WASHINGTON: New York City is echoing the rock group Pink Floyd's exhortation "Hey teachers, leave those kids alone." Except, the message is aimed at tutors in India involved in distance education of American kids.

In a ruling this week that could jeopardise the fledgling field of long distance education, the NYC Department of Education has said in effect that U.S companies cannot use tutors from India because they cannot comply with laws that require teachers to undergo background checks.

Under current rules, teachers are required to furnish social security numbers and be fingerprinted as part of background checks.

The ruling came after NYC reviewed a case involving an Indian-American owned company that had won a contract to tutor 2000 school children under a federal "No Child Left Behind" program.

The Texas-based company, Socratic Learning Inc, was found to be using 250 teachers based in India, although it claimed they were in Plano, Texas, NYC’s Department of Education said. The city has since cancelled Socratic’s contract worth more than $2 million a year.

"Socratic blatantly violated its contract and we are suspending their contract pending further action by the state," a Department of Education spokesman told the media. "We will notify parents of any students who enrolled with Socratic Learning this fall they should select a new provider."

Socratic’s argument that the tutors in India are insulated from the students and such background checks are as such infructuous failed to impress the authorities who went by the rule that requires strict background verification.

Socratic' CEO Raj Sobhani told ToI that the company complied with New York State’s background check requirements, including getting the fingerprints of teachers employed in India (who went to police stations there to have their prints certified). The FBI in the U.S then endorsed that the print did not match any criminal records.

But there was a catch. Not only did the NYC insist on teachers being physically present to have their fingerprints recorded, but they were also required to furnish social security numbers. "How can foreign tutors produce U.S Social Security numbers? The whole system simply puts a crimp on distance learning," Sobhani said.

Socratic’s submission that student-teacher communications are monitored, in real time, both in New York and in India, and that student test scores had shown much improvement, also did not impress NYC.

The No Child Left Behind law was introduced by the Bush administration in 2002 to arrest declining education standards. About 40 per cent of seventh class students in America fail in Maths and English exams. The country is estimated to need about 120,000 teachers annually but barely finds tens per cent of that number amid a clamor about a crisis in the system.

Experts say the 1,200-page NCLB Act contains the most far-reaching education reform in the US in 40 years. Under the NCLB Act, the schools have until 2014 to meet the 100 per cent proficiency goal. To do this, the country either needs to train or import a huge number of teachers, or at the very least, employ tutors at a distance.

Because American tutors can charge upwards of $ 40 an hour, and importing teachers is difficult given visa restrictions, many firms have sprung up to outsource teaching to countries such as India in order to meet the demand from cities and county boards struggling to meet NCLB targets. The Federal government gives about $12 billion annually in aid to schools.

Under NCLB law, all students who need to improve their grades in sub-standard schools can apply for supplementary tutoring services. The services are supplied by outside providers that are vetted by the state and paid for by the city using these federal funds.

In case of NYC, the Department of Education paid Socratic Learning $2.4 million last year out of a $75 million total paid to such programs.