It is no secret that the students from middle to lower income households are not afforded the same benefits as their peers from higher income families. The inequality can go beyond material goods. In particular, these students are often at a disadvantage in terms of individualized outside of school instruction – tutoring. That was, until now.

Learning Bird offers “an affordable, online alternative to private tutoring.”¹ The company was born in 2011 out of a simple enough idea: “Every child should have the opportunity to learn and to succeed in a way that allows them to free their potential, regardless of their family’s income or location.”² The founders took this idea, and traveled across the U.S. to find out the best and most affordable way to help both students and teachers. On this soul-searching trip, two trends kept coming up, and led directly to Learning Bird as it is today:

1. The cost of private tutoring for K-12 students is rising and becoming inaccessible to many families.
2. Teachers–the best tutors out there–are being under-rewarded for their hard work.³

The Learning Bird platform benefits students, teachers, and parents. Students are given “access to an online database of lessons matched to their learning styles, region and grade.”⁴ Teachers benefit in several ways. They are given access to the database of lessons that can serve as teaching tools; they are allowed to watch and learn teaching methods and styles from said videos; they are paid for their additions to the database when their videos/material help a student on Learning Bird. Parents are allowed all the benefits of providing their child with a traditional tutor, at a fraction of the cost. A win-win-win.

We had a chance to speak with Roxanne Desforges, the Education Consultant for Learning Bird, during the 2014 FETC. She told us a little bit about their mission and company:

Check out all of our coverage of  the 2014 Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC).