Online tutoring pays off at home, abroad

The Boston Globe reports:

In the basement of his parents' home in Wellesley, Aashish Sharma is brushing up on high school chemistry, with help from George Mathew, a tutor with a master's degree in the subject.


Mathew works for a US firm, but does his tutoring while seated at a computer in the southern Indian city of Cochin. Thanks to a high-speed Internet link, and software that lets him sketch chemical formulas onto a computer screen, Mathew can give 16-year-old Aashish one-on-one tutoring from 8,000 miles and half a day away.

''I was skeptical at first," said Aashish's mother, Sandhya, a developmental educator. ''But I decided to give it a shot, and it works beautifully."

India has hundreds of thousands of science and math scholars, willing to work cheaply. Giant firms like Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp., and Intel Corp. farm out demanding technical tasks to Indian engineers and set up their own offices in cities like India's high-tech haven of Bangalore.

Now, entrepreneurs with links to the subcontinent want to use Indian brainpower to buff up the lagging science and math skills of American students. These companies also hope to benefit from the federal No Child Left Behind law, which provides millions of dollars to states for remedial tutoring programs. That doesn't sit well with teachers union officials, who say that online tutors don't have to meet the same high standards as classroom teachers.

You can bet technology is going to have some conflicts with the teachers unions.But,that's not the only challenge.With the internet,do we really need so many public schools? You'll want to read this whole article.