Educational entrepreneurialism in the private tutoring industry

Educational entrepreneurialism in the private tutoring industry: balancing profitability with the humanistic face of schooling *.
The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 01-NOV-04

IN THE PAST, TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL AUTHORITY was built on the notion that educating children demanded the guidance of trained experts. Similar to other professions, institutional arrangements emerged to organize and co-ordinate the training of teachers' work and were seen to promise a degree of quality control, in addition to insulating teachers from external competition. These rights of "passage" include teacher colleges, licensing bodies, teacher federations and boards of education. While teachers have never enjoyed the same degree of professional autonomy and authority as more established, "full" professionals such as doctors, they have nevertheless been traditionally constructed as authority figures over educational concerns. This recognition is exemplified by their protected status in many government-sponsored education systems and teacher training programs. Achieving professional or even semi-professional status also often implies a "moral" component by signaling an adherence to the practice of social betterment and public service (Brint, 1994; Durkheim, 1957; Freidson, 2001; Larson, 1977; Lockhart, 1991; Lortie, 1977).

In recent years, however, the education sector has become increasingly informed by a market logic as governments attempt to respond to school choice movements and the intensified demand for education (see Freidson, 2001). For market advocates, public schools monopoly status and bureaucratized form and the presence of teachers' professional associations foster apathy and mediocrity to the detriment of education consumers (Persell, 2000; Stein, 2001). Additionally, since bureaucratized professions typically receive the lion's share of tax dollars, public schools are also criticized for constraining choice by limiting the range of publicly funded options (Witte, 2000). Beyond education, this market logic has increasingly shaped the nature of work in a variety of public organizations such as hospitals, universities and social service agencies in an attempt to rationalize their performance and naturally "weed out" inefficient agents through competition and stark performance indicators (see Freidson, 2001; see Leicht and Fennell, 2001: 22; Persell, 2000: Stein, 2001).

This context has provided fertile ground for educational entrepreneurialism, witnessed by the sharp growth of consultants and test prep companies, private preschools, tutoring businesses, private schools, proprietary colleges and corporate training ventures (Aurini and Davies, 2004a; Davies and Quirke, 2004; Monahan et al., 1994; Sweet and Gallagher, 1999). Supporters of school choice initiatives claim that eliminating public schools' monopoly status will lead to greater equality of choice for parents, improved student performance and greater cost-effectiveness (Ball, 1993; Brown, 1995; Brown and Hunter, 1995; Johnston, 1996; Simon and Lovrich 1996: 666). Consequently, "experts" are no longer limited to the teaching, medical or religious community (Wrigley, 1989; Zelizer, 1985), but now include psychologists, social workers, media representatives and self-proclaimed childrearing or education specialists, in addition to an array of private businesses that engage in the education marketplace.

This paper examines these processes by focussing on one exemplary case study: private tutoring entrepreneurs in Ontario, Canada. Tutoring has evolved dramatically from its origins. In the past, tutoring in North America consisted of a peppering of "moonlighting" tutors and "test prep" companies such as Kaplan and Princeton Review. This form of tutoring has sometimes been referred to as "shadow education" to denote the ways in which it mimics the formal school system by providing services that closely follow or complement public-schooling offerings (Baker et al., 2001; Bray, 1999; Stevenson and Baker, 1992).

While shadow education continues to thrive, learning centres are emerging as a formidable presence in the private education market (Aurini and Davies, 2004a). These businesses offer a wide range of education services and often tout themselves as "learning centres." (1) Learning centre services include preschool programs, math and reading classes, writing and public-speaking programs and, in some instances, courses for accreditation. A highly evolved form of tutoring, these businesses are often developed as franchises, or morph into comprehensive private schools. In some instances these businesses have entered the post-secondary market and offer credits and degrees on-line (Aurini and Davies, 2004a). (2)

