To help underwrite the cost of the course, The National Education Project, Inc. provides $50,000 grants to colleges and universities under a standard, five-year contract, and each $50,000 grant is disbursed by the National Education Project to the colleges in 10 equal payments over a five-year period (that is, $5,000 per semester x 10 semesters).

These grants are used mainly to cover college faculty costs (salary and benefits) during the five-year grant period, although the college may pay small stipends to Student Coordinators to assist in coordinating the day-to-day work of the undergraduates.

At the same time, the undergraduates who enroll in these courses pay to the college the standard tuition that is required for any three-credit course.

It costs a total of $75,000 to get one program running in one city. Of this amount, $50,000 will be awarded to one college over a five-year period. The remaining $25,000 will be used by the National Education Project to underwrite the administrative cost of operating this program during the five-year grant period.

In return for the $50,000 grant, the participating college will agree to field a total of 145 undergraduates during the five-year grant period. These undergraduates, in turn, will produce a total of 7,250 hours of tutoring in five years (that is, 145 undergraduates x 50 hours of tutoring produced by each undergraduate).

The college is responsible for selecting the specific elementary schools in which the undergraduates will work. However, not more than one elementary school is allowed to receive tutors during the first semester of the five-year/10-semester grant, and not more than two elementary schools per semester are allowed to receive tutors during the remaining nine semesters of the grant.

For purposes of evaluating the long-term effect of the tutors, it is preferable that the college send the tutors to work in the same elementary schools during the entire five-year grant, but this decision is the college's to make.

If the college should choose to send the tutors to work in the same two elementary schools throughout the five-year grant, each elementary school would receive approximately 3,625 hours of tutoring in five years. This would provide needed tutoring to a large number of children in each school and also help considerably to raise the reading and math scores of both schools.

Please see Results of the Tutoring for several actual evaluations written by classroom teachers that demonstrate the remarkable effectiveness of the tutors from this Project.

Since any number of academic disciplines take their expression in the real world, a college or university may properly operate several of these programs at the same time. One college, for example, could operate three programs simultaneously, one in each of three different academic departments (e.g., Sociology, Economics, and Elementary Education).

In that event, the National Education Project would provide the college with three grants in the amount of $50,000 per grant; that is, one $50,000 grant for each of the three academic departments participating.

For each $50,000 grant received, the college will agree to field a total of 145 undergraduates during the five-year grant period. A college that receives three $50,000 grants, for example, will field a total of 435 undergraduates, who, in turn, will produce 21,750 hours of tutoring in a five-year period (that is, three programs at one college x 145 undergraduates per program x 50 hours of tutoring produced by each undergraduate.)

Post-secondary institutions eligible to participate include accredited public and private two-year colleges, four-year colleges, universities, and community colleges.

The college or university is responsible for selecting the elementary schools where the undergraduates will tutor. To be eligible to receive tutors, an elementary school:

1. Must have a demonstrated need for tutors;
   
   
2. Must be a non-profit institution;
   
   
3. May be either public or parochial; and
   
   
4. For logistical reasons, the elementary schools should be located near the college or university.
   

The undergraduates are not paid to do the tutoring, and there is no cost whatsoever to the elementary schools or to the children who are tutored by the undergraduates.

The remarkable results that have been produced by the tutors from this Project across the country came about as a direct result of a systematic procedure that is embodied in the Eight Basic Operational Documents developed by the National Education Project over the last several years.

These documents are listed below:

1. The Project's Standard Five-Year Contract with the Colleges;
   
   
2. The Standard Agreement between the College and the Elementary School;
   
   
3. Guidelines for the Classroom Teacher
   
   
4. Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form;
   
   
5. Guidelines for the Tutors;
   
   
6. Midterm Report of Hours of Tutoring Produced (One-Page);
   
   
7. Outline for the End-of-Semester Report by the College Faculty Member; and
   
   
8. End-of-Semester Report of Hours of Tutoring Produced (One-Page).

II. The Course Description

These courses are established by the college or university as three-credit electives in various academic departments such as Sociology, Economics, and Elementary Education.

