Roberto Rodríguez, Assistant Secretary of US Department of Education, on Why We Must Sustain High-Impact Tutoring
NSSA’s third annual conference: High-Impacting: Supporting Students Now and for the Long Run brought together over 200 researchers, state and district leaders, tutoring providers, and others to celebrate significant progress, learn practical implications of the latest research, and work together to address challenges in the field. The energy-filled one-day conference held at Stanford’s campus in Palo Alto, CA generated profound learning, connections, and inspiration.
Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Education, Roberto Rodriguez kicked off the morning by sharing the national commitment to high-impact tutoring as one of three key strategies pursued by the current administration. Secretary of Education for New Mexico, Arsenio Romero then shared New Mexico’s commitment to tutoring, the importance of data use for continuous improvement (shifting away from opt-in tutoring toward high-impact tutoring), and how the state plans to sustain high-impact tutoring for students in need.
Highlights of the day included:
- Sharing examples of district success in a variety of contexts: Dr. Christina Grant (State Superintendent of Education, Washington, DC) moderated a discussion addressing continued challenges along with promising solutions with Tamara Acevedo (Chief Academic Officer, Colorado Springs School District 11), Matt Barrow (Director of Differentiated Learning, Baltimore City Public Schools), and Dana Talley (Chief Academic Officer, Lincoln Parish Schools). Each district leader shared a profile of their tutoring efforts highlighting a range of implementation approaches including home-grown tutoring as part of MTSS frameworks, outcomes-based contracting, and partnering with a virtual provider. While no one approach is without challenges; each fits the needs of that district’s students and is strongly supported by students, school leaders and district leaders alike.
- Building stronger learning communities to support sustainability: Working sessions for each of three learning communities - state and district leaders, tutoring providers, and researchers - explored the current state of the field and addressed problems of practice and sustainability.
- Understanding practical implications of recent research: Leading tutoring researchers from across the nation shared important findings from 10 different studies including:
- The Effects of a Virtual Tutoring Program with Young Students: Does Group Size Matter?
- Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Tutoring Format and Tutors: Findings from an Early Literacy Tutoring Program
- The Effect of Tutor CoPilot for Virtual Tutoring Sessions: Testing an AI Intervention to Improve Tutor Instruction
- PLUS: Lessons from a Highly Scalable, AI-powered Hybrid Tutoring Program
- Generalizing about Effect Sizes when Education Interventions are Taken to Scale: A Meta-Analytic Exploration of the Experimental Evidence on K-12 Tutoring
- Impacts of Academic Recovery Interventions on Student Achievement in ESSER Year 3 (2022-23)
- A State-Level Initiative for Increasing Access to High-Impact Tutoring
- Scaling High-Impact Tutoring: School Level Perspectives on Implementation Challenges and Strategies
- Taking Tutoring to Scale: Program Dynamics, Causal Effects, and Lessons Learned
- Realizing the Promise of High Dosage Tutoring At Scale: Preliminary Evidence for the Field
- Exploring district approaches to ensuring quality of high-impact tutoring: Liz Cohen (Policy Director, FutureEd) moderated a discussion with Jennifer Rosenbaum (Deputy Chief, DC Public Schools), Gregory Mott, (Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Poughkeepsie City School District) and Shawn Walker, (Student Success Coordinator, Lenoir City Schools) sharing profiles of their districts along with specific strategies to ensure quality materials and tutors, attendance, and funding.
- Diving more deeply into foundational elements of sustainability including:
- Sustainably Sourcing Tutors explored how college students, family and caregivers, and paraprofessionals can be potential sources of tutors. Maurice Telesford (Teacher, Ferndale High School) moderated a discussion with Ann Argo (Tutoring Services Coordinator, LAUSD), Wesley Jacques (former ED of Academics and Instruction, OUSD), Sam Olivieri (CEO, Step Up Tutoring), Safonya Ray (Academic Tutoring Coordinator, Baltimore City Schools), and Lakisha Young (Founder, The Oakland REACH), who each shared why they choose their particular source for tutors, how their approach works, and its pros and cons. The full group then identified ways in which the field can make these approaches more sustainable and easier to implement.
