Tutoring in Madison, Wisconsin
Kolu is software. Nobody from Kolu will drive to your house in Madison, and we have no office there. If you want a person, this page says how we would look for one. If the question is which skill is missing, we can help with that part.
Madison Metropolitan School District places students by attendance area, and it posts a lookup tool that turns an address into a set of schools. Families enroll each child again every year through the online system. A few programs sit outside the attendance-area rule and fill seats by lottery, among them Dual Language Immersion and the Hmong Bilingual Program. Families who want a public school in a neighboring district use Wisconsin open enrollment, which has a state application period from February through April.
State tests Madison students take
| Grade | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reading and writing | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | PreACT Secure | PreACT Secure | ACT with writing | Not tested |
| Math | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | Forward Exam | PreACT Secure | PreACT Secure | ACT with writing | Not tested |
| Science | Not tested | Forward Exam | Not tested | Not tested | Not tested | Forward Exam | PreACT Secure | PreACT Secure | ACT with writing | Not tested |
- Forward Exam: reading and writing, math, grades 3 through 8
- Forward Exam: science, grades 4 and 8
- PreACT Secure: reading and writing, math, science, grades 9 and 10
- ACT with writing: reading and writing, math, science, grade 11
Under 2023 Act 20, every district has a policy that ties promotion from third to fourth grade to reading, and from September 1, 2027 a school may not promote a third grader who has not met it. A child promoted without finishing a personal reading plan gets intensive support and summer reading programs.
Testing dates and graduation rules for the whole state are on a separate page. Wisconsin guide
Kolu finds the missing skill and goes back to it
It starts with a skill check, a short test that gets harder or easier depending on the last answer. The result is a map of the subject broken into skills with their prerequisites drawn in, each one marked as solid, still being learned, or a gap.
After that, each session is a handful of activities picked for that student, usually something due for review, a gap to repair and one new skill. When an answer is wrong, Kolu looks at which earlier skill the mistake points to and goes back to it. Here is what that looks like for a sixth grader who can't divide fractions.
The problem on the page
3/4 ÷ 2/5
Dividing fractions
Grade 6
Multiplying fractions
Grade 5 · rests on the one below
Equivalent fractions
Grade 4 · usually where it started
Multiplication facts
Grade 3
Kolu does not call a skill mastered after one right answer. That takes correct work on different kinds of problems on different days, and a skill that fades gets brought back.
Kolu is not test prep for the Forward Exam. It has no bank of released questions. It teaches the skills the test draws on, and it will not do tonight's homework.
It runs in a browser, so it works the same in Middleton, Fitchburg, Sun Prairie, Verona, Monona and Waunakee as it does in Madison.
When to hire a person instead
Some students need a person, and software is the wrong purchase for them. That includes a child who shuts down when the work gets hard, a student with a learning disability who needs someone trained in it, and anyone with an exam in ten days.
In Madison, ask the school first. Teachers know who tutors, and a counselor at Madison Metropolitan School District can tell you what the district already offers at no cost. After that, try students at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison College or Edgewood University, who took these courses recently and usually charge less than an agency.
Whoever you hire, ask one question before the first session: how will you find out what my child doesn't know? If the answer is that they will go over the homework, keep looking.
Free for one subject, $15 a month for 5
Kolu is free for one subject at a time, with one full skill check every 30 days and up to 4 sessions a day. Plus is $15 a month, or $120 for a year, and covers 5 subjects at once with unlimited skill checks. A learner under 13 needs a parent or guardian to set up the account.