News
High-impact tutoring is now widely recognized as one of the most effective strategies for addressing learning gaps. Research from the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA), the Annenberg Institute’s EdResearch for Recovery, and other national studies shows that frequent, small-group or one-on-one tutoring delivered by trained tutors using high-quality curricula consistently produces significant academic gains.
- | NewsWire
Braintrust academic interventions are ESSA-certified, hold a National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) Design Badge, and are designed in collaboration with leading experts in structured literacy, the Science of Reading, and the Science of Math. Braintrust Tutors is a national provider supporting more than 100 districts across 21+ states, including New York City Public Schools, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, LAUSD, and the District of Columbia. Through tailored implementation models, certified educators, rigorous diagnostics, and a sophisticated data and reporting platform, Braintrust delivers measurable student growth and meaningful transparency for schools, districts, and families.
- | AI CERTs
Stanford’s National Student Support Accelerator ran the largest randomized trial to date. Researchers embedded tutor co-pilot systems within 900 tutors serving 1,800 students. Overall mastery rose four percentage points over control groups. Moreover, students paired with lower-rated tutors gained nine points. World Bank teams replicated positive effects in Nigerian secondary English classes. The AI assistant there delivered 0.31 standard deviation growth within six weeks. Consequently, analysts equated the short program to almost two years of schooling.
- | PR News
BookNook, an ESSA Tier 1-rated provider of high-impact virtual tutoring for K–8 students, has been awarded the prestigious Tutoring Program Design Badge from the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University. This three-year designation recognizes BookNook's alignment with nationally endorsed Tutoring Quality Standards, affirming the strength and intentionality of its program design for both reading and math.
“Early literacy intervention makes all the difference, and through the LEARNS Act, literacy coaches, and high-impact tutoring, we’re building strong reading foundations from the start,” said Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “These awards recognize the work our educators are doing and the progress Arkansas is making to put students first. I’m grateful to President Trump and Secretary McMahon for their leadership in putting education back in the hands of states and communities so we can help every child read, learn, and thrive.”
The ADE has two major projects planned for the funding. The first project, in partnership with Air Reading, will be to evaluate high-impact tutoring initiatives at rural schools. It will also include an evaluation conducted by Stanford University to "assess impact and scalability."
Susanna Loeb is named to the 2026 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking the 200 university-based scholars in the United States who had the biggest impact on educational practice and policy last year.
High-impact tutoring has emerged as one form that researchers have shown actually works — when done well.
Stanford University researchers have found that high-impact tutoring works when it is embedded into the school day, happens at least three times per week in small groups, and matches the same tutors with students as much as possible. The Stanford researchers also found that tutoring is most effective when schools use data to identify students’ needs, and when tutoring materials align with research-backed and state standards.
High-impacting tutoring might also be implemented more widely in the district if students achieve substantial learning gains, as they have in schools across the country.
Research from the Stanford National Students Support accelerator shows that high-impact tutoring increased achievement by an average of three to 15 months of learning across grade levels. Also, the Annenberg Institute at Brown University found tutoring provides consistent and substantial gains on learning outcomes, particularly when the specific characteristics of high-impact tutoring and implemented.
Arkansas is not alone in providing funds to cover tutoring for struggling students. Among the dozens of other states with similar initiatives are such neighbors as Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, and farther flung states like Colorado, Rhode Island and Minnesota, according to the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University.
According to a research summary by the National Student Support Accelerator, tutoring can increase student achievement in reading and math in between three to 15 months of learning across grade levels. Additionally, a study that examined various interventions meant to improve academic achievement from students from low socioeconomic backgrounds found tutoring to be the most effective method, the summary states.
The literacy tutoring grants are one of two programs centered around tutoring established through LEARNS. The other is a high-impact tutoring program that offers grants to public school districts and open-enrollment public charters to administer high-impact tutoring programs in their schools.
- | FutureEd
A new study by Stanford researchers Hsiaolin Hsieh, David Gormley, Carly D. Robinson, and Susanna Loeb suggests why one-on-one tutoring has been found to produce double the gains in student learning than two-on-one tutoring.
Analyzing 16,629 transcripts from 2022-23 school year tutoring sessions from an earlier study that established the greater gains under one-on-one tutoring, the researchers examined how tutors allocated their time and attention across both one-on-one and two-on-one formats. The tutoring sessions focused on early literacy and served kindergarten through second grade students, with 510 students receiving one-on-one tutoring and 570 students receiving two-on-one tutoring. All students met with their tutor online for 20 minutes during the school day, four times per week.