To receive credit for the course, the undergraduates are required to:

1. Tutor five hours each week of the semester. (Each undergraduate is required to produce a minimum of 50 hours of tutoring per semester; that is, five hours of tutoring per week x the 10 weeks in a semester.)
   
   
2. Attend a weekly seminar with their college faculty supervisor.
   
   
3. Submit a one-page report each three weeks of the semester to their college faculty supervisor.
   
   
4. Keep a private journal.
   
   
5. Submit a Final Report to their college faculty supervisor at the end of the semester.

As determined by each college, the course may be offered as "pass/fail" or for a letter grade.

As a practical matter, virtually all of the nation's 10,000,000 college students, regardless of their major, are eligible to participate, since these courses are offered as "electives," and since undergraduates, generally, must take elective courses to get a degree.

This has two important benefits:

1. With 10,000,000 college students among the 50 states, the potential supply of tutors is national in scope and so vast in sheer numbers as to be virtually inexhaustible, not only now, but as far into the future as anyone can foresee.
   
   For this reason, the National Education Project is able to match the nation's illiteracy problem on its own scale.
   
   
2. These courses have a fundamental practicality for undergraduates, since the tutoring that is required by the course is not an "extracurricular" activity that conflicts with the undergraduate's obligation to study; rather, the tutoring is done as part of a three-credit elective course that actually moves the undergraduate toward a college degree.

To make the necessary distinction, it is important to point out that the undergraduates in this Project are not "teacher's aides," "mentors," "interns," or "student teachers;" rather, they are tutors in the old, classical sense of the term.

The undergraduates work the entire semester as tutors, and only as tutors, for four main reasons:

1. Tutoring is the most effective form of instruction ever devised by human society. (Even Alexander the Great had a tutor.)
   
   
2. As the National Education Project has demonstrated in a number of cities across the country, the undergraduates are superbly effective as tutors when working in a supervised and properly structured environment (that is, under the direct supervision of classroom teachers).
   
   Please see Results of the Tutoring for actual evaluations of the effectiveness of the tutors written by the classroom teachers.
   
   
3. Tutoring is what the children in the community genuinely need. For many children, the plain fact is that they must receive tutoring in basic subjects if they are to master the literacy skills that are essential for employment in the technological age.
   
   
4. For any number of reasons, the traditional teacher/student ratio of 1:30 or so simply doesn't work for many children. If they are to learn, these children must have individual attention, and this is what the tutors from the National Education Project provide.

It should be said that the children learn not only reading, writing, and arithmetic from the tutors; they also learn the greater lesson, which is that they are capable of learning.

Moreover, because the tutors are from the local colleges, the children come to see college as a part of their future, a future for which the tutors, in actual fact, are helping to prepare them.

To get the first semester started at a college or university, it is only necessary that one academic department agrees to offer the course; that one member of the full-time college or university faculty agrees to supervise the undergraduates; and that at least 10 undergraduates enroll in the course. (There are no prerequisites for this course, although, as a general matter, the course would not be open to first-semester freshmen.)

During the first semester, the 10 undergraduates would work in one elementary school, which would be selected by the college. During the remaining nine semesters of the grant, it is expected that 15 undergraduates would enroll in the course each semester, for a total enrollment of 145 undergraduates over the five-year/10-semester grant period.

From the second-through-tenth semesters, the tutors should be more or less evenly divided between two elementary schools.

The college may not place tutors in more than two elementary schools in any given semester. Moreover, for purposes of evaluating the advances of the children in reading and math, the colleges are encouraged to send the undergraduates to work in the same elementary schools each semester of the five-year grant, although this decision is the college's to make.

During the five-year grant period, the undergraduates from one program will produce a total of 7,250 hours of tutoring; that is, 145 undergraduates per program x 50 hours of tutoring produced by each undergraduate.

The college faculty member has several basic responsibilities, including:

1. Overall management of the course;

2. Conducting the weekly, on-campus seminars with the undergraduates;

3. Preparing and distributing to the undergraduates the course Syllabus and the course Bibliography;

4. Distributing to each undergraduate a copy of the Project's Guidelines for the Tutors;

5. Periodic visits, as necessary, to the elementary schools where the undergraduates are tutoring;

6. Providing to each elementary school at the beginning of each semester of the five-year grant the following documents, which are drawn up by the National Education Project:

a. Standard Agreement between the College and the Elementary School;

b. Guidelines for the Classroom Teacher; and

c. Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form.

