Why I Wish I Wasn’t a Tutor
A Tier 1 Crisis We Refuse to Name
I wish I wasn’t a tutor.
That may sound strange coming from someone who cares deeply about children, literacy, and learning. But the truth is this: the constant demand for tutoring—especially in the Webster City and Fort Dodge area—is not a sign of individual student failure. It is not even primarily a Tier 2 or Tier 3 problem.
It is a Tier 1 crisis.
When large numbers of families are independently seeking tutoring just to help their children access grade-level content, that is not “extra support.” That is a red flag. A loud one. A systemic one.
Tutoring should be supplemental.
Instead, it has become compensatory.
Tier 1 Instruction Is Supposed to Work for Most Kids—It Doesn’t
By definition, Tier 1 instruction should meet the needs of at least 80% of students. That is the foundation of MTSS and RTI frameworks. When it doesn’t, everything stacked on top of it collapses.
And yet:
Tier 1 curricula vary wildly from district to district
Sometimes from building to building
Sometimes from classroom to classroom
There is no shared floor. No common language. No consistency in scope, sequence, or implementation.
We cannot pretend this is sustainable.
If Tier 1 were solid, we would not be seeing:
Massive literacy gaps by third grade
Over-identification for intervention and special education
Burned-out interventionists triaging preventable problems
Families paying out of pocket just to get their child through the school day
This isn’t about kids needing more help.
It’s about kids needing better first instruction.
Curriculum Inconsistency Is Not a Neutral Choice
Curriculum is not just a resource—it is a belief system.
When districts lack a coherent, evidence-based Tier 1 curriculum, what fills the gap is not innovation. It’s improvisation. And improvisation disproportionately harms the students who need structure the most.
Without consistency:
Skills are taught out of order
Assumptions are made about what students “should already know”
Gaps compound year after year
A student who misses foundational decoding in first grade doesn’t just “catch up.” They struggle in second grade, avoid reading in third, disengage in fourth, and internalize failure by middle school.
By the time they reach me as a tutor, the damage is not academic alone—it’s emotional, behavioral, and neurological.
“This Is What We Do” Is Not a Pedagogical Argument
One of the most painful contradictions in education right now is this:
Pre-service teachers often enter the field with more current knowledge of research and evidence-based practice than the systems they are joining.
They know about:
Structured literacy
Cognitive load
Explicit instruction
Neurodiversity
Data-informed decision making
And then they are told—explicitly or implicitly—that none of that matters.
“This is what we do here.”
Not what works.
Not what the data shows.
Not what aligns with how brains actually learn.
Just tradition.
Education is one of the few professions where refusing to update your practice is normalized. In medicine, engineering, or aviation, outdated practice is dangerous. In education, it’s defended.
We would never accept a doctor practicing medicine as if it were 2007.
So why are we expecting children in 2025 to succeed under instructional models that old—or older?
The Science of Reading Is Necessary—and Incomplete
The Science of Reading matters. It has corrected decades of instructional malpractice in literacy. Explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension is not optional.
But we also need to be honest about its limitations.
There is a significant gap in how SoR is interpreted and implemented for neurodivergent learners—including students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, language disorders, and executive functioning differences.
Too often:
Fidelity is confused with rigidity
Scripts are prioritized over responsiveness
Struggle is treated as noncompliance
Neurodivergent students do not need less structure—but they often need different access points. When instruction is delivered without flexibility, students are blamed for not fitting the model instead of the model being examined.
That is not science.
That is dogma.
We Are Meeting Kids Where They Aren’t
We are holding children to expectations that no longer match reality:
Shorter attention spans shaped by a digital world
Increased trauma and stress
Language exposure gaps
Executive functioning demands far beyond developmental norms
And instead of adapting instruction, we label children as lazy, unmotivated, or behind.
This is not rigor.
This is denial.
Adapt or die is not hyperbole—it’s what systems must do to remain functional. Education has not adapted fast enough, and children are paying the price.
I Don’t Want This Job—and That’s the Point
I don’t want to be a tutor because I don’t want to be evidence of failure.
I don’t want families calling me because school doesn’t work for their child.
I want to:
Teach meaningfully
Lead system change
Create instructional models that work
Collaborate as a professional
I want educators to be treated like adult experts—capable of self-regulation, professional judgment, and innovation—without being buried under performative tasks designed to prove they are working.
Teachers do not need more compliance checks.
They need trust, time, and tools that actually work.
We Are Bleeding—and Calling It “Monitoring Progress”
The system is not subtly broken.
The wound is visible.
We are watching:
Literacy rates stagnate
Teacher attrition rise
Intervention systems overflow
Families lose trust
And instead of addressing the source, we say:
“Let’s check back in six weeks.”
That is not intervention.
That is avoidance.
Until Tier 1 instruction is coherent, consistent, evidence-based, and responsive to real learners—not idealized ones—nothing else will hold.
I wish I wasn’t a tutor because, in a functional system, I wouldn’t be necessary at this scale.
The goal was never to patch the system.
The goal was always to fix it.