School Administrator

Even as students in Arkansas and across the nation struggle to recover from a "learning recession" that began more than a decade ago, a Stanford University researcher says parents should feel good about their children's access to quality tutoring.

Federal pandemic aid for schools dried up in the years following the initial COVID-19 outbreak, but many states have kept up tutoring efforts that were launched at the time, according to Nancy Waymack, director of partnerships and policy for the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford.

"As the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief dollars went away, we were concerned that tutoring might go away with them," Waymack said. "That wasn't really what we found."

Waymack, who grew up in Arkadelphia, is among the authors of a new snapshot report published Wednesday on tutoring policies in the United States. The report praises many states, including Arkansas, for maintaining strong investments in funding high-impact tutoring, implementation support and policy following the expiration of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, a pot of money Congress made available to states through a series of stimulus bills in 2020 and 2021.

High-impact tutoring (HIT), or high-dosage tutoring, is widely endorsed by educational leaders, advocates, and researchers to help improve outcomes for students. HIT is defined by several key components, all of which have been employed by Read Alliance since its inception (and long before the terminology of “high-impact tutoring” or “high-dosage tutoring” was defined and in use):

• Frequent (3+ times per week)
• Small group size (no more than four students per tutor, with one-to-one tutoring as the preferred model)
• Targeted instruction focused on specific skills or learning gaps, and designed to complement classroom instruction
• Led by trained instructors who receive ongoing support and oversight
• Consistent tutor-student relationship that fosters a strong connection over time

These components are largely attributed to Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA), in which Read Alliance (READ) is listed as a vetted provider which means the READ model meets their standards for excellence widely recognized as the “stamp of approval” for HIT programming.

What is the most important variable in high-impact tutoring?

The humans in the school building.

Not the platform. Not the model. Not the contract.

The human who makes sure a student gets to their session. The human who notices when the student isn’t progressing and asks why. The human who, on a Wednesday morning when everything else is pulling at them, still notices the quiet grimace of a student who doesn’t understand, and offers another way in.