7. Providing the following reports to the National Education Project each semester of the five-year grant:

a. Midterm Report of Hours of Tutoring Produced (One-Page);

b. End-of-Semester Report by the College Faculty Member to the National Education Project, which contains several items, including:

(1) End-of-Semester Report of Hours of Tutoring Produced (One-Page); and

(2) Copies of the Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form; that is, one Evaluation Form for each undergraduate. (This is the evaluation form all classroom teachers use to measure the advances of the children in reading and math during the previous semester.)

The faculty member's End-of-Semester Report also describes the general operation of the course during the previous semester. Here is a summary of a faculty member's End-of-Semester Report from several years ago:

"The faculty and staff of the elementary schools were extremely cooperative and receptive to the undergraduates. In all cases, they expressed appreciation for the presence of the tutors in their classrooms and for their accomplishments with the children. When the undergraduates needed assistance in their tutoring assignments, the faculty and staff were most generous in providing the needed help.

"The undergraduates were reliable and punctual. And there were no serious logistical problems.

"The course was very easy to manage and there were no serious problems that required an inordinate amount if time to resolve.

"The undergraduates were extremely pleased with their effectiveness as tutors. They discovered talents within themselves that they did not know they possessed, and they saw tangible evidence in the performance of the children due to their efforts as tutors.

"The undergraduates learned what we had hoped they would learn, and probably more. In observing the challenges that inner-city children must face each day of their lives, the undergraduates grew in appreciation for all that they had received from their parents in their childhood years. They learned a good deal about the public school system and what it is like to be teacher in the system.

"The undergraduates recognized that, although the primary task was to tutor the children, the bonds of friendship that grew between them and the children served to strengthen the children's self-esteem and pride in their work.

"The undergraduates learned the value of service to those in need and, in many cases, committed themselves to make a place for such service in their lives in the future.

"I was delighted to be involved with this project and look forward to continued involvement in years to come. The program is as important to our undergraduates as it is to the children who are served." (Emphasis and minor edits supplied.)

Although the $50,000 grants from the National Education Project are used mainly to cover college faculty costs during the five-year grant period, the college, if it wishes to do so, may pay small stipends to selected undergraduates, known as "Student Coordinators," to assist in coordinating the day-to-day work of the undergraduates tutoring in the elementary schools.

(A stipend of $250 per Student Coordinator per semester may be appropriate, but the actual dollar amount is determined by each college.)

Duties of the Student Coordinators might include:

1. Coordinating transportation of the undergraduates to the elementary school;
   
   
2. Checking on a regular basis the Attendance Book that is kept in the central office at the elementary school; and
   
   
3. Similar administrative support responsibilities as determined by the college faculty member responsible for the course.

Student Coordinators are selected each semester by the college faculty member, but each Student Coordinator must also be enrolled in the course and working at the elementary school as a tutor, or they must have taken the course in a previous semester.

A college may have up to two Student Coordinators per semester (at a ratio of one Student Coordinator per elementary school), but not more. Over the course of the five-year/10-semester grant, a college therefore may have a maximum of 19 Student Coordinators (that is, one Student Coordinator the first semester of the grant, and two Student Coordinators for each of the following nine semesters of the grant).

An undergraduate may serve more than one semester as a Student Coordinator if asked to do so by the college faculty member.

The National Education Project is fundamentally a voluntary program, which means that both the elementary schools and the individual classroom teachers volunteer to participate. For those elementary schools that do choose to participate, there are several basic operational documents that must be put into effect.

These documents, which are provided each semester by the National Education Project, detail how the program actually works on a day-to-day basis and clearly state for all parties what the undergraduates are required to do, and also what the undergraduates are not allowed to do.

The basic operational documents for the elementary schools are listed here:

1. The College/School Agreement, which is signed by both the principal of the elementary school principal and by the appropriate college administrator;
2. The Guidelines for the Classroom Teacher and the Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form, which is distributed at the beginning of each semester to each classroom teacher who receives a tutor from this Project; and
3. The Attendance Book, which is kept in the central office of the elementary school and which the undergraduates use to sign in and sign out for each tutoring session during the entire semester.

