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In a recent study, we report on the implementation of opt-in, on-demand tutoring in partnership with the Aspire Public Schools (a charter management organization, or CMO) in California. The CMO provided 7,000 middle and high school students with free, unlimited access to one-on-one chat-based tutoring during the spring 2021 semester. Students accessed the program from a mobile device and could request help from an available tutor in any core subject. The topic of each tutoring session was usually driven by student questions and the interaction between tutors and students were chat-based with help from a virtual whiteboard to facilitate joint work.

Requires The Iowa Department of Education to form a learning recovery task force to evaluate the degree of learning loss experienced by students due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The task force is expected to study, identify, and recommend remedial measures, of which specialized, individualized tutoring is outlined as an option. The bill outlines requirements for the make-up of the task force which includes: demographics, educator types, and other stakeholders.

Provides families in South Dakota with an educational savings account (ESA). The bill requires The Department of Education to create a savings account for students who withdrew from public schools and currently attend a non-public school. Public funds are deposited into SEAs and are used to aid students in receiving various educational resources, most relevant is private tutoring.

Provides Idaho caregivers with children in grades K-12 with educational grants of up to $1,000 per student, per year, and up to $3,000 per household. Grants are funded through the $50 million “Empowering Parents Grants” program, an initiative to address pandemic-related learning loss and part of Gov. Brad Little’s “Leading Idaho” initiative. The grant program supports families in acquiring a wide range of education-related expenses, some of which include technology, textbooks, tutoring and therapy services, etc.

Funds $47 million in emergency assistance to address the disruptions and challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes a $1.3 million allocation for the teacher pipeline of which $789,730 goes towards the expansion of the Georgia Math & Reading Corps program in Southwest Georgia. The emergency assistance fund allows colleges and universities across Georgia to recruit college students to serve as tutors, specifically in rural districts.

Required K-3 students who received a failing grade in a subject to receive tutoring during the first nine weeks of school. The bill also required additional accelerated instruction for students who continue to receive failing grades in any subject for subsequent grading periods. Schools would have been required to form a committee for each student requiring instruction. The committee would have been responsible for developing an educational plan for the student that would provide accelerated instruction over the course of the semester.

Jack Goodwin was already struggling with math in middle school when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, upending his education even more. His mom, Shelly, knew he needed extra help to catch up.

But Shelly Goodwin couldn’t find a tutor in their small town of Paris, about four hours south of Chicago.

“I would ask the teachers, ‘Do you know anybody that tutors or can you tutor?’,” Shelly Goodwin said. “They would try to meet with [Jack] after school but they had five or six kids after school and they would say, ‘We don’t really know anyone that tutors around here.’”

With reading and math scores plummeting during the pandemic, educators and parents are now turning their attention to how kids can catch up. In the following Q&A, Susanna Loeb, an education economist at Brown University, shines a light on the best ways to use tutoring to help students get back on track.

Sonnemann said Australia should look to the US in expanding research in tutoring, pointing to Brown University using targeted studies with government districts to examine the roll-out of small-group tuition programs and how well they help students catch up.

She said given the size of NSW’s COVID-19 tutoring initiative, it was vital parents and schools know how well it was working and governments should consider rolling out long-term, systematic catch-up tuition.

High-Impact tutoring – one-to-one or small group instruction in which a human tutor supports students in an academic subject area – has emerged as the primary strategy for addressing Covid19-induced learning interruptions. As tutoring expands nationally, what can we learn from existing research to inform effective planning and implementation?

The Education Week Spotlight on Tutoring is a collection of articles hand-picked by our editors for their insights on the advantages of tutoring as an academic recovery tool, how districts can expand access to tutoring, long-term investments in tutoring, initiatives that provide support to tutoring programs, tutoring strategies that combat learning loss, and more.

Pearl's data, research and analysis partners include the Annenberg Institute at Brown University  with a mission to equalize and improve educational opportunities through actionable knowledge, human development and broad engagement and its National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA). Both organizations consulted with ISU and ITI in the planning and development, and establishing success metrics for the statewide tutoring program.

