Dive Brief:
- The need for high-impact tutoring continues five years after the pandemic disrupted schooling by shutting down in-person instruction, according to recent research from Stanford University.
- During the recovery period, states tended to set aside money specifically for those initiatives from their federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund allocations. Before the 2024-25 school year began, many states committed their remaining ESSER money to tutoring, the report said.
- Now, as states navigate a post-ESSER funding environment, only 23 provide competitive grant or formula funding allowing school districts to put money toward high-impact tutoring.
Dive Insight:
When the pandemic worsened long-standing achievement gaps, high-impact tutoring became one of the foremost evidence-based solutions encouraged by researchers, district leaders and the federal government. Many districts allocated federal aid dollars toward such initiatives.
But Tennessee is the only state that has integrated high-impact tutoring into its ongoing funding formula, with other states using more temporary appropriations. That leaves many states still assessing how to sustain access to high-impact tutoring post-ESSER, according to the report.
The Stanford University research suggests there will be more innovative high-impact tutoring programs will come in states like South Carolina, New Mexico and Iowa in 2025.
"States are increasingly positioning high-impact tutoring not as a standalone intervention but as an integrated component of comprehensive educational systems," the report says. "This systematic integration represents a shift from viewing tutoring as supplementary to recognizing it as a fundamental element of states' instructional visions, potentially increasing both effectiveness and sustainability."
According to an October 2024 School Pulse Panel survey by the National Center for Education Statistics, 78% of schools still had some type of tutoring for students, and 37% offered high-dosage tutoring.
An analysis from the Council of Chief State School Officers released last year showed states had dedicated about $4.2 billion in pandemic relief funds for tutoring and accelerated learning. An additional $2.9 billion went to programs outside of school hours, and another $1.3 billion was allocated for high-quality curriculum and instruction.
Even so, researchers had suggested that academic recovery could take years.
And since then, the Trump administration canceled ESSER spending extensions, costing some states hundreds of millions in emergency pandemic funds.
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the reimbursements were no longer justified because "the COVID-19 pandemic has ended." However, 16 states and the District of Columbia on April 10 sued the Trump administration over this decision to abruptly claw back federal dollars that schools had already committed.
