New Jersey is making headlines—for all the wrong reasons. Today the Star-Ledger published a piece called “Mounting Delays in N.J. Tutoring Program Called ‘Hugely Frustrating,’” recounting how the“vaunted statewide tutoring program for third and fourth graders has been delayed significantly, with tutoring that was supposed to begin almost three weeks ago likely not starting until next year in some districts.”

Also, today the national platform called The 74 published an article called “High Dosage Tutoring $$$ Delays Wreak Havoc Across New Jersey” that concludes the delays are “causing frustration among New Jersey superintendents unaware of when they can either pay staff to offer the help or contract with tutoring companies.”

This (well-earned) bad press stems from the mismanagement of the Murphy Administration’s primary program to ameliorate COVID learning loss called the “Learning Acceleration Program: High-Impact Tutoring Grant.” Announced eight months ago, Gov. Murphy and Acting Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan boasted this program would “deliver the high-quality education our children deserve” because “addressing the effects of learning loss on our students’ progress remains a top priority.”

This made sense. It’s no secret that the best intervention for COVID-19 learning loss is high-dosage tutoring, in school with the same instructor in small groups three or four times a week. We’ve known this for the last two years–there have been hundreds of studies—and watched competent and proactive state departments of education oversee programs that, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education, show “consistently large, positive effects of high-dosage tutoring in myriad studies based on randomized field trials.” From Virginia to North Carolina to Tennessee to Colorado, state education departments are successfully scaling these programs and students are making academic progress.

The Murphy Administration was all-in, if a little late, and offered all NJ districts a shot at a big grant. This state provided a list of approved tutoring vendors this past summer and promised to announce winners on October 11th. As reported here, that deadline came and went; the best journalist Tina Kelley could get out of the DOE in her article today was, “we’ll let winners know sometime before December.” To add insult to injury, superintendents found out that last week they will be forced to go through the lengthy process of soliciting bids from tutoring companies, even when they chose vendors from the DOE’s approved-vendors list.

Curiously, reports Kelley, the New Jersey School Boards Association sent school boards clarifications on bidding it had received from the Division of Local Government Services (DLGS). Then, three days later, the DOE sent out its own “clarifications.” 

Why did DLGS weigh in on a DOE matter?

Betsy Ginsburg, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, which represents nearly 100 districts, explains, “The DLGS had to step in because the DOE messed up.” She has heard widespread complaints about the delays, adding that one superintendent doesn’t expect the 10-month tutoring program to start until February, four months late.

The result? Students, particularly those from low-income homes that were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, are failing to make progress: in Newark, our largest school district, reading proficiency hasn’t budged from last year: despite a budget of $1.3 billion, only one out of five third-graders can read at grade-level. In Camden and Trenton the DOE redacts the data on percentages because the numbers are so low.

And leaders, once leery of being seen as critical of the Murphy Administration’s management of COVID learning loss, are letting it rip.

“This is a bureaucratic problem, and they’re putting it on the backs of children,” said Paula White, executive director of JerseyCAN, a schools advocacy group. “It’s really going to be a lost opportunity for children in the state of New Jersey that need this service the most.” She called the delays “potentially devastating.”

“There certainly was a misperception that the approval of the vendors by the state would permit districts to contract directly with them,” Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, said, said, adding that he felt “consternation and disappointment that the tutoring will not begin until basically the second half of the school year for many districts.”

Lee Nittel, superintendent of Mine Hill Township schools, fumed, “This will delay the process even further, especially for schools that don’t already have a program.” He said the state’s vendor list confused educators: “One would think we simply choose one, and you’re off to the races.”

One vendor, who asked to be quoted anonymously, said, “The entire NJ process has been a mess,” noting that of all the districts he serves, only one had gone out to bid. Everyone else assumed the process wasn’t necessary if they used the state’s list. “Clearly, the state is providing districts with conflicting information, and there is real confusion at the local level.”

“It looks like we’re not even getting to this till after Christmas, and it’s a shame,” a representative from Huntington Learning Center said. “The students are the ones who are going to suffer.”

Russell Rogers, superintendent of Vernon Public Schools, told the 74, “It’s a whole drawn out process. I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to start by the time they thought they would.”

White of JerseyCAN adds, 

“The sad reality is that for months there’s been millions and millions of dollars allocated to tutoring and they’ve just been sitting there while we have children in classrooms who need additional support.”

The DOE did not respond to a request for comment.

[photo credit] Flickr: Phil Murphy