Research shows that high-impact tutoring can produce learning gains for a variety of students, but which tutoring designs are most effective from a cost and academic perspective? Three school districts across the country will begin data-driven experiments to answer that question and more as part of a research project led by Littera Education. The project, which is funded by a Gates Foundation grant, will use the Littera Tutoring Management System (TMS) in conjunction with assessment and curriculum from Renaissance.

Evidence suggests that, over time, tutoring in small groups is beneficial, regardless of whether children are in a rural, suburban, or urban environment. In fact, research published in 2021 by Brown University's Annenberg Institute for School Reform showed that consistent tutoring sessions can accelerate learning by two to 10 months.

Access’ Self-Directed Learners' Tutoring Program is a 40-session, metacognitive learning development program that develops learning competence among each student in 40 sessions. Our goal is to help students develop fluency in literacy-based applications and in foundational self-directed study skills that aid learning. Another intent is to strengthen students' skills in self-directed learning strategies as well as to facilitate their ability to construct meaning from informational text.

Teach For America, the organization I lead, launched a tutoring initiative in fall 2020 following research that shows that high-dose, high-quality tutoring is one of the most effective ways to combat learning loss. One study that looked at the impact of having a well-trained tutor meet three times a week with a group of up to four students found it came close to providing the equivalent of nearly five months of learning. A 2021 meta-analysis from researchers at Brown University concluded tutoring has a more significant effect on student achievement than smaller class sizes, vacation or summer classes and longer school days or years.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, tutoring has increasingly become a popular tool for learning recovery. By the end of the 2021-22 school year, 23 states (including the District of Columbia) initiated or passed legislation mandating or encouraging tutoring initiatives, and federal pandemic relief funds were made available for school districts to spend directly on tutoring programs. This is all for good reason: over 100 randomized controlled trials show that high-impact tutoring is one of the most effective ways to accelerate student learning.

“Our team at the National Student Support Accelerator is thrilled to contribute to this national effort to provide students with the learning experiences that they need to engage in school and to thrive. This effort to expand high-impact tutoring really is the best opportunity we have to meaningfully improve outcomes for students across the nation,” added Susanna Loeb, Director of the National Student Support Accelerator.

Increases substitute teacher recruitment efforts, expands Ohio’s EdChoice program which provides families with vouchers to pay for private school tuition and requires tutoring programs in public and chartered non-public schools. Tutors will be required to be a retired teacher, substitute teacher, or an individual that meets the eligibility standards set by the superintendent. The Ohio Department of Education will be responsible for administrative, implementation, training costs, and technical assistance to the Educational Service Centers in coordinating tutors to programs/ schools.

Includes a plan to set aside $75 million which would fund the Close the Gap program. The Close the Gap program provides $1500 to Missouri families to fund educational expenses. The $1500 grant funds can be used to gain access to tutoring, extended school day educational programs, and tuition for learning centers. The bill was revived after its former bill, 3014, was struck down due to the lack of detail on how the program would be implemented. The bill has been approved by Missouri’s governor and delivered to the Secretary of State.

Provides $60M in state and federal funding to expand access to summer learning programs and recreational activities. Out of the $60M, $2M will be used to fund early literacy tutoring grants for summer 2022 and for the 2022-2023 school year.

The other approach pairs students with one tutor for multiple virtual sessions each week. It’s similar to the kind of “high-dosage” help that’s been shown to deliver strong results in person. 

The small handful of studies that have looked at virtual tutoring during the pandemic saw promising results from this variety. But offerings vary, so it’s tough to say how many students are getting that kind, said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education at Brown University who’s studying tutoring initiatives.

Educational Justice brings together middle school students (in grades 5 through 8) with high school students each week in a secure online/in-person setting where they navigate a fun and engaging weekly curriculum to develop the critical skills students need to thrive in school and life. As middle school students grow social and emotional skills and gain inspiration from positive role models, high school students get hands-on opportunities to develop and practice leadership and professional skills.

Language for Literacy is a program designed to deliver evidence-based literacy and language intervention through the lens of speech-language pathology and the science of reading. Tutoring is differentiated and tailored to specific student needs and assessment results. Tutoring and curriculum development is implemented by a certified Orton-Gillingham tutor, licensed RAVE-O provider, and American Speech-Language and Hearing Association member.