In fall 2020, a group of nationally recognized education experts launched the National Student Support Accelerator. In March 2021, we unveiled the Accelerator website with open-source tools and resources for tutoring organizations, schools and districts that are easy to use, downloadable, and designed to make structuring, implementing and scaling high-impact tutoring programs as straightforward as possible.
To date the Accelerator has:
- Synthesized tutoring research into a Research Agenda including two sets of Priority Research Questions – Characteristics of Effective Tutoring and Scaling Tutoring to focus future research and issued a brief How to Gather Rigorous Evidence of Your Program’s Effectiveness
- Released tools for practitioners, schools, districts and states to more easily create or improve High-Impact Tutoring efforts including
- Toolkit for Tutoring with supporting webinars designed to make it easy for tutoring organizations and districts to develop or improve their own High-Impact Tutoring program,
- District Playbook designed to make it easy for districts to design or partner with a provider to adopt High-Impact Tutoring across their district,
- Tutoring Database providing a searchable source for districts to identify potential tutoring provider partners and
- Cost Calculator to support districts and other educational institutions in understanding the costs of High-Impact Tutoring;
- Issued informational briefs including High-Impact Tutoring: Equitable and Effective Learning Acceleration, Policy Considerations for Tutoring, Using the American Rescue Plan Act Funding for High-Impact Tutoring
- Developed ten pilot sites to expand access to tutoring and learn about implementation challenges and solutions;
- Provided technical assistance to a variety of thought leaders, practitioners, state and district leaders and other decision makers including over 2,000 participants in High-Impact Tutoring webinars (example here); and
- Created a Tutoring Educator Advisory Group to ensure tools and materials meet the needs of educators in the classroom.
Currently, we are:
- Working with more than ten pilot sites implementing tutoring programs to learn more about what drives effectiveness, the barriers to implementation, and how to overcome these barriers;
- Providing materials and assistance to states, districts, tutoring organizations, and advocacy organizations to support their High-Impact Tutoring efforts;
- Continuing to add to tools and information briefs to make it easier to adopt and/or expand High-Impact Tutoring;
- Creating a Tutoring Quality Improvement System to assess the quality of tutoring programs and provide guidance for improvement.
As a result of this and other’s work, states such as Illinois, Texas, Colorado, Tennessee and others are including high-impact tutoring in their pandemic recovery plans, thousands of education leaders understand the research and characteristics of High-Impact Tutoring and new research across the country is focusing on learning more about how to make high-impact tutoring more effective, less costly and easier to implement.
As we continue our work to increase access to high-impact tutoring to students in need, we encourage you to join us by getting involved!