Tutor.com Announces Launch of Round-the-Clock Online Tutoring for South Orange and Maplewood Students

NEW YORK   Tutor.com, one of the world’s largest and most innovative online tutoring organizations, announced today that it has been selected by the  South Orange & Maplewood School District to provide round-the-clock online tutoring for students in grades 3 through 12 at no cost to them. Through the partnership, expert tutors are available 24/7, and 1-to-1 tutoring for each student is unlimited.

We applaud SOMSD for their commitment to providing equitable, individualized tutoring for students districtwide, said Sandi White, Chief Institutional Officer at Tutor.com and The Princeton Review. We have seen the impact that on-demand support has on student achievement, and we are dedicated to providing expert help—anytime, anywhere—that gives students agency to achieve their educational goals.

“One of the most effective ways to enhance instruction and student achievement is through tutoring. This partnership is making tutoring more available than ever, and that is completely aligned with our efforts to build greater equity among our students and their ability to achieve academic success,” said Dr. Ronald Taylor, Superintendent of the Schools of South Orange and Maplewood. “This would not be possible without the efforts of our Information Technology Department successfully providing all of our students with Chromebooks and internet access during the pandemic shutdown. I want to thank them, Assistant Superintendent Ann Bodnar, and our Curriculum and Instruction Team for their efforts in making this resource available to so many of our students.”

The program features include:…Read More

Feds: Make eReaders accessible to all students

Some colleges have agreed to abandon Kindle pilot programs because of accessibility issues.
Some colleges have agreed to abandon Kindle pilot programs because of accessibility issues.

The federal government will help schools and colleges using eReaders such as the Amazon Kindle to comply with laws giving students with disabilities equal access to emerging education technologies, officials announced.

The Departments of Education and Justice stressed the responsibility of colleges and universities to use accessible eReaders in a letter published June 29, after more than a year of complaints from low-sighted and blind students attending colleges that have piloted eReader programs.…Read More

Students’ latest ‘crush’: New matchmaking web site

GoodCrush has attracted 14,000 students since its launch in February.
GoodCrush has attracted 14,000 students since its launch in February.

There’s a Yale student looking for a girl who took a “glorious fall” in the rain and looked “cute” doing it. The incident is spelled out on a new social networking site that offers an anonymous forum for college students to find the people they have crushes on.

GoodCrush.com, a site that launched in February and is now available to students on more than 20 college and university campuses, features a “Missed Connections” page for visitors who don’t know their crush’s name, but hope they’ll peruse the GoodCrush message board.…Read More

Type A-plus students chafe at grade deflation

When Princeton University set out six years ago to corral galloping grade inflation by putting a lid on A’s, many in academia lauded the school for taking a stand on a national problem and predicted that others would follow. But the idea never took hold beyond Princeton’s walls, and so its bold vision is now running into fierce resistance from the school’s Type A-plus student body, reports the New York Times. With the job market not what it once was, even for Ivy Leaguers, Princetonians are complaining that the campaign against bulked-up GPAs might be coming at their expense. “The nightmare scenario, if you will, is that you apply with a 3.5 from Princeton and someone just as smart as you applies with a 3.8 from Yale,” said Daniel E. Rauch, a senior from Millburn, N.J. The percentage of Princeton grades in the A range dipped below 40 percent last year, down from nearly 50 percent when the policy was adopted in 2004. The class of 2009 had a mean grade-point average of 3.39, compared with 3.46 for the class of 2003. In a survey last year by the undergraduate student government, 32 percent of students cited the grading policy as the top source of unhappiness (compared with 25 percent for lack of sleep)…

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