These documents establish for all parties how the course operates, and also make it clear that the undergraduates work as tutors, and only as tutors, for the entire semester. They are not permitted to engage in any other activity. As a fundamental matter, therefore, the undergraduates:

1. Do not grade papers for the classroom teacher;
   
   
2. Do not monitor the cafeteria at lunchtime;
   
   
3. Do not supervise recess;
   
   
4. Do not do office work for the school principal; and
   
   
5. Are not permitted to work with the class as one large group.

Moreover, the undergraduates tutor during the regular school day, and they work at all times under the direct supervision of the classroom teachers; that is, the tutors are not allowed to work with the children unless a teacher is present at all times. There are no exceptions.

Responsibilities of the classroom teachers include providing the minimal on-the-job training the tutors require, as well as daily supervision and guidance. (For a complete description of the responsibilities of the classroom teacher, please see Training and Supervision of the Tutors by the Classroom Teachers.)

Each elementary school also is required to provide a member of the school staff (called the "Agency Representative") to help coordinate the tutoring activities of the undergraduates. The Agency Representative is usually a member of the senior school administration, such as an assistant principal or the school's chief reading specialist.

Among other duties, the Agency Representatives are responsible for:

1. Providing an orientation for the undergraduates at the elementary school during the first week of the semester. During this orientation, the undergraduates are given a tour of the school; introduced to the classroom teacher with whom they will be working; and acquainted with the general rules of the school.
   
   Actual tutoring, however, must begin no later than the undergraduate's second visit to the school.
   
   
2. Providing a place in the school's central office for the Attendance Book, which the undergraduates use to sign in and sign out for each tutoring session throughout the semester.
   
   
3. Matching tutors with classroom teachers (who volunteer to accept a tutor into their classroom) and assisting in establishing effective tutoring situations.
   

As the National Education Project is structured, all tutoring is done by the undergraduates during the regular school day, in the back of the classroom, and under the direct supervision of classroom teachers; as a result, the relationship between the classroom teacher and the tutor is absolutely critical to the success of the tutors.

The undergraduates must be willing to do what the teachers ask them to do, and in the way the teachers ask them to do it. For this reason, the only training that is acceptable is the on-the-job training provided by the classroom teachers, themselves, and no outside third parties, such as 'tutor trainer' organizations, are allowed to inject themselves between the tutors and the classroom teachers.

The classroom teachers volunteer to accept the tutors into their classrooms, and they provide the on-the-job training to the tutors as a part of their normal classroom duties. Moreover, since the classroom teachers know best which individual children need help and in which specific subjects, the teachers also decide:

1. Which specific children will receive tutoring;
   
   
2. The length of time each child will receive tutoring; and
   
   
3. The specific subjects (e.g., multiplication tables, spelling, long division, etc.) in which the children will be tutored.

As for the tutors, they will:

1. Use the books and instructional materials already in the classroom and selected by the teachers;
   
   
2. Use the teaching methodologies determined by the teachers; and
   
   
3. Work in the back of the classroom, while the classroom teacher conducts the larger class.

It must be emphasized that the undergraduates work as tutors in the old, classical sense of the term, and they are required to work on a 1:1 or a 1:2 ratio, or in very small groups. The undergraduates do not work with the class as one large group.

In addition, the undergraduates work at all times under the direct supervision of classroom teachers; that is, the tutors are not allowed to work with the children unless a teacher is present at all times. There are no exceptions.

Moreover, to establish an effective tutoring environment, the classroom teachers have a number of fundamental responsibilities, including:

1. Providing daily supervision and guidance to the tutor;
   
   
2. Resolving any problems that may arise;
   
   
3. Reviewing the work of the tutor on a daily basis; and
   
   
4. Providing to the college faculty member at the end of each semester a Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form, which classroom teachers use to measure the advances of the children in reading, writing, and mathematics during the previous semester.
   
   (As an indication of the remarkable effectiveness of the undergraduates, please see Results of the Tutoring for several actual evaluations written by classroom teachers.)

