Tutoring Giant's Sudden Demise Linked To End of Federal Relief Funds
One of the nation's leading tutoring providers shut down abruptly over the weekend, temporarily leaving thousands of students without the extra support they've depended on since the pandemic.
FEV Tutor, a chat-based, virtual tutoring firm with contracts in districts from California to Florida alerted staff on Saturday that efforts to raise more money or find a buyer had failed. CEO Reed Overfelt cited 'worse-than-expected company performance' in his message to employees.
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter
Some districts promptly alerted families about the interruption in services. The Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia referred parents to other tutors, including teachers, 'to minimize the impact of FEV's closure.' The Ector County Independent School District in Texas asked its other provider, Air Tutors, if it could take on the 2,000 students FEV left behind.
'We found this all out on Sunday,' said Ector spokesman Michael Adkins. 'We'll have to work very quickly to change things over, but as of today, we are expecting we will be able to find a virtual tutor for all of our kids.'
Related
While districts and other tutoring providers might be able to cobble solutions together, FEV's demise is one of the more visible early signs of what school finance experts warned would happen when nearly $190 billion in pandemic relief funds ran out. Districts have less money to spend on vendor contracts, leaving companies that were in high demand a year ago having to rethink their future. Those that expanded at a rapid clip, like FEV Tutor, could be particularly vulnerable.
'We saw what you would expect with large government programs — a lot of folks rushing out with various models,' said Adam Newman, founder and managing partner of Tyton Partners, a consulting firm. 'A lot of those organizations grew too fast, too quickly.'
With district contracts in at least 30 states and an estimated value of over $40 million, FEV Tutor was an 'early innovator in providing virtual tutoring services' through an on-demand, chat-based platform, Newman said. With customers including the New York, Baltimore and Dallas school districts, the company gave tutors access to an AI coach and engaged in innovative contracts in which tutors earned higher rates when students showed greater improvement.
They were 'massive players' in the industry, and when districts started spending their relief funds , FEV was 'very well-positioned to win all these district [contracts],' added John Failla, founder and CEO of Pearl, a company that helps districts manage tutoring programs. 'They scaled up like crazy.'
But while its closing was unexpected, the financial reality that caused it was not.
A year ago, one expert noted that investments in ed tech had dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. Even in late 2022, 'rising inflation, interest rates, geopolitical crises and belt-tightening brought an end to the copious amounts of capital that defined the pandemic,' wrote Tony Wan, head of platform at Reach Capital. Districts were already 'preparing the chopping block for tools and services' that were nice to have but no longer necessary.
Some districts also just prefer to manage their own tutoring programs.
'If you look at the districts [that] have succeeded in scaling tutoring the most, all of those have owned a lot of the process internally,' said Liz Cohen, policy director at FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank. She cited Baltimore City, Guilford County, North Carolina, and Nashville as examples. 'Districts are increasingly focused on the relational part of tutoring. It can be virtual or in person, but it's someone who has a face and a name and that the kid knows.'
The surprise isn't that FEV Tutors is a 'casualty' of the fiscal cliff, she said. 'But certainly, nobody expected them to shut down on a Saturday in the middle of the school year when they have active customers and employees.'
FEV Tutors did not respond to an email requesting comment. A red banner at the top of its home page says the company 'ceased operations' on Jan. 25.
The news clearly confused some parents. In response to an announcement on Facebook, some families in Harford County, Maryland, blamed the district and wondered if officials knew weeks ago that services would end so suddenly. Another wrote, 'There's clearly a mismanagement of money somewhere.'
On the district's website, officials apologized for the disruption, saying they could not guarantee they would be able to 'find or implement a comparable solution at this time.'
Marguerite Roza, the director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab, said she hasn't seen other pandemic-era vendors face such a dramatic end, but predicted 'there will be more in the coming months.'
Software industry veterans Anirudh Baheti and Ryan Patenaude founded FEV Tutor in 2008, well before the pandemic. According to GovSpend, a data company, annual sales didn't top $1 million until 2018. By 2021, as districts began spending relief funds, sales jumped to over $6.3 million.
