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Building and Sustaining High-Impact Tutoring: How to Design, Fund and Implement an Effective Program for Student Success

Issue Areas
K-12 education
Outcomes
Elementary and middle school success High school graduation

About this Sprint

In Summer 2024, Results for America partnered with the National Student Support Accelerator, and the Annenberg Institute at Brown University to deliver a 7-week rapid learning series for local education agencies (LEAs) and their partners to learn how to design, fund, and implement evidence-based high-impact tutoring programs.

  • Student test scores in math and reading fell sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. While federal investments in K-12 schools have helped mitigate some of the learning loss, recovery has slowed, leaving many students still behind.

  • Evidence-based high-impact tutoring (HIT) is one of the most effective strategies to help students who have fallen behind academically. By providing personalized, consistent instruction from well-trained tutors, HIT can significantly improve student outcomes. When incorporated into the school day or offered regularly, it offers targeted support that is especially beneficial for students at greatest academic risk. Expanding access to evidence-based HIT is a critical strategy for accelerating learning and closing gaps, particularly for students from historically underserved communities.

  • Numerous districts, such as Chicago Public Schools, Guilford County Schools (NC), and Denver Public Schools (CO), have implemented high-impact tutoring with notable success. These districts have integrated HIT into their broader academic support strategies, targeting students most in need and using continuous data collection to drive program improvement. By leveraging external partnerships and local resources, they have created sustainable tutoring models that can be adapted in various contexts.

  • The Building and Sustaining High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) Sprint was a 7-week virtual learning program designed to equip school district leaders, educators, and community partners with the skills, knowledge, and resources to implement effective HIT programs. Hosted by Results for America, the National Student Support Accelerator, the Annenberg Institute, and EdResearch for Action, this Sprint helped participants create an action plan tailored to their district’s needs, secure sustainable funding and ensure alignment with evidence-based practices.

Key Resources for LEAs to Effectively Implement High-Impact Tutoring Programs

  • EdResearch for Action Brief. Design Principles for Accelerating Student Learning With High-Impact Tutoring. This brief lays out eight key features of evidence-based high-impact tutoring programs.

What you'll learn

  • Understand how a high-impact tutoring program can advance student achievement goals

  • Understand the key design features of an effective and evidence-based high-impact tutoring program

  • Identify federal, state, and/or local funding sources for high-impact tutoring

  • Understand and apply evidence-based spending strategies to increase the impact of investments in high-impact tutoring

  • Learn from local education authorities who have successfully implemented effective high-impact tutoring programs and apply their lessons to local context.

  • Learn how to use data in designing, evaluating, and improving high-impact tutoring programs

Sprint partners

  • National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA), a program housed at Stanford University that offers schools, local education agencies, states and tutoring providers open access tools and technical assistance for implementing and improving high-impact tutoring programs.

  • Results for America (RFA), a non-profit organization that works with governments to identify and implement evidence-based policies and practices. Over the last several years, RFA has successfully run various Solutions Sprints, supporting over 100 jurisdictions in implementing evidence-based solutions and benchmarking their progress towards better outcomes for their communities.

  • The Annenberg Institute at Brown University brings together scholars to tackle persistent challenges in education with a focus on reducing educational inequality. Through applied research training, engaged scholarship, sustained partnerships, and efforts to generate actionable knowledge, our goal is to improve the creation, synthesis, and application of educational research.

Curriculum

The HIT Sprint Action Plan is an implementation guidebook that offers key strategies, scaffolded exercises, and a collaborative space to support district teams kickstarting or deepening their long-term high-impact tutoring efforts. Aligned Action Plan pages are detailed for each curriculum session below.

Overview of how a high-impact tutoring program can advance student achievement and understanding of key design features of an evidence-based tutoring program.

Resources:

Exploration of how to set goals for a tutoring program and create data systems for continuous improvement, ensuring that tutoring meets students' needs and drives academic success.

Discussion of different models for delivering high-impact tutoring, including in-house options and external providers, with a focus on selecting the best approach for each district.

Identification of federal, state, and local funding sources for high-impact tutoring and strategies for building stakeholder investment to sustain the program long-term.

Resources:

Understanding of implementation best practices, common barriers to HIT programs, and strategies for overcoming those barriers in real-world settings.

Application of evidence-based spending strategies to maximize the impact of HIT programs, with a focus on ensuring that investments lead to meaningful outcomes for students.

Interested in learning more?

If you're interested in learning more about these topics or how to apply these resources to your own high-impact tutoring initiatives, please contact us!

For more on effective design, implementation, and evaluation of high-impact tutoring programs, and to learn more about effective models, visit the National Student Support Accelerator or contact Kathy Bendheim at [email protected].

For more on how to fund high-impact tutoring programs and apply evidence-based spending strategies to maximize the impact of your program, visit Results for America’s Education Work or contact Sara Kerr at [email protected].

For more on the research evidence for high-impact tutoring and to learn more about the eight key evidence-based design principles, visit EdResearch for Action or contact Nate Schwartz at [email protected].