The growth and increased popularity of this industry is astounding. Once a small cottage industry, private tutoring has grown into a billion-dollar industry that now serves almost 2 million children a year in North America (Gubernick and Burger, 1997; www.sbomag.com). In the United States, the tutoring industry generated approximately $2.7 billion in 2001, and is an integral part of the larger $102 billion for-profit supplemental education market. (3)

In Ontario, older data shows that, in 1997, 17% of parents in Canada with school-age children had hired tutors at some time, 9% were currently using tutors and 50% of parents would have hired a tutor if they could have afforded it (Davies, 2004). More recent data shows that 24% of Ontario parents have hired tutors in the past three years t see www.oise.utoronto.ca/ OISE-Survey/2002/2002report.pdf); while the sheer number of tutoring businesses has increased by approximately 60%, from 245 to 396 locations in just the eight years between 1996 and 2003. At the local level, the number of private tutoring businesses in Toronto increased from 10 locations in the mid-1960s to 74 locations in 2000. This growth has occurred irrespective of enrollment levels or economic growth (Aurini and Davies, 2004a).

Formerly, tutoring served as a means to generate additional income. Today, private tutoring promises full-time business opportunities and careers for well-educated investors. This industry draws a diverse army of education enthusiasts and businesspersons alike, appealing to entrepreneurs' pedagogical and business aspirations. These entrepreneurs have remarkably varied biographies, hailing from such backgrounds as business, geography, psychology and physics, as well as teaching. Unlike Ontario public schools, entrepreneurs are not required to consult with professional educators or hire credentialed staff, nor are they subject to accountability mechanisms such as standardized tests, so common now in public education sectors (Aurini, 2004). Yet these businesses are growing and enjoying enormous legitimacy among parents, school choice movements and market advocates (see Hoxby, 2002; Stein, 2001). Lacking teachers' claim to professional authority, entrepreneurs justify their services largely on the basis of marketable specializations (see Brint 1994: 8) and ability to meet increased consumer demand for individualized education (Aurini and Davies, 2004a; 2004b; Davies and Quirke, 2004: Lareau, 2003; Stevens, 2001; Zelizer, 1985).

Research Questions and Contributions

This paper is guided by two main research questions. First, how is the nature of teaching transformed on the market? While the increased emphasis on markets, decentralization and consumer choice across professions has been well documented (Leicht and Fennell, 2001: 22: Hoxby, 2002; Labaree, 1997; Persell, 2000; Stein, 2001), newer is the increased encroachment of non-professional entrepreneurs who provide similar services and compete for clientele with professionals. Further, previous examinations of teachers have largely focussed on public education (Depaepe and Simon, 1997; Filson, 1988; Hargreaves, 1994: Ingersoll, 2003; Lockhart, 1991; Lortie, 1977; Raelin, 1989; Pace, 2003: Zeichner, 1991); while the literature on the professions has largely focussed on structural analyses of professionalization at the expense of empirical studies that examine the work of professions (see Abbott, 1988; 1991 for a critiquei. The impact of markets on the teaching profession has only recently been addressed in the literature (see Hoxby, 2002; see Persell, 2000).

Second, in the absence of professional authority claims, how do these businesses and their entrepreneurs garner their legitimacy? In part, the increasing use of these types of services reflects changing education consumer environments, highlighted by more novel sociology of the family and education literatures. With a few exceptions (Adler and Adler, 1994; Aurini and Davies, 2004b; Davies and Quirke, 2004; Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003; Stevens, 2001; Zelizer, 1985), most studies provide a largely descriptive analysis of one aspect of home life, such as children's use of time (Juster and Stafford, 1985) and parent-child activities (Bianchi, 2000; Bianchi and Robinson, 1997; Zick and Bryant, 1996) or parents' contributions to child care (Hertz and Marshall, 2001; Jacobs and Gerson, 1998). Research that examines how these businesses reflect the new culture of intensive parenting and demands for customized education have only recently emerged and are in need of elaboration (Aurini and Davies, 2004b; Davies and Quirke, 2004; Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003; Stevens, 2001).

