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.
“Our mission is to accelerate access to high-impact tutoring to students in need,” Bendheim said.
Of the 18 states that ran competitive tutoring grant programs last school year, Florida was one of the 17 that kept them going this year.
The Florida Legislature established the Florida Tutoring Advantage program in 2024 and which is administered by the University of Florida’s Lastinger Center for Learning. In last school year alone, the review detailed the state funded $22 million toward the program, including $2 million for AI-enhanced learning support.
Seventy-three percent of districts throughout the state participated in the program last school year that served more than 46,000 students. This year, the state appropriation sits at $14 million.
“Florida is one of the states I highlight in the review,” Bendheim said. “(Its) program is a strong example of how to strategically support high-impact tutoring — the most effective learning acceleration approach for K-12 students — by pairing funding with deep implementation support for districts, a combination likely to drive great outcomes for Florida students.”
As schools nationwide deal with student and teacher population declines alongside the struggle to recover student test scores to pre-pandemic levels, Bendheim believes that tutoring is a way to bridge that gap and make up for losses.
Many people can be trained to be great tutors who are able to help students with individualized needs which then allows teachers to focus on teaching, Bendheim told the Times.
To see an interactive map of how Florida tutoring efforts stack up to the rest of the nation, you can click here.