Related
In 2022, Alpine Investors, a private equity firm, acquired the company, and Patenaude said in a press release that he was excited about the 'next stage of FEV's growth.' Jim Tormey, an executive with Alpine, stepped in as CEO until Overfelt took over in 2023.
FEV's work in Ector and Duval County, Florida, was also part of an innovative arrangement known as outcomes-based contracting. The company didn't just deliver tutoring; it promised better results for more money, and offered to take a pay cut if students didn't make progress.
Such deals piqued the tutoring world's interest in recent years as policymakers increasingly called for evidence that relief funds weren't going to waste. Cohen, who featured FEV's work last year in a FutureEd report on tutoring, wrote in a commentary that the concept could help ensure districts 'get the best return on their investment and help build a culture of performance in public education.'
FEV Tutor further evolved last year when it announced a new AI-enhanced platform, Tutor CoPilot. The tool makes tutors more effective by giving them guiding questions to ask students. In a randomized trial, the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University, which studies tutoring models, found that when less-experienced tutors used the AI support, student math scores increased an average of 9 percentage points.
Related
But that breakthrough apparently wasn't enough to turn business around.
In his note to the company, Overfelt said he and the board of directors had 'explored every possible avenue to secure FEV Tutor's future,' but that talks with additional investors had 'reached their end.'
Since FEV was on a pay-as-you-go contract, Adkins, in Ector, said the district wasn't worried about losing money.
But FEV employees are suddenly out of a job. A customer service manager who once taught in the Las Vegas-area Clark County schools posted on LinkedIn that she was looking for work. And Jen Mendelsohn, CEO of Braintrust Tutors, said she spent Monday interviewing former FEV tutors.
Many, she said, 'have long-term district relationships nationwide and are looking for ways to ensure academic continuity for their students.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Opinion: What Employers Want, Project-based Learning Can Deliver
Dear high school and college students, Are you a good communicator? Can you effectively lead a team of your peers? Can you think critically about issues, ask questions, and find solutions to complex problems? If so, we're looking for you. Apply now if you can show evidence of teamwork, creativity, and a strong work ethic. We don't need 'good test-takers' or the highest GPA. No experience? No problem. We will train you. We want employees who know how to learn, think, and lead. We want employees with the skills to help our company succeed both now and in the future. Are you up for the challenge? Sincerely, Every Industry in America Today's education system fails to adequately prepare many students for college and the workforce. One survey found less than a quarter of high school graduates believe their schooling prepared them for life after graduation. Meanwhile, employers want candidates with '21st Century Skills,' but are coming up short. In recent years, however, there has been a promising shift as many states re-evaluate how to prepare students for the world. Twenty states and hundreds of districts have created 'Portraits of a Graduate' outlining the skills students should have by graduation such as communication, problem-solving, critical thinking and collaboration. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Meanwhile, the landscape of K-12 assessments is also shifting. Last year when New York set a timeline to eliminate the requirement that students pass the Regents Exam in order to graduate, it joined a growing number of states that have ended reliance solely on exit exams as a condition of graduation. Instead, states are increasingly embracing measures such as performance-based assessments which measure both what students know and whether they can apply that knowledge. These students demonstrate their skills through completing a project or performing a certain activity, which can include. essays, portfolios or research papers. With the right support, these changes can effectively prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow. We have seen this happen in schools that have taken a project-based learning approach to instruction and assessment. For instance, the rural Adair County School District in Kentucky launched an initiative to help students build skills outlined in the state's portrait of a graduate and create a 'culture of inquiry.' In one project, high school English and business classes, led by teachers Amy South and JR Thompson, worked together to research local industries and community businesses, interview business owners, analyze marketing strategies and develop comprehensive plans for promoting the community and its local businesses to outsiders. As part of the process, students were introduced to the concept of a 'strong hook' to capture interest and then divided into two teams. Each team worked collaboratively to propose a value proposition and refine their marketing strategies. They were then required to pitch their ideas and plans, ultimately narrowing down their focus to two distinct community projects. They presented their final pitches live to a jury, which selected one — a Marketing Day Vendor Fair — to be implemented in the community. The project culminated in students hosting an event at the high school showcasing local businesses The Thomas Edison CTE High School in Queens, New York, is currently a mentor school for the New York State Department of Education, training other schools to develop performance-based assessments. It uses a project-based learning model in which students engage in real-world and personally