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In two districts analyzed by Stanford University, students’ average weekly use of one such tutor was 2.18 minutes and 5.23 minutes, respectively.
Dive Brief:
- As multiple states prepare or have already implemented artificial intelligence tutoring pilot programs, a new Stanford University study found that merely offering AI tutoring tools to students is not enough to create meaningful engagement and improve reading outcomes.
- Among two student groups studied, only about 61% in one school district and 53% in another used the AI tutor even when there was scheduled time to use the tool, according to the research released Wednesday. Overall, students’ average weekly usage amounted to 2.18 minutes and 5.23 minutes for each district, respectively.
- When students used the AI tutoring platform alongside a human tutor, student engagement slightly increased by one minute per week in one district and by 4.4 minutes per week in the other. Still, the researchers said that difference does little to fulfill the 30 minutes of weekly use recommended by the platform provider for measurable reading gains.
A group of Stanford University researchers started with one question: Could a human tutor providing motivation and support get students to spend more time working with an AI literacy tutor?
The answer turned out be yes — but only between one and four minutes more per week. Many students never logged on at all.
That left the researchers with a different set of questions.
“A key finding that we weren’t even meaning to test is that having access to this AI tutor isn’t the same as using it,” said Carly Robinson, the lead author on the study released Wednesday and the director of research for the SCALE Initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.
- | The 74
Ed tech companies routinely pitch AI tutoring platforms as a way to deliver personalized instruction at a scale that no human teacher can match. But when researchers from Stanford University looked at how much students actually used one major AI platform, something startling happened: Students didn’t use it that much at all.
In the study, published Wednesday, two unnamed school districts carved out dedicated time for hundreds of elementary school students to work with a well-known AI reading tutor, either during class time or after school. Researchers followed about 350 students across two randomized controlled trials. All of the students were expected to log on for at least two 30-minute sessions a week.
Susanna Loeb has been appointed the inaugural Kissick Family Professor.
Loeb is the faculty director of the SCALE Initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which aims to develop and disseminate evidence-driven learning solutions, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Her research focuses on education policy and its role in improving educational opportunities for students, addressing issues including educator career choices and professional development, school finance and governance, and early childhood systems. She leads the Getting Down to Facts initiatives, which provide nonpartisan research and analysis to inform education policymaking in California.
- | FutureEd
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.
- | The 74
There is a temptation in education to abandon projects rapidly and instead chase a new solution as a magic bullet for improving student outcomes. Too often, when an investment doesn’t have an instant payoff, it’s abandoned for the next shiny thing. New programs, new technology, new slogans, each promising to fix what came before it. But the truth is, no new solution will ever pay off without doing the hard, steady work of diagnosing problems and mastering the fundamentals.
In the post-COVID era, tutoring has faced criticism for mixed results following significant investments to address learning loss. This comes despite a significant body of research that shows high-dosage tutoring yields, on average, a learning gain of one-third of a grade level per year, with the potential for a full extra year of learning over three years.
- | EdSource
Called “Getting Down to Facts,” the research project comes at what Stanford education professor and project director Susanna Loeb calls “an inflection point” for California education. In a 40-page summary of 55 technical reports and 22 research briefs, Loeb writes that the findings arrive amid major shifts: the election of a new governor and state superintendent of instruction, the retreat of the federal government’s oversight and education-funding responsibilities, and the emergence of new technologies and their impact on the classroom and the workplace. Together, she said, these changes require the schools to respond to new conditions.
Getting Down to Facts is “designed to help Californians understand the condition of the state’s education system and the policy choices needed to improve it.
The District is also investing in what keeps students engaged. The Mayor’s proposed FY27 Grow DC budget expands access to high-impact tutoring, which is one of the most effective interventions for accelerating learning and re‑connecting students who have missed significant instructional time. Research from the National Student Support Accelerator has shown that middle school students receiving tutoring were 11.4% less likely to be absent on days they had scheduled tutoring sessions (equivalent of 3.1 more days of school). The budget also increases funding through a 2.55 percent boost to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula and continues modernization of school facilities and expansion of career and technical education opportunities.
Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator’s review of tutoring research notes that alignment seems like it would be good practice but doesn’t have a strong research base. Jackson, research manager at the Center for Outcomes Based Contracting, said she wanted to address that gap with a randomized controlled trial.
- | PR News
Stanford University Recognizes CTC's Tutoring Program Design
CTC has earned the Tutoring Program Design Badge from Stanford University's National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA)—awarded in 2025 following a rigorous, evidence-based review conducted by a third-party team of education leaders and experts. The Badge signifies the quality of CTC's tutoring program design and its alignment to Tutoring Quality Standards as assessed by researchers and practitioners.