Do Your Christmas Shopping Here, and You Just Might Help Fund Someone's Education...

If you don't "pay" for school, then you're not being educated! See, I can get the "schooling" of millions of people FOR FREE; but I won't 'be urged to put it to any use' (i.e. to "educe" prosperity from myself with the schooling) unless I'm otherwise losing something!

That's why correspondence schools have such unstoppable collections-departments: because the collections-departments make you "want" due to the payments for schooling.

That's what Napoleon Hill learned about schooling when he was taking a correspondence course in ad-writing; the collections-department continued to bill him just as regularly whether he was steadily studying or considering quitting. He had signed a contract with that ad-writing school which said he would be billed every week until he finished the course, and so he owed it to them, to himself and to the entire world's money-system not only to pay the collections-department, not only to turn in the useless proof that he had learned what the writing lessons had taught, but also to make use of those lessons in order to recoup the education-payment several thousand times over!

I don't know too many 3rd - 8th graders who can afford tuition for tutoring. In most cases, the parents are paying for it. Some parents cannot afford a minimum of $20 an hour. Many have trouble thinking up ways to save for their children's colleges, not tutoring. I agree with you if the person is in college. Unless the student himself earned the scholarship (through grades or athletics, or both), he or she tends to party instead of learn. I think it would be great for students to be able to get extra help without having to worry about extra cost. This is tutoring, not college tuition or private schooling tution. It's extra help outside of school. Who could deny that to a struggling student? Also, if there is not enough money to offer free tutoring, the site plans to at least reduce the tutoring rates by making up the difference with ad revenue.

I am a student of a community college here in San Diego and luckily for those of us that attend there are a lot of free tutoring services available. I hope it's the same story when I transfer to a four-year university next year.

I understand paying for college tuition, but tutoring is a service that is best available free (or at least covered in the general tuition from year to year - - like parking fees, library services, etc). It is extra help, not the tuition itself. Everyone deserves to be able to get extra help if they need it, but not everyone can afford it in all cases. That is why www.tutorforeveryone.com was started - - to fill in the gaps between the haves and have nots (and it seems like those gaps are getting wider and wider every year).

Parents of elementary, middle school, and high school students should look into free tutoring offered at their school funded by the school district, and the federal government. Also, sometimes there are volunteer tutors at your child's school willing to work with him, or her. Your child is not the best resource of this information, as he/she may not know about the program, or else they do know about the program, but don't want to share that information with their parents! Call your school's administrative office for information. Also, local Girls, and Boy Clubs, the YMCA, and YWCA, and sometimes even the Girl/Boy Scouts, and other nonprofits may offer free, or reduced tutoring. There again, parents make some calls!

I suppose I look at the "have's and have-not's" as more like the "achievers and too-lazy's." I mean, of course, if someone wants to donate her extra time to helping students, that site is a most-efficient way to do so ... a Bright Spark in today's Capitalist Misunderstanding lol.

As long as it's not the "prison sentence"-form of education that the US frequently uses. (I remember, as a 7th grader, thinking how my term-of-service was finally more-than-halfway over lol).

That's another subliminal entrainment that graduating seniors carry to college: 'Just four more years, THEN I have to start being useful!'

Will-power is the most-important thing a child learns in school. That's not just "resisting the temptation of really messing oneself up," it's "commitment to 'accomplishing your goal' (here, that is 'educing the right patterns (-of speech, -of quantity, -of logical argument)').

