How Paper compares to typical academic support services

Providing writing help and feedback is painstaking work. Most teachers don't have the bandwidth to review an assignment more than once. But learners need timely, frequent feedback spanning grammar, structure, and style to develop strong writing skills.

10 pm might be the only time a learner can study for their test or do their homework. But when they get stuck, they're all alone. Students need help—and deserve it—any time of day (or night) they're willing to put in the work.

Students need help wherever they do their homework: whether it’s on break at their job, on a long bus ride, while babysitting siblings, or studying at their classmate’s home.

In the span of two hours, a learner could need extra help in U.S. history, French, and physics. Students and guardians shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get all the help they need.

Sometimes learners need quick help to get unstuck—they shouldn’t have to wait minutes or hours for their turn or their appointment. Other times learners need a longer session for grasping bigger concepts—they should be afforded all the time they need.

Whether their after-school includes a demanding sports schedule or work schedule, many students have commitments that make it difficult or impossible to attend scheduled help sessions. 

Many students need to work or care for siblings immediately after school, lack money to hire tutors, have guardians who are unable to help with academics or rely on the school bus at dismissal as their only way to get home. All students should have equal opportunity to access academic support.

To understand where students have learning gaps and to better tailor classroom goals, teachers need insights into the areas where learners are asking for help, how they're progressing, and how often they seek help.

To effectively plan professional development and best allocate school resources, administrators need to understand how often students seek extra help across every subject area.

Capacity planning is a major challenge to cost-effectively providing extra help. Part-time staff can be difficult to schedule. Demand is unpredictable. Sometimes you’ve paid for tutoring time that goes unused. Other times dozens of students show up, and you’re short-staffed. Academic support should be cost-effective and properly staffed—always. 

Most students need extra help because they weren't able to grasp a concept in a large classroom setting. The most effective help supplements the classroom with a different approach—1:1 support tailored specifically to the challenge areas of each learner. 

Some learners are reluctant to go to school-provided extra help because they fear being judged negatively by their peers. Students should be afforded privacy when addressing their learning challenges. 

Budgeting accurately is critical and very challenging for school administrators. Extra help can have large variable costs that throw even the most tightly controlled budget out of whack—and place a hard cap on the number of hours students can be helped.