By addressing these questions, this paper attempts to capture these trends by extending Brint's (1994) work on the professions. Brint recognizes that the sphere in which an occupation resides justifies its practice (e.g., public-minded vs. market-oriented) and conditions of employment (e.g., for-profit vs. non-profit), as well as its relationship to the marketplace (e.g., public vs. private). This paper also builds on research that links trends in private education to the increased individualist stance parents are taking toward their children's personal and intellectual development (Adler and Adler, 1994; Aurini and Davies, 2004b; Davies and Quirke, 2004; Lareau, 2003; Stevens, 2001; West et al., 1998).

There is currently very little academic research on private tutoring. This omission is partly because unlike other education ventures (e.g., charter schools), the private tutoring industry operates in a largely unregulated market that is beyond the reach of most government data collection methods (Bray, 1999). The research that has been collected has largely been quantitative, focussing primarily on tutoring outside of the North American context. These studies connect the increased use of private tutoring with school entrance exams and tight school-to-work connections, or frame it as a market reaction to an underfunded education system (Baker et al., 2001; Bray, 1999; Stevenson and Baker, 1992). Further, these studies tend to solely focus on the rationales behind tutoring "use," rather than examining private tutoring as an "education business" in the context of other types of education innovation. (4)

Methods

Interviews with private tutoring business owners and a one-year participant observation study inform this research. From January 2001 to December 2003, 24 semi-structured, 60- to 90-minute interviews and site visits were conducted with owners of private tutoring businesses and franchises in the southern Ontario area. (5) The interview subjects were limited to only those businesses that provide for-profit instruction in academic subjects taught in mainstream elementary and secondary schools. Tutoring businesses that focussed on ESL (English as a second language), language instruction, music, art and other educational endeavours for personal development or pleasure were not considered in the scope of this study. Also not considered were publicly subsidized or informal volunteer tutoring networks provided through family, friends and libraries. Additionally, corporate training or "test prep" companies were also excluded.

These limitations were intentional and allowed me to focus on private tutoring businesses that provide services found in public schools. The remaining tutoring businesses provided my sampling frame. I randomly selected two representatives from each major franchise to interview, and contacted all of the remaining single-location tutoring businesses in the Toronto phone book. The standardization of the franchise form lent itself to uniformity of product and service, and the interviews with the franchisers or head office representatives from four leading franchises provided substantial biographical information about their franchisees.

Twenty-two of the interviews were conducted at the tutoring location and two of the interviews were conducted over the phone, at the interviewee's request. Four of the interviews were with the founders or representatives from the corporate office of a learning centre franchise (Interview 2001: 1-4); seven interviewees owned and operated tutoring franchises (Interview 2001: 5-11); one interviewee owned and operated a private school affiliated with a major tutoring company (Interview 2001: 12); and the remaining interviews consisted of a mixture of representatives and founders of single location tutoring businesses, private schools that had evolved from a tutoring business and one university student who conducted in-home tutoring (Interview 2001: 13-24).

This research has also been informed by data collected from a one-year participant observation study. Between May 2001 and May 2002, I tutored at one of the largest tutoring franchises in Canada and engaged in biweekly, three-hour tutoring sessions, participated in staff meetings, workshops and parent interviews, and had access to teaching manuals.

Finally, this paper also relied on promotional and informational material created by the tutoring businesses. All tutoring businesses produce a substantial array of brochures and flyers, while some also support Web sites. The larger learning centres also create an in-house magazine that is distributed to their franchises and to their customers. Data from these sources provided a non-obtrusive method to access learning centres' mission statements, program information, hiring practices, educational philosophies and methodologies.

Market Logic in Education: Suppliers of Private Tutoring

How is the nature of teaching transformed on the market? Educational entrepreneurialism marks a dramatic re-conceptualization from teaching as a "profession" to teaching as an "entrepreneurial" activity. The private tutoring industry transforms the nature of teaching in three ways, namely: 1) entrepreneurs do not necessarily possess professional credentials; 2) tutoring franchises provide a counter-supply of education that sometimes "competes" with public schools; and 3) private tutoring businesses lack professional or government regulation demanded in the public education sector.

