Educator

Kids First Education

Kids First Education delivers high-dosage, research-based tutoring designed to accelerate student achievement, close learning gaps, and align seamlessly with school instruction. Serving districts across the Southeast, our program is built around small-group (1:4) or one-on-one sessions, conducted at least three times per week for 30–60 minutes, and embedded within the school day. This ensures instruction supports core classroom learning rather than functioning as an isolated add-on.

Key Features and Instructional Approach

Azura Literacy

Azura Literacy is a free, virtual, high-impact tutoring program for elementary students in which a caring, vetted, trained adult meets with a child through Zoom one-on-one twice a week to tutor them in reading. Students are given pre- and post-assessments to determine needs and measure growth, and tutors use digital children’s libraries and interactive activities to guide students in engaging, individualized reading practice. This helps them improve their reading skills, confidence, and motivation and make gains toward reading proficiently.

Work ED

The Work ED program is an adaptable cybersecurity education suite for K-12 schools and communities. It utilizes the Work ED App, a gamified microlearning platform, to deliver current courses on topics like injection attacks and cross-site scripting.

The program has three components:

Cyber Masterminds: Provides students with hands-on, scenario-based training that aligns with industry standards and offers microcredentials.

Study Smart Tutors, Inc.

Study Smart Tutors implements a High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) program designed to accelerate student learning and enhance academic outcomes through supplemental instruction of specific standards-based skills and concepts across all grade levels. The program offers personalized, intensive tutoring in small groups or one-on-one settings.

Ann's Christian Learning Center

ACLC Tutoring provides virtual tutorial services in math and other subject areas to students in grades K-12. The program uses research-based, data-driven instructional tools, primarily the IXL online platform, to deliver individualized and small group instruction. Services include Science of Reading methodology for literacy, systematic phonics instruction, and Orton-Gillingham-based approaches. The program emphasizes consistent tutor assignment, comprehensive assessment, and strong relationships with all stakeholders in a student's educational ecosystem.

SLD Read

1:1 intervention supports are provided to students at least twice a week with one hour sessions each time. Services can be provided in person or online. Materials are rooted in structured literacy and the Orton-Gillingham approach. 

Project AID Scholars

We offer summer camps that combine learning with one-on-one and small-group tutoring for all students in need, serving grades K–12 as well as SPED. In addition, we support high school and college education projects, such as book writing or SAT web design, by providing financial assistance and team support. Alongside these initiatives, we continue to run our own educational programs within the cities where we are located.

Your Teacher Tutors

Your Teacher Tutors (YTT) provides high-impact, virtual and in-person tutoring services designed to accelerate student achievement through personalized, standards-aligned instruction. Our program matches students with certified educators who deliver 1:1 and small group tutoring in reading, math, and test preparation.

How is ChatGPT impacting schools, really? Stanford researchers aim to find out

A new collaboration between Stanford’s SCALE and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, strives to better understand how students and teachers use the popular AI platform and how it impacts learning

Education is one of the fastest-growing use cases of AI products. Students log on for writing assistance, brainstorming, image creation, and more. Teachers tap into tools like attendance trackers, get curriculum support to design learning materials, and much more.

Yet despite the rapid growth – and potential – a substantial gap remains in knowledge about the efficacy of these tools to support learning. 

A new research project from the Generative AI for Education Hub at SCALE, an initiative of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, aims to help fill that gap by studying how ChatGPT is used in K-12 education. In particular, the research will examine how secondary level teachers and students use ChatGPT. 

What’s in a Contract? How Outcomes-Based Contracting Reshapes School District–Vendor Relationships

In this study, we analyze the contracts between districts and vendors of instructional services and products to understand how relationships between these parties are structured. We compare three types of contracts: those developed with the support of SEF’s Outcomes-Based Contracting (OBC) Cohort program, those between the same districts and other vendors without SEF support, and those involving the same vendors but with other districts that did not receive SEF assistance. During the cohort experience, participating districts received guidance from SEF’s Center for Outcomes-Based Contracting. The total cost of hosting each district in the cohort was $30,000, of which districts contributed $15,000, with the remaining expenses covered by SEF through philanthropic funding. We use the emerging OBC framework as a baseline to understand the extent to which traditional district–vendor contracts already incorporate elements of the OBC approach and other information pertinent to vendor quality and alignment.