By the fall of 2021, predictions of steep declines in students’ learning due to pandemic school closures had come true. Gaps between the highest and lowest learners were widening.
That’s when a large suburban school district in Texas, flush with COVID relief funds, signed a contract with a virtual tutoring provider to deliver extra help to students in 28 schools who had fallen below grade level. Research showed that high-dosage tutoring could produce significant gains for students and was far more effective than on-demand models.
But the district’s program didn’t work, according to a recent study from Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator, which focuses on studying and expanding effective tutoring. Students even lost ground in reading and would have been better off with “business-as-usual” support, like small group instruction or using a computer program for extra practice.
Experts view the findings as a cautionary tale of how tutoring can go wrong.
The district had to wait on background checks for tutors, many students were still chronically absent and the tutoring sessions often conflicted with other lessons or special events. As a result, students didn’t receive the 30 hours or more required under a state law mandating tutoring for those who failed the annual state test. Instead of five days a week as planned, 81% of the students attended tutoring three or fewer days, and most students worked with a different tutor every time they attended a session.
The findings reinforce the importance of protecting the time students are supposed to receive tutoring, said Elizabeth Huffaker, an assistant professor of education at the University of Florida and the lead author of the study.
High-dosage models — featuring individualized sessions held at least three times a week with the same, well-trained tutor — can still “drive really significant learning gains,” she said, “but in the field, things are always a little bit more complicated.”
For parents, the Stanford study can help explain why children might not make gains, even when their district offers extra help, said Maribel Gardea, executive director of MindShiftED, a nonprofit advocacy group and network of about 5,000 parents in the San Antonio area. Despite the billions states received in relief funds, many students still haven’t reached pre-pandemic levels of performance.
“We knew that high-dosage tutoring was one of those things that was proven,” Gardea said. “There was research, but we never saw those results.”
She urges districts to include parent groups like hers in planning tutoring and choosing providers. But she added that too many parents are unaware their children are behind, much less equipped to judge whether a program is set up for success.
“The trust has been lost for such a long time,” she said. “Parents just send their kids to school and they hope for the best.”
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