Recently, someone representing a state official responded to an Arizona media outlet inquiry about the Empowerment Scholarship 
Accounts program and referred to “tutoring and babysitting.” Consequently, Arizona’s school district industrial lobbying complex went predictably bananas, even though babysitting is not now, nor ever has been an allowable expense under the program. Even though the official has since clarified their statement to note that babysitting is not an allowable expense. Blah blah blah no age requirements for tutoring yadda yadda yadda (move on to the next manufactured outrage).
This is all to do about nothing, but it is worthwhile to pause a moment to note that tutoring centers with strong reputations do routinely hire high school students for tutoring positions. I am aware of this because two of my children tutored math as high school students, and one became an assistant center director as a high school student. The companies establish the mathematical abilities of tutors before hiring them by testing them and then give them established protocols to follow. If they prove ineffective, they lose customers. A great many Arizona high school students are not only completely capable of math tutoring, but I am also willing to wager that neither me nor m(any) of Arizona’s journalism community would fare well against them in a mathematics contest.
Now…about this babysitting business. The Arizona school district industrial lobbying complex and their oh-so-willing media dupes grousing about “babysitting” is too rich for words.
In the 2024 NAEP, 49% of Arizona fourth grade students attending district schools scored “below basic” in reading. I’m not sure what those students were doing over the past five years, but it did not seem to involve much, well, learning. If we break out Arizona district scores apart from the students attending charter schools, eighth grade reading looked like this in 2024:
Usual caveats apply (sampling, raw scores imperfect proxy for school quality etc.) but —cough — if anyone is engaged in babysitting, you don’t want to go searching for it in tutoring centers: Arizona school district reading scores seem to indicate that they have jumped into babysitting with both feet.
Speaking of tutoring math, NAEP also tests math. Perhaps things won’t look so bad for Arizona school districts if we examine the math scores. Or then again, maybe not:
So, there is a brisk trade in tutoring in Arizona, and we are in no position to turn up our noses at bright and capable high school tutors for younger students. As for babysitting, it seems to be in mass production in Arizona’s district schools.