Although classroom teachers volunteer to have a tutor in their classroom, the Project's experience is that teachers actually line up to get these tutors, since virtually no one can provide reliable tutors at no cost.

After receiving tutors from St. John's University in New York City for three years, the principal of New York City public elementary school wrote:

"Children's Reaction—The children are delighted with the attention; in fact, if a child who is scheduled for tutoring is absent, twenty hands go up offering to go in place of the absent student.

"We noticed that some of our chronic truants appeared in school on days when they received tutoring. Some of these children were in the lower grades. We explained to them that in order to be part of the tutor team, they would have to attend school on a regular basis, not only on certain days. Their attendance improved greatly, we knew that this meant the parents were involved in making certain that the children attend school.

"Our feeling is that the children have a better chance to succeed before failure is part of [their] academic life; now they are able to catch up and to sharpen their skills.

"Teachers' Reaction—When the program started, teachers were happy to become involved because it meant that specific needs would be addressed. Students who needed extra help would be helped. Because of the reputation of St. John's, teachers knew that the tutors would be well supervised and would follow through.

"After three years of working with the program -- teachers who were happy are now delighted. One of the first questions as we start a new semester or term is, When are the tutors coming?

"Teachers do not mind the extra preparation involved – they are pleased to work with the tutors, to have on-going discussions, cooperative planning, follow-up, and evaluation. Plan books have often included lessons or specific skills for tutors, and the program has become an intricate part of our teaching process." (Emphasis supplied, as well as minor edits for brevity and clarity.)

 

As designed, the National Education Project operates according to fundamental principals of performance measurement, and accountability:

1. The undergraduates must tutor five hours per week on a regular schedule for the entire semester (for example, Monday and Wednesday mornings, from 9:00 to 11:30). They are required to tutor a minimum of 50 hours per semester.

The undergraduates work during the regular school day, and they must sign in and sign out for each tutoring session in an Attendance Book that is kept in the central office of the elementary school. There are no excused absences.

2. At mid-semester, the college faculty member responsible for the course provides the National Education Project with a one-page report showing the precise number of hours of tutoring produced up to that point by the undergraduates. These numbers are drawn from the Attendance Book that is kept in the school principal's office.

3. At the end of each semester, the college faculty member sends to the National Education Project an End-of-Semester Report, which contains several major elements:

a. A copy of the course Syllabus and the course Bibliography developed by the college faculty member for this course and used during the semester;

b. The End-of-Semester Report of Hours of Tutoring Produced, which shows the precise number of hours of tutoring produced by the undergraduates during the previous semester;

c. Copies of the Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form, which the classroom teachers use to measure the advances of the children in reading, writing, and mathematics during the previous semester; and

d. A statement which responds to an outline provided by the National Education Project and which describes the general operation of the course during the previous semester.

4. Under the terms of the contract with The National Education Project, Inc., the college receives the first grant payment before the beginning of the first semester of the five-year/10-semester $50,000 grant.

Payment for each of the following nine semesters is made prior to the start of each semester but only if the Project has received all required end-of-semester reports for the previous semester from the college.

As an indication of the remarkable effectiveness of the tutors from this Project, please see Results of the Tutoring for several actual evaluations written by classroom teachers.

In terms of cost and efficiency, the National Education Project has been deliberately designed to use the resources that already exist in nearly every community in the nation; that is, undergraduates tutoring in established, not-for-profit elementary schools, and under the direct supervision of classroom teachers.

As a result, in terms of cost, simplicity of operation, and effectiveness, this Project has the following advantages:

1. There are no expenditures for buildings or books. The undergraduates are permitted to work only in existing schools, and they use the books and instructional materials already in the classroom.
   
   
2. No funds are spent for "consultants" to provide a new "methodology." The undergraduates simply use the methodology of the classroom teacher.
   
   
3. Because the tutoring is done as part of a college course, the undergraduates are reliable, accountable on a daily basis, and remarkably effective.
   
   
4. The undergraduates tutor during the regular school day; as a result, it is fairly easy for the elementary schools to work the tutors into the normal routine of the school.
   
