Pandemic relief money paid for a big expansion of high-impact tutoring in schools. That money is gone, and districts now face a hard question: how to keep a tool proven to help students. Some districts have already cut back. Others have found ways to keep tutoring in place, but the school day is not getting any longer, and every change to a program has a cost.

Is Tutoring Quietly Getting Weaker?

David Blazar, associate professor of education policy at the University of Maryland College of Education, studied tutoring programs in all 24 of Maryland's school districts. He tells Ira Apfel that the more likely outcome is not canceled tutoring but weakened tutoring, with bigger groups and fewer sessions that stop helping students as much. He explains which features matter most, why Maryland districts described finding tutors as a major obstacle, and what his national look at tutoring found about how much students actually get.

How Do Schools Make Room for Tutoring?

Devon Wible, vice president of teaching and learning at Catapult Learning, which provides tutoring programs to schools, says conversations with districts have shifted from how fast tutoring can start to how it fits with classroom instruction. She walks through one third grader’;s day, explains why the tutor and the classroom teacher need to work from the same information, and shares the one move she would counsel teachers and principals to make this year.

Listen to the episode.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

• Can High-Impact Tutoring Survive Post-Pandemic Funding Loss? by Cameron Goodnight

• Disparities in childhood human capital investments in the United States by David Blazar et al.

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