W. Berry Fowler New Program Puts Tutoring, And Money, Back In Teachers’ Hands

W. Berry Fowler has spent most of his professional life working with children.

So it’s no surprise that the Spokane businessman has a paternalistic attitude toward his most successful enterprise, Sylvan Learning Centers.

“I’m kind of like a proud father,” said Fowler, who left the national tutoring service in 1987. “I love the fact that over a million kids have been through the program. I think they do an excellent job for the market they serve. My only complaint is that they’ve become a huge business.”

And it’s his desire to return tutoring to its grass roots that Fowler said inspired his newest venture.

A Thousand Points of Knowledge, which Fowler launched last month in Arizona, strives to put tutoring back in the hands of teachers while keeping down the cost for students.

So far, Fowler has signed up just two teachers, but he’s thinking big.

“My goal is to have 1,000 neighborhood facilities, owned and operated by teachers all over the country,” he said.

Fowler, 51, may have a soft spot for teachers because he started as one.

After a rocky path through school, which included bouncing between five different colleges, Fowler reached an epiphany of sorts when an instructor told him he had missed out on basic learning skills.

Re-energized about education, Fowler became a high school teacher in the Los Angeles suburbs, where he saw students with flaws similar to his fall behind.

“I’d see these great kids who had lots of potential, but they would give up on themselves because they couldn’t keep up with their peers,” he said.

Fowler’s frustration with the system, and with his earning potential, led him to found Sylvan in Portland in 1979 as a tutoring service to fill the gaps in students’ skills. By 1985, Sylvan had hundreds of franchises, and Fowler sold the business to KinderCare. He stayed as president two more years before retiring at age 40, a longtime goal.

After five years of sailing, golfing and lying on the beach in Hawaii, Fowler returned to the business world in Seattle, and had stints as operator of the Little Gym International, a physical education franchise, and the Krypton Institute, which trained small business people in entrepreneurial skills.

But by 1996, Fowler, living in Spokane to be closer to his wife’s family, was again thinking about tutoring.

This time, however, the goal would be to reach teachers and children who were priced out of Sylvan’s services.

“I’ve always had the idea that educationally based services should be owned by educators and affordable to the people that need them most,” he said.

The plan is relatively simple. Teachers sign up with Fowler’s small company, and for $29,500, they receive lesson materials and a week of training in Fowler’s program, which emphasizes developing basic learning skills.

From there, the teachers are free to run their own tutoring services after school and on weekends, usually from their homes. Fowler envisions teachers charging $18 to $22 an hour for lessons, about half of what other national services charge - although the teachers are free to set their own rates.

An annual license will cost an additional $1,200 a year.

Fowler said the costs are minimal compared to the expense of starting a Sylvan Learning Center, which can approach $100,000 and requires the franchisee to rent space.

The new program “can be a self-funding business opportunity for teachers that eliminates the risk of opening any new business, which is quitting your job,” he said.

Nationally, after-school tutoring is a $1 billion business, and targeting families with modest incomes is a new approach, said Mason Sorenson, vice president of the Education Industry Group, a Sioux Falls, S.D. consulting firm.

“Lower income is definitely a need worth serving,” Sorenson said.

Fowler’s first license went to Rosemary Bernstein, a Mesa, Ariz., public school teacher for 35 years.

Bernstein said Fowler’s system addresses the problem of inadequate learning skills in students that has worried her for years. She’s so convinced she said that she was willing to part with “a big chunk of my savings.

“I think I can make a difference right here in this community,” Bernstein said. “I’m looking toward retirement and I think I still have a lot to offer.”

Through his system, Fowler hopes teachers like Bernstein will not only benefit students, but themselves as well. He likens the tutoring services to the private practices run by doctors and dentists.

“That’s a concept that’s somewhat foreign for people,” he said. “It’s OK for teachers to make money.”