized, it's not clear how many students will take part this year.

Nationwide, however, only about 10 percent of eligible students have taken advantage of free tutoring. As The Post reported this month, part of the problem is that parents are unfamiliar with the program or are unable to take their children to tutoring sessions. Another problem is that tutoring is expensive. Palm Beach County pays up to $1,256 per student for tutoring and has set aside $3 million. But that would not be enough to tutor all eligible students, so the district will ration tutoring, providing services first to students with the lowest test scores and fewest financial resources.

Both parents and school districts could do better. Tutoring makes more sense than paying to send students to different schools and, in many cases, makes more sense than providing smaller class size for all students. The program is too new and too little used to fully evaluate. Making greater use of tutoring and measuring its success should be an NCLB priority.