   
5. There is no cost whatsoever to the elementary schools or to the children who are tutored by the undergraduates.
   
   
6. The Undergraduates are not paid to do the tutoring.
   
   
7. Each undergraduate in this Project is required to produce a minimum of 50 hours of tutoring per semester (that is, five hours of tutoring per week x the 10 weeks in a semester), and they are required to sign in and sign out for each tutoring session. As a result, the tutors from one program will produce a total of 7,250 hours of tutoring during the five-year grant period; that is, 145 undergraduates x 50 hours of tutoring produced by each undergraduate.
   
   
8. At the end of each semester, the classroom teachers provide the college faculty member with the Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form, which measures the advances of the children in reading, writing, and mathematics during the previous semester.
   
   The college faculty member, in turn, provides copies of these evaluations to the National Education Project at the end of each semester; that is, one evaluation form for each undergraduate enrolled in the course.
   
   Please see Results of the Tutoring for several actual evaluations prepared by classroom teachers.
   
   
9. Since the undergraduates pay tuition to the college to take these courses, each college, if it chooses to do so, will be able to offer the course after the Project's five-year, $50,000 "start-up" grant ends, since the course in the sixth year would be funded by the tuition of the undergraduates who enroll in the sixth year: the course in the seventh year would be funded by the tuition of the undergraduates who enroll in the seventh year: and so forth.

At the end of each semester of the five-year grant period, the National Education Project provides to corporate and foundation sponsors a Report of Results.

This report has two main parts:

1. The precise number of hours of tutoring produced by the undergraduates during the previous semester.
   
   This number represents the total number of hours of tutoring recorded in the Attendance Book that is kept in the principal's office in each elementary school and used by the undergraduates to sign in and sign out for each tutoring session throughout the semester.
   
   
2. Copies of the Classroom Teacher's One-Page, End-of-Semester Evaluation Form, which the classroom teachers use to measure the advances of the children in reading and mathematics during the previous semester.
   
   Please see Results of the Tutoring for earlier evaluations written by classroom teachers in three cities.

In this way, sponsors of the Project can see the direct results of their support on a semester-by-semester basis.

At the end of each semester, each child who has been tutored during the semester receives a pocket-size copy of The Constitution of the United States, autographed by their tutor. The National Education Project provides all tutors with free copies of the U.S. Constitution for this purpose each semester.

There is something of a precedent for this: Mr. Norman Manasa, Director of The National Education Project, Inc., is a former employee of the Supreme Court of the United States, having served as aide to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. When Mr. Manasa left the Supreme Court in 1979, he bought a $1 pocket-size copy of the U.S. Constitution in the Court's gift shop and then went to say good-bye to each of the nine justices, asking them to sign the inside cover of the Constitution as a memento of his days at the Court. And, with remarkable graciousness, all the justices did.

Mr. Manasa later returned to the U.S. Supreme Court to work on the Court's new computer system. On leaving the Court in 1982, he again went to say good-bye to the justices and they all once again graciously signed a pocket copy of the Constitution, the major difference being that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, was now on the bench.

By remarkable coincidence, these two documents constitute two of the rarest historical documents in America; that is,

1. The only copy of the U.S. Constitution signed by all members of the last all-male Uni ted States Supreme Court, and
   
   
2. The only copy of the U.S. Constitution signed by all members of the first United States Supreme Court in the history of the country with a female justice.

The National Education Project now uses these two documents to help instill in college undergraduates and in elementary school children a greater awareness of the central importance of the U.S. Constitution in their lives and in the lives of all Americans.

It should also be said that people who can't read, can't read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And that the undergraduates from this Project, therefore, fulfill an essential function of American citizenship by teaching these children to read.

The first imperative of nationhood is to create wealth, since a stable society cannot exist without the material goods (e.g., food, clothing, medical care, roads and bridges, and so forth) that people create.

So let's say that you lived your entire life on Mars and then somehow fell to Earth and that you landed in the middle of the United States, and you were asked this question:

"What is the largest untapped resource for the creation of new wealth in the United States today?"

The answer is not, for example, solar power or wind power or some mystical nuclear fusion, but, rather, the nation's 10,000,000 undergraduates, who (1) consume great amounts of public subsidy and (2) create virtually no wealth while they are in college.

