News
- | FutureEd
At the beginning of October, the Trump administration released the latest regulations governing the federal scholarship tax credit program. In a webinar co-sponsored by FutureEd, the National Student Support Accelerator, and Accelerate, FutureEd Associate Director Maureen Tracey-Mooney spoke with leading experts on the opportunities and challenges in using the tax credit to support public school programs, including high-quality tutoring. The conversation included:
- Kathy Bendheim, strategic advising director at the National Student Support Accelerator, Stanford University
- Deborah Gist, former state superintendent and founder of the Future School Fund
- Narric Rome, managing director of government relations at Accelerate
- | EdSurge
For several years, federal pandemic relief funds helped school districts across the U.S. expand “high-impact” (or “high-dosage”) tutoring programs that improved student learning. Now that the main source of funding has expired, many education leaders are scrambling to keep those programs afloat.
Between March 2020 and March 2021, Congress allocated nearly $190.5 billion to public education through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund, the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education in U.S. history. The funding ended in phases between 2022 and 2024, though some districts received extensions.
In response, some districts have paused or significantly scaled back tutoring, while others are working to save it by weaving it directly into their core academic systems and budgets. A 2026 analysis of 35 districts by the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) found that eight districts had significantly reduced their tutoring programs and another eight had experienced a pause or disruption after ESSER ended. However, 19 districts — more than half of those studied — preserved or expanded their tutoring programs.
The second webinar in the five-part High-Impact Tutoring: Solutions from the Field Webinar Series is now available to watch on demand.
Held October 14, the webinar explored research-backed and practical strategies for effective tutor coaching.
The webinar featured Maura O’Mahony of North Carolina Education Corps, Erin Kaluza of Ed Clapp Elementary - Fargo Public Schools, Kesha Ruppe of Lincoln County Schools - North Carolina, and Holly Windram of Michigan Education Corps. Chayne Turano and Maria Tuzon of the National Student Support Accelerator moderated the discussion.
Academically, high-impact tutoring is deemed the optimal model for early educational intervention. Stanford University's National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) explains how this model can help a wide range of students, even those who are academically far behind.
High-impact tutoring is a process that involves tutors, instruction, integrated learning, data use, equity, safety, and cohesion. This makes it expensive for most schools and families. As a result, far fewer students gain access to high impact tutoring than could benefit.
The first webinar in the five-part High-Impact Tutoring: Solutions from the Field Webinar Series is now available to watch on demand.
Held September 30, the webinar explored how districts in diverse contexts are integrating high-impact tutoring into existing intervention systems to meet student needs. Panelists shared practical strategies for building school-level buy-in, protecting instructional time, using data effectively, and sustaining successful tutoring programs.
The webinar featured Guirlande Zetrenne of New York City Public Schools, Sheila Womack of GEAR UP Southern West Virginia, Chenin Northgrave of Sage Oak Charter Schools, Dave Stevenson of Reading Futures, and Kara Hall of Tutor.com. Chayne Turano of the National Student Support Accelerator moderated the discussion.
Fresno Unified School District has made literacy a districtwide priority through its Every Child Is a Reader plan and its 2030 goals for early literacy and literacy intervention. Brainfuse has been named to the district’s qualified vendor pool for high-dosage literacy tutoring, making its virtual K–12 programs available for consideration through Fresno Unified’s purchasing process.
Fresno Unified aims to increase first-grade literacy proficiency from 48% in 2024 to 80% by 2030. The district has also set a goal of increasing the percentage of students in grades 3–8 who are more than one year behind in English language arts and achieving more than one year of growth. Brainfuse can work with participating programs to provide focused tutoring based on students’ current skill levels and the literacy priorities the district has already established.The big story: Florida is one of 24 states, including Washington D.C., that currently funds K-12 tutoring directly, according to a new review published today by Stanford University.
The university’s third annual National Student Support Accelerator looks throughout the nation to analyze how states support high-impact tutoring and the policies and funding they have in place for it.
High-impact tutoring is an immersive form of tutoring based on relationship building and individualized instruction known to improve education outcomes and even school attendance, according to lead author of the brief Kathy Bendheim.
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.