meaningful projects. It developed a framework and 'essential skills' rubric that assesses both how well students know the content and whether they can demonstrate essential skills of communication, collaboration, feedback and reflection, design thinking and professionalism. Related These are just two examples of schools that are leading the way in making sure students are prepared for the world by the time they graduate. We need more stories like this. Instead of focusing on cuts to education, we need to continue the momentum happening in New York and elsewhere by supporting and growing these innovative programs. We call on parents, caregivers, students, schools, districts, boards of education, policy makers and government agencies to focus on these key areas to ensure the momentum continues and the changes last Professional development and capacity building: Institutions must ensure all teachers have ample time for professional development around performance-based curriculum and assessments as well as ongoing professional support. Buy-in at all levels is required in order to strengthen the system and build the capacity needed to make the shift toward building and measuring real-world skills. Funding: Re-defining student success — and how to assess it — will require investment. State leaders must ensure that there is funding to provide the staffing, training, curriculum and resources to support implementing performance-based assessments. Stakeholder alignment: K-12 schools, local industries and higher education institutions must be aligned on which skills are important for career and college readiness. Communications: Some students may resist performance-based assessments because they have learned how to navigate the current system and do well on tests. Communicating effectively to students and families will help to shift mindsets and make the process smoother. Change is slow, but worth it. It will take persistence. There must be a willingness from all involved to hold the line and know it might take 10 years for this new way of assessing student learning to fully take hold. We are experiencing a rare opportunity to change education and improve student success. This work must be intentional, evidence-based, and supported at all levels. We implore education leaders, policy makers, schools, districts and communities to lay the groundwork now to ensure students have a successful future and can respond to the 'letter to high school and college graduates' with a resounding 'Yes.'
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
Officials Sound Alarm Over Delayed Federal Child Care Payments to States
The Trump administration has failed to send out an estimated hundreds of millions in discretionary funding to state child care agencies that should have gone out weeks ago, five sources in the federal government and advocacy organizations confirmed. The Child Care Development Block Grants (CCDBG), which states mostly use to provide subsidies to low-income families, were anticipated to arrive around April 1, the start of the federal fiscal year's third quarter. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'The money hasn't gone out, and that is extremely unusual,' said Ruth Friedman, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who served as director of the Office of Child Care at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) under the Biden administration. Emily Adams, policy associate for child care & early childhood programs at the American Public Human Services Association, concurs. Adams works directly with state child care agency directors across the country, and one told her they were notified by their regional child care office that ACF's Office of Grants Management said the funding has not yet been approved for awards and there was no timeframe for when the grants might be approved. In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson at the Department of Health & Human Services, said, 'ACF is working to award third quarter discretionary CCDF funding as soon as possible.' The CCDBG is part of a complex system of federal child care funding. The largest source comes from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which has two components: mandatory payments made through the Child Care Entitlement to States, which states have already received, and the much larger pot of discretionary CCDBG money, which they haven't. Congress determines the level of CCDBG spending annually and has allotted $8.75 billion to states for the 2025 fiscal year that ends in September. It usually takes two weeks for these block grants to flow to states after Congress passes a continuing resolution funding the government, which it did on March 14. Officials in the Biden administration sent out the first and second quarter funding to state child care agencies on a normal schedule. But the third quarter installment hasn't gone out under the Trump administration, Friedman, Adams and other sources confirmed. Unlike Head Start programs, which face immediate consequences if their funding is delayed, states typically have more cushion for child care, so they may not yet have to make hard choices. That's in part due to the fact that they have a longer time to spend the money, so some may have past funding to keep using. Also, some states put more of their own money into the mix than is required by federal rules, creating even more runway in those places. Related 'Most states have about a month of funds that they can use before they're in big trouble,' Adams notes. But if the money doesn't arrive soon, 'It is eventually going to cause a problem for states,' Friedman explains. The vast majority of the funding covers subsidies that help low-income families pay for child care; if that money dries up, states will have to stop paying for those subsidies. If that happens across all states, the parents of the 1.4 million children who receive them could be left to either cover the full cost themselves or pull their children out of child care. Providers, in turn, could face a wave of unpaid bills and disenrollments. 