[ImperatorLunae]

From the FAQ: "...only experienced educators - PhD's, high school teachers, special education instructors, and professors with real classroom experience - can list themselves on Tutorspree."

Really? This seems a little stringent. High school teachers are busy teaching high school; PhD's are busy conducting research or teaching their own classes. Of course, some of them are going to pick up tutoring on the side for some extra money, but you're screening out huge portions of the available pool of tutors.

Consider my position; I have a BS in Physics and currently tutor a few students--mostly in calculus and geometry. Of course, I don't have "classroom experience," but I've been tutoring students for a while. I know my stuff, and I know when my students don't. I know how to read their math, catch mistakes, and work through their errors with them. I know how to identify recurring mistakes students make and prescribe problems to remedy those errors. I'm not an educator, but I know the subjects I'm teaching. That's as good as any grad student working as a TA, and they're teaching at the university level.

Why the high requirements? I understand the need for quality, but I sense, more often than not, students are looking for someone who knows the material to correct and guide them. You don't need a PhD to do that.

[jacquesm]

Personally I like the Karate method: everybody teaches what they know all the time.

High requirements are a good way to get started though, that way you can set the bar high, guarantee good reviews and happy customers, then slowly relax the rules. The other way around wouldn't work nearly as well.

I'd say being a college student should allow you to help out high schoolers in the subject of your studies though, likely you are aware of the problems the high schoolers face better than anybody else, likewise high schoolers should be allowed to tutor grade schoolers.

There might be a nice 'certification' gig hidden in here somewhere.

[akharris]

The certification question is a really interesting one. We looked at a lot of other sites focused on various kinds of tutoring while building. We found that the ones that offered online "tests" for certification were producing false positives as to legitimate quality.

If I see a high schooler with certifications in 58 subjects, those certifications tend to lose their meaning. Likewise, if I have a friend with a Masters in English who taught writing at the college level fail your writing certification, it seems a little funny. That's part of the reason we took a different route.

[rottencupcakes]

You gotta start somewhere. High education is probably a decent signal of quality, and thus a good, cheap way to verify quality early on. They could then increase the size of the tutor pool after they have enough highly rating, vouched for tutors to guarantee a quality experience.

[akharris]

The requirements are a direct function of our ongoing customer dev work. You're gist is absolutely right - there are a ton of great tutors out there who have never taught a class. However, when you look at the overall hitrate of good tutors amongst populations of educators relative to others, you get a sense for why we are starting where we're starting.

That may change over time as our community grows, but our goal here isn't to create a system that is everything to every tutor. We're focused on a specific problem, and are working on a specific solution to that problem. We'll analyze data along the way and modify our assumptions as necessary.

[ImperatorLunae]

Alright then. I'll keep an eye on you guys. I like the payment system you've got set up; the service I currently use takes a rather large cut, and I need all the cash I can get right now.

[gawker]

How will they verify these qualifications are completely accurate? If they can prove that their tutors are of actual quality then maybe. I can see something like an Elance test happening to try and control the quality of listings.

[akharris]

We personally check up on qualifications. It's something we take really seriously.

[gawker]

Will this mean that you will need a tiny army to check everyone? I'm just curious at how you would be able to handle say 2000 people trying to be a tutor? Qualifications are also easy to be fraudulent.

On a side note, I hope you don't take my questions the wrong way! I'm just curious. And personally, I'd love to enroll myself as a tutor.

[makmanalp]

Yeah, reviews and ratings should be indicative of quality. The best and largest tutoring market imho is middle / highschool students and is mostly satisfied by college students.