Tutoring should be a staple offering of tiered intervention systems

This post is adapted from an email originally shared on March 25, 2022. If you would like to receive future emails, you can sign up here.

Tutoring is getting a lot of attention right now. It has received a great deal of resourcing with ESSER funds across states and districts, significant private investments in new tutoring companies and existing tutoring nonprofits, and considerable policy and media attention. A number of brilliant people have produced resources and tools to guide those exploring tutoring models.

Tutoring is getting attention for good reason — it is a powerful interaction. Research consistently demonstrates that tutoring has substantial positive benefits for student learning. Wrapping students in relational and individualized attention has proven to be effective across context, grade span, and subject. Nothing can substitute effective daily instruction in core classes, but tutoring can be particularly helpful to address unfinished learning in the aftermath of interruptions.

While impactful, scaling tutoring programs is not simple and we need answers to big questions to inform better design: What kind of learning is best suited for tutoring? Does that vary by format (i.e., in-person vs. virtual)? How do we best connect tutoring and core classroom instruction? What materials and training do tutors need to support learning? How do we design tutoring in ways that support student confidence and motivation? Are there lower-cost online options that may work effectively with some students in some subjects?

I am glad we are focusing time and energy on tutoring; however, I am worried that we are treating it like a standalone solution. In doing so, we are risking making tutoring a COVID response “thing” and missing connections that could sustain the effort. It’s like installing portable buildings without thinking about the brick and mortar structures.

We should make tutoring a staple of the solution set that schools offer students and families. To do so, we need to consider how to incorporate tutoring as a core part of tiered intervention systems.

Tutoring would bring important assets to intervention systems:

• Impact: The evidence base for tutoring is stronger than the evidence base of many reading and math intervention programs.
• Coherence: It can support the core curriculum better than many intervention programs. Right now, students identified for extra support often spend time in core instruction using one curriculum, then spend time in their intervention block using an evidence-based intervention program — which is rarely connected to the core curriculum. Tutoring could offer a more personalized, adaptive option that would support the core curriculum (e.g., “In tutoring, let’s review the questions you missed on the last quiz or let’s do a first read of the text you will read in class tomorrow.”).

Developing tutoring programs as a part of intervention systems would help address some of the biggest challenges tutoring programs face:

• Labor: Many school districts are looking to hire tutors for school-day and after-school programs in one department, while looking for Tier II interventionists in another department. Merging these conversations would allow schools to marshal energy more efficiently and pool resources to attract talent.
• Scheduling and attendance: Structuring tutoring time in the master schedule is one of the greatest challenges schools face. Out-of-school solutions may be easier to schedule but tend to see lower attendance and less benefit. In-school solutions are hard to schedule, but thinking about Tier II support time as tutoring time gives tutoring a more sustainable home.
• Funding sustainability: Tutoring is expensive and ESSER is one-time funding. Embedding tutoring into the intervention system expands funding options (for instance, braiding IDEA, Title I, and ESSER funds to support tutors) and could free other costs, like using intervention program dollars to increase the roster and compensation for paraprofessionals.

Offering tutoring as a scalable Tier II support could also help address teacher pipeline challenges. If we expand the pool of tutors and paraprofessionals and develop paths to degrees and certification, we can create new pipelines for diverse, effective teachers.

To connect conversations about tutoring with conversations about tiered intervention systems, those working on tutoring need to make sure they deeply understand what is already happening in intervention and invite those managing intervention systems to the table at every step of the planning process. And those managing intervention systems need to deeply understand the research base on tutoring and the available options and choice points to ensure their guidance allows for tutoring as a viable intervention offering.

Educators and school leaders rightfully complain when initiatives get layered on top of each other without attention to how they connect to other work. I have been guilty of pursuing new ideas without considering how they could build on existing work many times; doing so always compromised the long-term impact. If we bring the conversations together, we can strengthen both tutoring and intervention systems in ways that will benefit students for years to come.

Here are some resources I have been learning from on this topic:

• FutureEd’s 2-page summary of high-dosage tutoring is a good starting point
• NSSA’s High Impact Tutoring District Playbook
• Helpful case studies from Baltimore and Chicago