Coming out of the pandemic, students struggled to return to in-person classes and found it difficult to stay afloat academically, as declining test scores left many in the country concerned that students were falling behind. drowning
For school districts desperate to find a life jacket for students, one answer was to rely on tutoring services. These services, particularly high-dose tutoring, a form of intensive, small-group tutoring supported by evidence, had been identified as a way to combat declining student achievement. But early on, in the rush to launch tutoring programs, schools poured federal aid dollars into less-researched tutoring models and created a cash cow for companies in the tutoring space. Since then, educators are said to have become more sophisticated in evaluating tutoring programs, focusing their attention on evidence-backed options such as high-dose services.
However, it is also not clear that the extensive spending of federal funds on tutors has effectively offset the decline in learning. Additionally, schools have had to turn to alternative funding sources to pay tutors as relief funds dry up. Some programs, for example, have begun to creatively use federal job placement dollars to boost their tutoring forces, including recruiting college students in hopes of improving outcomes for K-12 students and creating the next generation of teachers. the current university cohort. at the same time.
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Some hoped presidential involvement would help. during the State of the Union Address 2022President Joe Biden called for hundreds of thousands of new tutors, coaches and mentors for programs across the country. And apparently, this use of the pulpit was a success. Now, two years later, an analysis by Johns Hopkins and the RAND Corporation suggests that schools and organizations across the country have surpassed that goal a year early. Biden's request called for 250,000 additional tutors by the summer of 2025. In total, around 323,000 new tutors, mentors or coaches have already been added.
in a event for the white house This month, just weeks before an election in which education seemed like a relatively quiet campaign issue, the administration presented it as a coup for its “laser focus” on student success. Student support organizations also interpreted it as an encouraging sign for students. “President Biden's exceeding call is a clear indicator of the strength of the American spirit and our collective dedication to the future of our youth,” said Michael D. Smith, executive director of AmeriCorps, one of the organizations involved, in a written statement.
Those volunteers will provide additional muscle to districts trying to support students. But given falling test scores and disappearing federal aid dollars, is an increase in volunteers enough to stabilize learning?
A small victory?
The administration was able to direct many volunteers to tutoring organizations, says Antonio Gutiérrez, co-founder of Saga Education, a nonprofit focused on high-dose tutoring. It is an important part of meeting the urgent need for schools after the pandemic and is encouraging, he adds.
But what have been the results?
The Johns Hopkins report notes that 12,700 schools increased high-intensity tutoring, suggesting the administration's request helped. Thousands of schools also reported an increase in other types of student support. What's more, 34 percent of principals surveyed reported that more students had access to tutoring in 2023-2024 than the previous year. Relatedly, 24 percent reported that more students had access to mentors.
But what impact does this have on the country? It's hard to say, according to Gutiérrez. But there has been recent evidence about “high-impact” tutoring in general, which he believes could speak to how useful this approach could be in supporting students.
For example: Preliminary findings at the University of Chicago, the “Personalized Learning Initiative,” intended to spur attempts to expand tutoring in the country, found that high-dose tutoring is effective. According to the study, which surveyed a couple thousand K-12 students in Chicago and Fulton County, these tutoring programs inspired gains in math learning. The study aimed to evaluate how effective tutoring programs are when schools design them themselves, Gutiérrez summarizes. Gutierrez's organization, Saga Education, has tried to support schools in those efforts by detailing best practices that districts should follow. The study also found that ensuring tutoring occurs during the school day, rather than “on demand” after school or on weekends, was important for achieving large increases in student performance.
But there are reasons to temper that enthusiasm slightly. TO meta-analysis from Brown University's Annenberg Institute examined 265 randomized controlled trials and found that as mentoring programs grow, they become noticeably less effective. According to this study, while they still helped improve student learning, the benefits of tutoring appeared smaller in large-scale programs. For Gutiérrez, who notes that the study still saw a positive effect, that's not really surprising. In other words, because schools are experimenting with these programs, the extent to which a particular program boosts student achievement will vary.
As for the movement to make personalized learning a permanent feature of American education, there have been other developments as well.
The most striking has been ai. This year, the Los Angeles School District, the second largest in the country, launched a high-profile $6 million chatbot called “Ed,” a talking sun that was supposed to power personalized instruction. But the company behind that chatbot collapsed this summer, raising concerns about what would happen to the student data it collected. Some have suggested that the project had simply been too ambitious and the company has become a cautionary tale.
That is a good example of what not to do with these programs, according to observers like Gutiérrez. But more promising, he says, are efforts like Khanmigo, Sal Khan's personalized tutoring tool, and other chat-based tutoring programs. These types of chatbots should be developed because they could add value, says Gutiérrez.
They probably won't replace human guardians, Gutiérrez says. Because of the way students learn, tutoring relies heavily on the relationship between tutor and student, he adds. This is how tutors can nudge students in the right direction, pushing them to learn. Still, these technology products promise to translate into any language and also adapt to a district's needs, although there are questions about student engagement with these tools, he says. But as long as districts don't rely entirely on these technologies for personalized instruction, it's probably useful to explore how human and robot tutors can work together to help students, Gutiérrez says.
Ultimately, the Biden-Harris administration's push mentoring group was a step in the right direction, but there is much more work ahead, Gutiérrez admits.