In Ontario, public-school teachers are mandated to receive training and certification through government-sponsored programs. In the private tutoring industry, however, a professional degree or experience in an education-related field is not a prerequisite for purchasing a tutoring franchise or operating a tutoring business. Only eight of the tutoring business owners were certified teachers, while the remaining owners hailed from psychology, business, law and physics. Of the six franchises studied, only two required their tutors to hold a teaching certificate.

In the case of tutoring franchises, teachers are not viewed as the most desirable investor because they are seen to lack "entrepreneurial" or "commercial" ambition. The following quote is typical of all the franchisers interviewed:

We have some teachers in the system. Generally we find that teachers lack ambition, I mean commercial ambition, and they don't have a sense of business investment. They're used to an environment whereby your federation or your union guarantees. You don't put in extra effort unless you're paid sort of thing. It's a big paradigm shift for them.

To compensate for teachers' "lack" of commercial ambition, many franchises demand that teacher-franchisees hire a "business" person to fill the assistant manager role, sometimes referred to as an "education co-ordinator." (6)

Teaching qualifications are not necessary because franchisees are conceptualized as "managers," not teachers or educators. Although some franchise owners conduct tutoring sessions, most focus strictly on the administrative aspects of running a business. Indeed, franchisers uniformly stress that the primary function of the franchisee is not to "teach," but to manage. The franchiser often takes responsibility for providing at least initial training and guides franchisees towards effective business practices. As one franchiser explained:

What we teach them (franchisees) is how to run a business. So eventually we (the franchiser) become obsolete. The key is to give them the tools to market themselves, that they have a marketing plan and so on.

These owners also adopted a more market-driven logic towards the franchises and reward systems. In their view, franchisees and their tutors/teachers should be paid for their ability, not guaranteed a wage through some unionized effort. As a principal of a school developed out of a franchise explained:

I think a lot of things need to be changed (in the teaching profession). The union has got to go. It's the only profession with a union. Imagine going to a lawyer, an accountant, or an engineer, and saying "this is how much you're going to make! I don't care if you work 80 hours a week, you're going to make this." A lawyer would laugh in your face! You do your job to the best of your ability, and if you do it well, you'll be compensated accordingly. That's a professional. You get paid what you're worth. The market decides what you're worth. And the good teachers will stay (in the private sector), and the bad teachers will get replaced by the good teachers.

These entrepreneurs also break with the ideological core of professionalism. Typical of established professions such as law and medicine, the teaching profession has adopted expansive social betterment ideals (see Labaree, 1997). (7) Yet private tutoring, as with other forms of private education, is a relatively "exclusive" activity. Although tutoring is markedly less expensive than private schooling (which can range from $8,000 to $30,000 per year) it is still prohibitive for many. Most private tutoring companies charge $250 to $400 per month for eight hours of tutoring. Contrary to the spirit behind public education, these services may promote, rather than reduce, inequality, since only the wealthiest and savviest parents are able to tap into their advantages (Davies et al., 2002) and "customize" their children's educational experience (see Lareau, 2003). In this way, markets transform the "business" of teaching from a professional to an entrepreneurial activity that simultaneously deprofessionalizes (e.g., franchises decrease discretion) and professionalizes (e.g., de-unionizes) the art of educating.

The content and delivery of tutoring franchise services represents a second type of transformation. While shadow educators adhere to teachers' professional authority by following public schools' curricula, tutoring franchises often develop their own curricula and evaluation tools. Based on internally designed diagnostic tests, tutoring franchises place students in a program, irrespective to what they are working on in school. Test preparation and homework support that relies upon school materials are discouraged. Many of the larger tutoring franchises have curriculum departments located at their head office that develop programs and various instructional manuals and workbooks for their clientele.

