American Students Are Behind: High-Dose Tutoring Can Help

Four years after the onset of a crippling global pandemic, the American school system has reached a tipping point. COVID-19 brought unprecedented social and economic upheaval, disproportionately affecting students from low-income and minority communities. In response to the pandemic, many schools in the United States were forced to shut down in-person learning and transition to remote learning in spring 2020 to prevent the spread of the virus. The issue of school closures continues to be contentious, and it would be easy to fall into the trap of blaming the pandemic for the current education crisis by drawing a straight line from school closures to the current emergency. However, the pandemic did not create this predicament. It just exposed a broken system. 

American students were falling behind long before the pandemic hit. Decades of failed education policies like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and decreases in school funding have created an impossible situation for everyone involved. Teachers have long struggled with overcrowded and underfunded classrooms where there is little time to give much-needed individualized attention to each student. COVID-19 only made this situation more dire. Troubling trends have emerged as schools transitioned back to in-person instruction and standardized testing resumed: test scores nationwide are down, student reports of mental health challenges have increased, and attendance rates have yet to rebound to pre-COVID levels.

The sharp decline in student test scores is one of the most concerning trends. According to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the math and reading scores of 13-year-olds across the United States have dropped significantly. In 2012, the average reading score was 263, and the average math score was 285. Comparatively, in 2023,  students scored an average of 256 out of 500 in reading and 271 out of 500 in math. While the differences in the numbers may seem small, this is a statistically significant result that is an indication of serious trouble. The loss of in-person instruction time reversed the decades-long trend of average test scores increasing.  

If students do not make up ground quickly, they will continue to struggle academically, which will have significant impacts on their futures. Post remote learning, there is an even wider gap between student achievement and grade-level expectations. Additionally, multiple studies have indicated that students from low-income and minority communities were disproportionately impacted by COVID-related learning loss. One study found that test scores for 3rd grade students from high-poverty areas declined significantly between Fall 2019 and Fall 2021. The disparity between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers is growing.

Yet, one teacher during one class period does not have the tools or resources to catch some students up while simultaneously teaching others new content. To mitigate the adverse effects of the pandemic on student learning, policymakers need to take steps to support struggling students. One strategy that should be strongly supported is high-impact tutoring, ideally implemented during the school day. Policy-makers should allocate funding to support bringing high-impact tutoring programs to schools. These programs are expensive, but there is evidence that they make a significant impact on student outcomes.

High-impact tutoring differs from more traditional forms of tutoring. High-impact tutoring is an intensive, personalized approach that provides targeted support to students through one-on-one or small-group sessions. Traditional forms of tutoring, where a rotating group of volunteers occasionally come into after-school programs, do not have a significant impact on student learning. One problem with these programs is that volunteers often do not get sufficient training, and tutor turnover is high. In contrast, evidence shows that structured, high-impact, in-school tutoring programs can dramatically improve student outcomes. A recent meta-analysis on high-impact tutoring concluded that it can lead to higher test scores, close learning gaps, increase graduation rates, and reduce absenteeism. The most effective tutoring programs, such as the Saga Education model, are offered during the school day and have students working in small groups or one-on-one with a tutor. A University of Chicago study showed that daily, 45-minute, one-on-one tutoring sessions could help students gain over a year’s math progress to help close the gap between their performance and grade-level standards. 

The evidence is clear that high-impact tutoring programs can lead to dramatic improvements in student performance. The obvious question is: if these programs are so effective, why aren’t more schools implementing them? The primary problem is cost. The Saga model costs around $1,300 per student, and most schools do not have the budget or the staff to facilitate such a program. An intervention at this scale has never been attempted before, and while these pilot programs show promising results, they are challenging to fund and staff. 

Though it will be expensive to implement impactful tutoring programs, districts do have some options to support these initiatives. Last April, the Department of Education announced additional funding through the American Rescue Plan and philanthropic sources to help districts build out research-based programs. High-impact tutoring would be a good use of these funds as it is evidence-based and proven effective. Additionally, some districts still have significant amounts of unspent Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, which expire in September 2024, that could be put toward high-impact tutoring programs. While emergency funding is not a long-term solution, it can help fill in gaps now. If emergency programs are implemented quickly, the damage to student learning outcomes can be reversed, and eventually, there will be no need for large-scale programs, just targeted interventions. 

It is important to acknowledge that even with significant funding and budget allocation, it is not realistic for most school districts to implement models such as Saga Education. Districts do not have the staff to make one-on-one or small-group tutoring available to every student. However, some districts have made progress toward implementing a version of high-impact tutoring. Chicago Public Schools has created a tutor corps focused on schools with the most significant challenges. The goal is to hire tutors to work with students in small groups during the school day. While the program is off to a slow start, the model has promise, and CPS and other similar districts should invest the necessary resources in these programs. 

While it will be challenging to implement high-impact tutoring programs, it is nevertheless essential to get students the help they need. High-impact tutoring has the potential to be a powerful tool in the fight against student learning loss. Teachers and parents should advocate for these programs in districts, and school leaders must be willing to integrate these programs into the school day. Creating large-scale, high-impact tutoring programs will be time-consuming and costly, but research indicates this is the best opportunity to reverse this devastating trend in education. These programs work, and America’s students cannot afford to wait any longer for an intervention.

---

Dorn, Emma, Bryan Hancock, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Ellen Viruleg. “Covid-19 and Learning Loss-Disparities Grow and Students Need Help.” McKinsey & Company. McKinsey & Company, December 8, 2020. 

Thomas Dee, “Where the Kids Went: Nonpublic Schooling and Demographic Change during the Pandemic Exodus from Public Schools” (Urban Institute , February 9, 2023).

American Psychological Association. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on student mental health. https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/student-mental-health

Dana Goldstein, “What the New, Low Test Scores for 13-Year-Olds Say about U.S. Education Now,” The New York Times, June 21, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/us/naep-test-results-education.html.

DeSilver, Drew. “U.S. Students’ Academic Achievement Still Lags That of Their Peers in Many Other Countries.” Pew Research Center, February 15, 2017. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/.

Andre Nickow, Philip Oreopoulos, and Vincent Quan, “The Impressive Effects of Tutoring on Prek-12 Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence,” National Bureau of Economic Research, no. I2,J24 (July 2020), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3644077.

“U.S. Department of Education Announces over $220 Million Dollars in Investments from Government, Private, and Public Sectors to Support Student Recovery,” April 27, 2022, https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-over-220-million-dollars-investments-government-private-and-public-sectors-support-student-recovery.