Although the National Education Project is primarily an academic program for undergraduates, it is also designed to transfer to the illiterate poor the power to create wealth in the technological age; that is to say, reading, writing, and mathematics. For this reason, the undergraduates work as tutors, and only as tutors, for the entire semester. They are not permitted to engage in any other activity.

To make the point another way, this Project is not designed to provide the poor with one more subsidy (food stamps, welfare payments, and the like). This Project is designed to transfer to the illiterate poor the power to create wealth in the technological age. In a word, literacy.

The times support this effort. The country simply may not be rich enough to continue to support millions of college students (who create virtually no wealth while they are in college), while also transferring great amounts of the nation's wealth to increasing numbers of illiterate Americans who are not so much unemployed as they are unemployable.

With the federal government pushing up against a $7 trillion public debt (that is, a growing national debt, as well as growing yearly interest payments), the states already complain that Washington is not providing enough funds for essential services, especially Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of health care. But this may not be a result of perceived federal parsimony or of the present state of the national economy. Rather, it may be that the established structure for creating the nation's wealth is simply no longer sufficient to meet the needs of the people, and for this reason, there is no longer enough wealth to go around.

This concern also encompasses the funding of Social Security payments for future beneficiaries.

As a result, it may be time to examine the fundamental question of how wealth is created in America in the modern age, and how the "pie" of wealth can be made bigger, and by whom. And in this examination, the nation's undergraduates may come to play an increasing role.

Once the National Education Project is in operation on a large scale, the undergraduates from this Project would teach vast numbers of illiterate Americans to read, with two profound effects regarding the nation's fundamental capability to create wealth:

1. Teaching someone to read is a creation of new wealth in and of itself; and
   
   
2. The newly literate would be employable in a technological economy and empowered to create vast amounts of new wealth over a working lifetime for themselves, their families, their employers, their communities, and for the Nation.

And the undergraduates, themselves, by doing the tutoring as part of a three-credit college course, would get a more realistic and more profound education in the bargain.

You are living in the wrong century if you think that modern weaponry can be used by a bunch of guys with a sixth grade reading ability.

It's not just that they won't be able to read the operating and maintenance manuals; they will not have been trained in the sort of analytical thinking that is required in order to use today's highly technical military equipment.

This is the same sort of analytical ability that is nurtured by proper training in reading and mathematics.

And it is one of the great secrets of our age, but the plain fact is that if you can do fractions, that is, if you can think in the clear, cold-blooded, analytical way that fractions require, you can run any computer in the world.

What is not a secret is that reading is now at the heart of the Nation's defense.

The National Education Project is currently seeking one medium-size city in America to be a "demonstration model" for the nation; that is, one city willing to mount 20 programs, which, in turn, will provide 145,000 hours of tutoring to children in that city's elementary schools in a five-year period (that is, 7,250 hours of tutoring produced by each program x 20 programs).

After five years of tutoring on this scale, the demonstration city will have, on the reading and math test scores alone, the finest elementary school system in the nation.

This 20-program initiative will raise reading and math test scores across the entire city, and show what reliable tutors on a massive scale can do for any city in America.

It costs a total of $1,500,000 to place 20 programs into operation in one city. Of this amount, $1,000,000 will be awarded in 20 grants to the colleges in that city over a five-year period (that is, 20 grants x $50,000 per grant). The remaining $500,000 will be used by the National Education Project to underwrite the administrative cost of operating 20 programs in one city during the five-year grant period.

This is at a cost of less than $11.00 per hour of tutoring produced (that is, $1,500,000 divided by 145,000 hours of tutoring produced by 20 tutoring programs in five years).

For each $50,000 grant received by a college (a college may receive more than one grant), the college will agree to field a total of 145 undergraduates during the five-year grant period. As a result, 20 programs will provide a total of 2,900 tutors to the elementary schools of one city during a five-year period (that is, 20 grants x 145 tutors per grant).

As an indication of the remarkable effectiveness of the undergraduates from this Project, please see Results of the Tutoring for several actual evaluations written by classroom teachers in three cities.

The host city will see a number of clear and compelling benefits:

1. An increase in the number of people (i.e., the newly literate) who are employable in the city's technological economy