Millions of students across the United States spent their summers in learning and enrichment programs, many of which employed intensive tutoring designed to bring math and reading scores up to grade level.
These efforts can be important and life changingHowever, research finds that increased learning time alone will not be enough to recover from the pandemic crisis. devastating effects about learning.
Recent data from the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University demonstrates that simply offering more instruction to students is insufficient, in part because it does not take into account each student’s pace of learning. Notably, researchers have determined that even five more years of schooling would leave a quarter of students behind on 12th grade math and reading benchmarks. Despite this evidence, many of our COVID-19 Recovery Dollars Funds are being spent on interventions that emphasize high-dose mentoring rather than other potential strategies.
As principal investigator in Innovative collaborationa national nonprofit organization that creates supportive after-school learning communities to improve educational equity, I recently had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a after school math tutoring program our organization piloted during the 2021-22 school year.
That experience showed me that high-dose tutoring cannot be the only tool we offer students after COVID-19 disruptions. A successful approach must involve social-emotional learning (SEL), adapt to the real needs of real-world students, and incorporate community support, so that the burdens do not fall exclusively on students and teachers.
So what does that look like?
We must move beyond dose-dependent tutoring programs and focus on the social and emotional needs of students. David G. GilThe late professor of social policy at Brandeis University’s Florence Heller School of Advanced Studies in Social Welfare argued that individuals can only reach their full potential when human needs such as psychological safety are met.
Unfortunately, recent data shows that the pandemic has placed enormous pressures on people’s mental health and well-being. students, teachers and directors similar.
The good news is that SEL programs have been shown to have a powerful effect on students’ coping skills while positively impacting academic performance. The bad news is that SEL has become very politicized in recent years. Opponents have deceived SEL combined with critical race theoryand several states have passed laws designed to limit its use in schools. However, research shows that educators and parents should continue to advocate for SEL and ignore the political noise that comes with it.
Any program that serves students must respond to their continuing and changing needs. In the midst of our after-school math tutoring pilot, we held focus groups with students and families to hear their feedback, with the intention of adjusting the program if necessary.
Through these focus groups, staff at one of our sites learned that students needed more time to build community and relationships, and more time for homework support, even if that meant fewer hours of tutoring. As a result, program leaders changed their model, reducing tutoring time and adding lessons on math identity and SEL across math contexts.
This shift meant that our mentoring program no longer qualified as “high dose,” but that trade-off was amply justified. This site was able to maintain a strong after-school attendance rate of 79 percent, which is impressive given that maintaining after-school attendance is notoriously challenging – and them Students’ average progress in mathematics exceeded their expected growth. At the end of the year.
Our schools cannot and should not do this work alone. Much of the burden of student pandemic recovery falls on our educators and children, two groups of people who have been pushed to their limits in recent years.
Ideas for increase instruction timeSome ideas, such as extending the school year and increasing class time during the day, are logical ideas, but these ideas still place a burden on students and their teachers. This approach also ignores the fact that programs like Massachusetts Extended Learning Time Initiativewhich provides funding for up to 300 additional hours of instruction per year, had no statistically significant impact on student achievement and resulted in higher levels of teacher and student fatigue.
One way to support and expand the good work that schools are doing is to leverage community organizations, particularly those with staff who have similar backgrounds as the students they serve. Breakthrough has seen this firsthand, as we intentionally recruit college-age faculty who reflect the diversity of our students, resulting in Solid relationships and sense of belonging..
Research has shown the powerful benefits experienced by students who are taught by teachers of the same race. According to that research, Black students with at least one Black teacher from kindergarten to third grade are 13 percent more likely to graduate from high school and 19 percent more likely to enroll in college. One plausible reason for this finding may be that Black teachers are serving as role models for their students.
The support can’t stop after graduation. The reality we face is that more students will leave high school with knowledge gaps than in pre-pandemic times. That means we must also support this generation of young people into adulthood.
We should consider how comprehensive services can be provided to young adults as they navigate life after high school and prioritize postsecondary initiatives, such as college success programs that partner with youth to help them transition to adulthood and achieve its maximum potential.
Given the setbacks students are facing post-pandemic, it may be tempting to rely on solutions that increase instructional time, but a variety of solutions will be needed to support our students to prepare them for success in school and beyond. life. As we look beyond the current crisis, let us be sure to take into account all of our students’ needs and not limit our interventions to intensive instruction alone.
