Researcher

New research from Stanford University has brought a ray of hope for Washington, D.C.’s students, especially Black children and those from low-income families. The research revealed that the city’s substantial investment in a tutoring initiative has borne fruit in its first year, significantly boosting academic performance and narrowing the persistent gaps in reading and math that have disproportionately affected these groups.

A new Stanford University report examines the first year of D.C.'s multimillion-dollar effort to get students back on track.

D.C. students who got frequent, small group tutoring improved their reading and math scores after the return to inperson classes, attended more classes and had a stronger sense of belonging at school, according to new research into the city's multimillion-dollar tutoring program.

The findings from Stanford University are encouraging, researchers said: Although students have yet to fully recover from the pandemic-induced slump that saw test scores plummet and absenteeism rise, children in D.C. are making progress.

Notably, research by Susanna Loeb (Stanford University) revealed that tutoring methods and strategies can vary dramatically both in their design features and student outcomes. Loeb’s team of researchers discovered that in particular “high impact” tutoring strategies have demonstrated statistically significant effects on student learning in math and reading. High impact tutoring contains the following features:

• One-on-one tutoring (or with very small groups)
• Tutoring content is aligned with in-class instruction
• Students receive tutoring at least three times per week from the same tutor
• Tutors are professionally trained 

Another study of more than 2,000 elementary school children in Texas tested the difference between one-to-one and two-to-one online tutoring during the 2022-23 school year. These were young, low-income children, in kindergarten through 2nd grade, who were just learning to read. Children who were randomly assigned to get one-to-one tutoring four times a week posted small gains on one test, but not on another, compared to students in a comparison group who didn’t get tutoring. First graders assigned to one-to-one tutoring gained the equivalent of 30 additional days of school. By contrast, children who had been tutored in pairs were statistically no different in reading than the comparison group of untutored children. A draft paper about this study, led by researchers from Stanford University, was posted to the Annenberg website in May 2024.