Introduction

Explore.Learn.Effectuate

[All] children come to school well able to think and reason about the world in situations that make human sense to them. What they have to learn to do in school is to think and reason in “disembedded contexts”… to use symbol systems and deal with representations of the world. (Donaldson, 1978, pp. 88-89 in Beck & McKeown, 2001, p.10).

In 2008, fifty-four years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, the racial gap in student achievement is as pronounced as ever. In those fifty-four years, efforts at improving minority education have received federal funding buttressed by legislation such as Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the compensatory education program, Head Start, the Bilingual Education Act, and the creation of guidance and counseling programs in schools. Funding has been provided explicitly for additional educational resources for children from low-income homes, premised on the idea that they require more educational services than children from affluent homes. The idea was to obligate the educational system to ensure “high standards and accountability for the learning of all children, regardless of their background or ability” (National Education Association).

Education Reform: From a Broad Political Move to Actual Teaching and Learning

A call to action to reform teaching and learning in the classroom as been made through the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation. It advocates standards-based education reform, which is based on the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in from grades 3 -12.

No Child Left Behind – Title I: STREaM Tutoring is Answering The Call to Action

NCLB (2001), an addendum to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, 1965), increases the number of annual standardized tests given to students from grades 3 -12. Two major components of the legislation are:

Attention to Minority Populations

Seeks to narrow class and racial gaps in school performance by creating common expectations for all.
Requires schools and districts to focus their attention on the academic achievement of traditionally under-served groups of children, such as low-income students, students with disabilities, and students of “major racial and ethnic subgroups”.
Each state is responsible for defining major racial and ethnic subgroups itself. Many previous state-created systems of accountability only measured average school performance, allowing schools to be highly rated even if they had large achievement gaps between affluent and disadvantaged students.

Quality of Education

Ideally, increases the quality of education by requiring schools to improve their performance
Improves quality of instruction by requiring schools to implement “scientifically-based research” practices in the classroom, parent involvement programs, and professional development activities for those students that are not encouraged or expected to attend college.
Supports early literacy through the Early Reading First initiative.
Emphasizes reading, writing, mathematics and science achievement as “core academic subjects”.

Addressing Title I, Part A: Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged of NCLB — STREaM Tutoring offers supplemental education, which is expanded learning time for pre-K-12 students. The STREaM Tutoring program is an interdisciplinary instructional approach that was design using scientifically-based (quantitative) and qualitative research such as case studies, anecdotes, and personal experiences, which included educational predictors such as race and socio-economic status as contributing factors to educational knowledge.

STREaM provides tutoring to students in public, private, and home schooling through flexible and individualized learning using effective and appropriate applications of new technologies. We have integrated an Online Interactive Classroom through a Course Management System (CMS) that allows tutors, students, and parents to form communities of teaching and learning. The CMS is student-centered, objective-aligned teaching and learning. Below, you will find