Instead of catering to individual school boards or classrooms, the creation of these materials is promoted by the need to standardize product offerings necessary for successful franchising and overall profitability. The imperative of the franchise form motivates a more centralized form of governance than the sole proprietorship arrangement, since the reputation of the entire franchise is at stake at each outlet. This standardization permits distant franchisers to control the delivery of products without being present. This standardization also makes the product (tutoring) more portable and reliable for customers who can expect similar a service from one location to the next, just as they might expect a uniform product offering from a McDonald's, Home Depot, Staples and so forth (Aurini and Davies, 2004a). In the process, however, learning centre franchises encroach upon teachers' professional authority by offering alternative, rather than supplemental, education.

The third transformation is the simultaneous force that markets place on public systems to become more tightly "coupled" (see Meyer and Rowan, 1978), while at the same time freeing private enterprises to remain relatively unregulated (and hence unaccountable), in the spirit of free market competition. For instance, in the public sector, perceived inefficiencies have fueled many initiatives such as standardized curricula and tests for both students and teachers. Additionally, parental involvement has not only increased, but also has been institutionalized in recent years with the introduction of a formal appraisal process for parents and students, the creation of the Ontario Parent Council and a parent survey (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2001-2002). These reforms are seen to strengthen the connection between the curriculum and the classroom by demanding schools demonstrate that they are meeting provincial standards (see Meyer and Rowan, 1977; 1978).

Conversely, the private education industry can be described as unregulated and unstandardized (Aurini, 2004). Entrepreneurs (and their tutors) are not necessarily certified teachers. Further, these businesses are not expected to conform to government-imposed education mandates. In fact, there are few (if any) mechanisms to ensure that these services are effective in terms of boosting education performance or stimulating children's cognitive development. Instead, some tutoring businesses offer internally defined yardsticks, such as retesting their students periodically (using their own diagnostic tests), or with more subjective measures, such as a tutor's assessment.

These businesses have also not been able to successfully garner government support, crucial to public schools' legitimacy and survival. Instead, many of these businesses opt to join associations that reflect their organizational structure (e.g., franchise) or with self-regulatory bodies (e.g., Canadian Education Standards Institute). For instance, most learning centre franchises in Canada are members of the Canadian Franchise Association (CFA), an organization that represents hundreds of Canadian franchises, including restaurants, car rental and parcel services. Without regulation or affiliations with educational bodies the act of education becomes consumer, rather than expert, driven, as parents are left to their own devices to navigate through a diverse labyrinth of private education offerings.

New Education Consumer Environments

Despite lacking the traditional basis of professional authority, private tutoring businesses have enjoyed enormous currency in recent years. On what grounds do these businesses and their entrepreneurs garner legitimacy and authority over education?

In part, educational entrepreneurialism has been facilitated by an emerging culture of intensive parenting and educational customization. Tutoring franchises and learning centres respond to this new consumer environment by offering a wide range of programs and services and small student-teacher ratios. These businesses espouse broad mission statements, produce an array of literature targeted at parents and market their services as highly customized. Common themes in learning centre literature include: "Developing your child's gifts and talents" ("FastTrackKids International," Academy of Mathematics and Science); "personalized program(s) to meet his or her individualized needs" ("Senior Math," Sylvan); and programs that "encourage creativity" by allowing children to "work at their own pace" in ways that "nurture" children's unique learning styles ("Improved Grades, Improved Confidence," Oxford Learning Centre). Typical of most franchises, Sylvan states that their services:

... identifies the learning style of your child--auditory, visual or tactile--and uses the most appropriate method to teach your child.... Sylvan personalizes programs, choosing from hundreds of materials and lesson plans, to teach your child in the way he or she will learn best (www.educate.com).

Similarly, All about Learning promises to give students "individualized attention" and "instruction tailored" to the needs of the student (www.allaboutlearning.ca); while the Academy for Mathematics & Science advertises that after an evaluation, "individualized programs are then developed to meet the needs of each student" (www.acadfor.com).

Part of learning centres' appeal is their ability to stay relatively small (approximately 100 students) and keep student-teacher ratios typically to a maximum of one teacher per three students. This arrangement permits...