Without the child's will, the tutor is just another taskmaster. LET MY PEOPLE GO! lol

The schools in our local area keep a list of available tutors for the parents to call. They usually have to go to the front office to get this information. They are not free tutors, but they are available. I don't necessarily think free is the best option. It depends on how the tutoring became free. These tutors need compensated in some way. Volunteers are great, but most really good tutors want some type of compensation. Maybe most volunteers have little else to do (maybe they're retired?). It takes a lot of planning, and they need to be educated. I'm not saying that volunteers don't plan ahead or have a great education. I'm just thinking that you get what you pay for.
This site (tutorforeveryone.com) is a business, created by someone who wants an alternative way to stay home and make money. She is investing her time and effort, but also needs to help her family pay off extra bills. I'm sure there are others in this same position. They can't just spend all of their time giving away free tutoring. Most (if not all) non-volunteer tutoring that is free is available through the No Child Left Behind grant. It is hard to get money through grants, unless you are a great grant writer.
That's why I like this website: tutorforeveryone.com.
They aren't going through the political mumbo jumbo of the No Child Left Behind grant. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff resulting form that grant has led to students learning to take tests, and not taught them to be life-long learners. It's not the teachers' faults. They're told to teach the way their bosses, and their bosses (the government) tell them to teach. This site does help students prepare for standardized tests, but it is also intended to help students become life long learners (and love learning!) - - not just great test takers. This site could get money from the No Child Left Behind grant, but then they might have to teach to the test instead of teaching life long learning.
I think the best way to fund things to be free is through capitalism. Look at the entertainment industry. It's thriving, mostly because of commercials and ads that pay for spaces in the trailer sections of movies -- and in between parts of different episodes of t.v. Businesses love brand recognition opportunities and, while doing so, they can help a student get the extra help he or she needs.

I agree that many people aren't willing to give services away if they are any good. I was a tutor once, until I ran into the bad debt, no show problem. College students would make an appt then not show up, or checks would bounce..., hence I stopped giving away free services. But there is another side to this...

Tutors by Girls/Boys Club are employees of the nonprofit, paid from consumer donations. School district tutors are paid for by The No Child Left Behind Act, and must be certified by the State of Arizona, in Arizona anyway. They are paid professionals, usually ex-teachers. These tutors are free to the students, and their parents.

Also in Arizona many college educated retirees abound; we call them snowbirds, or winter visitors.

They usually are well off, high income, highly educated individuals who don't need an income, and want to give back without expecting monetary compensation. I believe these people who may or may not be retired teachers, are still "good teachers", and I disagree with "Many schools" that unpaid tutors are always "bad tutors". They may well be, but instead of "You get what you pay for", try, "Don't judge a book by its cover".

Hey, if I ever win the Arizona lottery, I may be one of those "free school volunteer tutors."

But if you want to pay for tutors, and can't afford $20 per hour to get a retired teacher, perhaps you can hire your out of work Engineer neighbor to tutor your child in Math, and Science, at a reduced rate, say $10 per hour.

Like I said, I don't think all free tutoring is bad. If I did, then I wouldn't have made the original post on at site making free tutoring available. This is another option that is hopefully being made available for people to eventually get free tutoring. Tutors are still getting paid, even though the tutoring will hopefully (eventually) be made free to anyone who wants free tutoring. I have a hard time believing that out of work engineers would be able to make a decent living off of $10 an hour. They are most likely used to greater income than that (of course, anything is better than nothing, right?). I might be wrong. Most of the engineers I know make a lot more money than that. Of course, I guess they could tutor more than one student at a time. Also, I admire people that can afford to tutor without wanting any compensation. It's just hard for most people to be able to do that. They still need to be able to pay bills, and some retirements aren't that comfortable to live on (espcially if you add in the cost of healthcare for most retired people - - many are making choices between groceries or medicine, and you need both to stay healthy).
As for the free tutoring being funded by the No Child Left Behind Act, I've already gone over that. Some of the things this grant wants teachers to do is teaching to a test, not teaching life long learning or the love of learning. Hopefully, there will be some tutors left over that won't bend toward pleasing the government for a check - - hopefully they will be able to be independent thinkers, and teach independent thinking. This is the reason many teachers quit teaching, because they've been told how to teach. They haven't been left alone to just teach. There are so many children tired of being taught to the test. If teachers were freed up to actually teach, this might happen. I think we'd have more students actually wanting to go to school to learn if teachers were freed up to really teach.