'It would be extraordinarily destabilizing,' Friedman said. It's unclear if the funding is delayed due to personnel challenges or is being held back for more substantive reasons. By April, the Trump administration had fired nearly half the workforce at ACF. Trump has threatened to eliminate Head Start (although officials recently walked that back) and the so-called 'skinny' budget he released on May 2 would eliminate preschool development grants that help states improve early childhood education and the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, which helps low-income parents afford child care while going to college. The Trump administration has withheld other federal funding that Congress appropriated and he legally has to disburse. In April, Congressional Democrats released a tracker that found at least $430 billion had yet to go out the door to a wide variety of programs, from Head Start to USAID. But the CCDBG funding wasn't included in that sum. On top of the delayed block grants, state child care agencies have also been subjected to Elon Musk's DOGE effort dubbed 'Defend the Spend' without any warning and little explanation. Now, when an agency wants to draw down federal funds from the payment system — normally a 'routine and regular process,' Friedman said, and one in which they're typically reimbursed for dollars they already spent — they receive an email directing them to take a new step in which they have to justify why they need the money. In an email received by a state agency director on April 17 and shared with Adams, the sender wrote, 'We are requesting additional clarification regarding this payment. An ideal payment justification includes a description of the award and what you plan to do with the funds.' It then directs the recipient to click on a long URL to do so. The email ends with simply, 'God Bless America.' Adams noted that agency directors told her the emails 'looked spammy and they don't come from a known email address.' Some states have had to justify their spending as many as three times before getting it. The process has now led to delays. 'What they typically would get in two to four business days is taking five to 10 business days,' Adams said. An ACF spokesperson said in a response to a request for comment, 'While some states have been asked for additional clarification prior to their CCDF drawdowns being approved, no states have been denied the ability to draw down CCDF funds as the result of the Defend the Spend review. In addition, the CCDF program is being phased out of the Defend the Spend review, so CCDF grant recipients will no longer be asked for a justification to draw down CCDF funds.' In Ohio, the delay caused a scary hiccup in April, said Tamara Lunan, director of care economy organizing at the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. The week of April 14, providers who typically receive subsidy payments from the state on Tuesdays didn't receive anything. Then those with Saturday payments didn't get them either. Although the state technically has a 10-day window to send payments out, 'usually the only thing that throws it off is if there was some type of error in the billing or a holiday,' Lunan explained. When Lunan, who was hearing directly from providers about the missing payments, asked the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY) what happened, she said she was told 'that they got DOGE'd,' and were made to give an extra explanation for the money. But in a later meeting, the state changed its tune slightly: According to meeting notes, the department said it was due to a 'system glitch at the federal level.' The payments went out on April 22, which falls within the 10-day window, but some providers had to wait a week longer than usual to get paid. It took a quick toll: Some had to lay off staff because they couldn't make payroll, while others paid staff late, Lunan said. Jodi Norton, DCY's chief communications officer, noted that the department hasn't strayed outside the allotted time frame, including the week of April 14. 'DCY continues to work with federal partners when additional justification is needed and thus far has been successful in maintaining the 10-day window for payments,' she said. Lunan said the payments have now resumed as normal, but if more delays crop up in the future it could leave some providers to not just lose staff but go out of business entirely. 'Providers are really scared about this,' she added. States already go through a rigorous process to justify their spending long before they draw down money. Every three years they have to submit a lengthy state plan to the federal government, as required by law, that describes their child care programs and how they will follow relevant rules. Those plans, which are publicly available, are then carefully reviewed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; it's only after they're approved that states can get any money. After that, states are monitored to make sure they are following federal rules, and they must track their spending and report it back to the agency to make sure they follow all the requirements. They also undergo annual financial audits. 'There are many pieces put in place by Congress to ensure that federal funds are being spent as intended and as required,' Friedman said. It is 'already quite extensive.' The new 'Defend the Spend' approach 'is not an efficient process for ensuring good stewardship of federal funds,' she added. 'This new process does not create new information, but it does create burden and uncertainty for state agencies.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Wisconsin is Cutting State Funding for Child Care. Providers are Taking a Stand.