- Quality Data for Sustaining Quality Programs: Examples from the Field discussed the types of data critical to understanding effectiveness and identifying improvement opportunities in tutoring programs. NSSA and partner districts shared examples of data collection tools and dashboards. Break-out groups reviewed scenarios and discussed what they could learn with available data, what insights additional data would provide, and how these scenarios play out in their own districts and states.
- Family and Community Partnerships delved into the critical link between high-impact tutoring and families. Brittany Miller (Managing Director, Outcomes-Based Contracting, Southern Education Foundation) moderated a discussion between Jennifer Cisneros (Director of Expanded Learning Programs, Santa Ana Unified School District), Alejandro Gibes de Gac (Chief Executive Officer, Springboard Collaborative and Paloma) and Michelle Vilchez (Chief Executive Officer, Innovate Public Schools) that explored systemic barriers families face in accessing high-impact tutoring for their children, authentic approaches to family engagement and advocacy, and how schools can more effectively partner with families in providing high-impact tutoring.
Themes
The energy and discussions during the conference made five things clear:
- High-impact tutoring is taking hold
- We now have many, many champions from proof points across the nation - from urban to suburban to rural, from north to south and east to west.
- States and districts are shifting away from add-on tutoring, to integrating high-impact tutoring into larger academic initiatives and policies.
- High-impact tutoring is still our best bet - and the more we learn, the better it gets (assuming alignment with research-backed practices)
- Research points to more cost-effective approaches.
- Spillover effects are significant including new evidence of causal impact on student attendance.
- Relationships Matter
- Student-tutor relationships support student well-being and learning
- Family relationships with tutoring providers and districts support sustainability
- Tutoring program relationships with schools and districts ease logistical challenges and promote an aligned, cohesive experience for students
- Relationships among members of our tutoring community broadly allow us to learn from and inspire each other
- AI promises even more effective and sustainable approaches
- Innovations can provide just in time instructional guidance for tutors and better student data to more precisely identify student needs and optimal instructional approaches.
- Sustained funding is doable but requires creativity
- Districts and states are braiding funding streams, integrating tutoring into existing MTSS frameworks, and leveraging work-study dollars and Americorps programs.
- Even with strong evidence, widespread support, and creative funding, the next year will require effort to sustain high-impact tutoring for students in need.
Next Steps
The energy, learning, connections, and inspiration from this year’s conference can now spread across the nation, as participants return to their schools, districts and supporting organizations. At NSSA, our next steps focus on working with partners to meet the continued needs of the field:
- Launching NSSA’s Program Design Badging process
- Developing and sharing practical guidance for sustainable funding options
- Conducting, collecting, and sharing research across the field
- Working with many of you to make research and proven solutions available broadly through tools, briefs, other materials, and conversations.
All of Us, Together
High-impact tutoring has made great progress in three short years. We have standards and a common language, champions and proof points across the nation, and, most importantly, many many more students with intensive, relationship-based, individualized instruction as part of their school day.
A profound thank you to Pete Lavorini, Paula Longoria, and the Overdeck Family Foundation, to our conference sponsors, Pencil Spaces, Cignition, Pearl, Bay Area Tutoring Association, and PLUS - Personalized Learning Squared, and to the Walton Family Foundation, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Jamie Halper, Arnold Ventures, Accelerate, Smith Richardson Foundation, and all of the many partners who participated in this conference and the field more broadly - for making this work possible.
We greatly appreciate this learning community with its commitment and urgent focus on student academic learning and wellbeing. Thank you for sharing your time and talent so that together we can accelerate access to high-impact tutoring for students in need.
As always, NSSA is here to support the important work of accelerating student learning, please reach out to Info@studentsupportaccelerator.org for support or with suggestions.
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About the National Student Support Accelerator
The National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) seeks to ensure every student in need has access to an effective tutor who champions their learning and success. NSSA does not provide tutoring directly, but conducts, coordinates, and synthesizes research and translates findings into actionable best practices. Working with states, districts, schools, and tutoring organizations, NSSA provides research-based best practices through tools and strategic advising to accelerate the growth of high-impact tutoring opportunities for K-12 students in need. To access tools and resources to design and implement your district’s tutoring program, better understand high-impact tutoring standards and how your tutoring program aligns, learn about state tutoring efforts, tutoring research, and more, visit www.studentsupportaccelerator.org.