On Monday, child care providers across the country participated in the fourth annual Day Without Child Care, closing their doors and gathering to demand a better child care system with more public dollars. In Wisconsin, some providers may remain closed for quite a while longer, according to Corrine Hendrickson, owner of a family child care program in Wisconsin, and one of the organizers of a prolonged protest — dubbed 'State Without Child Care' — which intends to push back against the state legislature's cuts to essential child care funding. While direct actions — a form of activism that uses strikes or public demonstrations — by child care providers remain relatively rare in the U.S., it may be an increasingly important arrow in the quiver when fighting for the system children, parents and providers need and deserve. At issue in Wisconsin is the fate of the state's child care stabilization fund, known as Child Care Counts. Wisconsin is one of six states that doesn't fund child care, relying instead entirely on inadequate federal funding. That temporarily changed during the pandemic, when providers began receiving regular payments through Child Care Counts that allowed them to maintain operations and kept parent fees from spiking. With these pandemic funds drying up, Gov. Tony Evers proposed $442 million over two years to continue the fund, but last week the Republican-controlled joint finance committee voted to zero out the child care money. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter If this funding ends, there will be massive consequences for children, families and providers, which is one reason providers are engaging in such an unprecedented action. As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported, 'A quarter of child care providers are more likely to close without further funding from Child Care Counts, and those that remain could be forced to raise their rates, according to a survey released April 10 by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.' This does not appear to be hyperbolic: funding reductions to Child Care Counts over the past few years have already caused providers to increase fees and to have more difficulty hiring qualified staff. Providers have seemingly had enough. Hendrickson stated in a press release that, 'While politicians negotiate over our funding and our lives, Wisconsin working families are once again left without. We've done everything we were told to do. We called. We showed up. We shared our stories. And still, lawmakers voted to cut child care from the budget. No plan. No replacement. No respect. We've had enough and we are drawing the line.' Providers across the state began protest actions in Madison on Tuesday, May 13, and according to Hendrickson, some will remain closed until the legislature guarantees they'll restore the child care funding. Single day child care protests are increasingly common. These have been seen in Australia and Ireland, and they have proven useful at garnering media attention — in fact, the 2020 Irish protest is credited with making child care a major campaign issue that year. These have also occurred regionally in the U.S.; for example, in Connecticut in 2022, providers organized a 'Morning Without Child Care,' which became a landmark event that sparked other communities to follow suit via the now national Day Without Child Care. The Wisconsin protest sets itself apart from these one-day actions though, in that the intention is sustaining activism until the state legislature meets a specific demand. Perhaps the most notable modern example of a sustained child care work stoppage comes from Germany. In 2015, German child care staff across the country went on strike for four weeks to protest their low wages, marking one of the nation's largest post-reunification labor actions and making international headlines. (The strike ended with a modest salary increase.) Similarly, in 2004, Scotland saw a strike of 5,000 child care educators that dragged on, in some localities, for more than three months. One structural element that has made direct child care actions in the U.S. less common than in other nations is the fact that there is less government involvement to begin with. Both German and Scottish child care workers are largely hired by — and have their wages set by — municipalities, and most workers belong to a labor union. In the highly privatized and fragmented American system, there is little unionization and the divisions between employers and employees can be fuzzier; in fact, in many cases it is the owners of U.S. child care programs that are protesting. However, both Connecticut and now Wisconsin have been able to tie their demands to state legislative action, with the presence or lack of state funds for child care acting as a sort of stand-in for collective bargaining. That said, the Wisconsin providers face challenges ahead. While the movement has received support from the community organizing group Community Change, the providers are not unionized. There is no standing strike fund, and for programs operating on thin margins, every day the doors are closed poses a significant loss of revenue. And of course, the participants would much rather be providing care and learning to the children in their programs. Participating in sustained closures is emotionally fraught. For early educators, it's difficult to deprive families of a vital service they rely on. For families who will feel the impact, it's expected that reactions will vary, but looking at Connecticut as an example, parents made it clear that given the choice between a temporary stoppage and permanent closure, reduced quality, or unaffordable fee hikes, they will generally stand alongside their child care providers. Child care providers in the U.S. have long advocated passionately for more support, but have rarely engaged in prolonged protests. In Wisconsin, we're about to find out whether sustained activism is a tool that can sway policymakers.
