The Pandemic Proved that High-Dosage Tutoring is Essential. We Can’t Give it Up.

By: Michael Thomas Duffy

A few years ago, as the world was grappling with COVID-19 and its aftermath, two developments in teaching and learning occurred that, in retrospect, were not only revolutionary but interconnected. The first took place in March 2021, when the federal government earmarked $13.2 billion in pandemic relief funds, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Act, for K-12 schools across the country, which sunset at the end of this year. In the three years since, school districts have been able to use these dollars to help students recover from the extended periods of ineffective schooling they endured during the pandemic. 

The second happened in 2022, when UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development released a groundbreaking report on teaching and learning in the 21^st century. It noted the intricate web of biological, environmental and socio-political factors that influence how each person learns. Because of that, the report’s authors reasoned, “receiving a personalized learning experience is an entitlement and a human right for every learner.” 

The link between these seemingly unrelated events is tutoring. American public schools have used more than $4 billion in ESSER funds to tutor students who fell behind during the pandemic. Some of that has been devoted to high-dosage tutoring, which is defined as intensive, relationship-based, individualized instruction. Research has shown that high-dosage tutoring, in the words of Brown University researcher Matt Kraft, is “the most effective education intervention ever subjected to rigorous evaluation.” In a paper released by the Annenberg Institute at Brown, Kraft presents convincing evidence that high-dosage tutoring is significantly more impactful on student achievement than other investments being made by school districts, including class size reductions, extending the school day/year, and summer school.

 In the U.S., high-dosage tutoring became the great educational equalizer during the COVID era. Wealthy Americans have long had access to private tutors, making it a $115 billion industry in 2023. For a brief moment, ESSER dollars helped democratize access to a tutor, making tutors available to students whose families otherwise never would have been able to afford one. 

Other countries have embraced this emphasis on personalized instruction. Take Kunskapsskolan, a Swedish network of public schools that has also supported schools in the UK, the Netherlands, the Middle East, and India. Kunskapsskolan requires every student to set long-term goals for themselves and then provides students with a coach to help them achieve progress. “All people are different and learn in different ways and at different rates.” according to Christian Wetell, a senior academic leader at Kunskapsskolan. “It is our task to meet this challenge. Regardless of his or her ability, each student has the right to a personal challenge every day.”

In India, neuroscientist Nandini Singh’s study of the brain shaped her understanding of each person’s unique, distinct cognitive processes — and propelled her belief in the importance of personalized instruction. That understanding prompted Singh and other authors of the UNESCO report to note that “… educational expenditure requires closer scrutiny of what, where, and when most investments are made to maximize returns on educational outcomes and contribute to the betterment of society.” 

In the U.S., ESSER  funds run out at the end of this year, and many districts believe they have no choice but to pull the plug on their high-dosage tutoring programs despite their documented successes. However, UNESCO’s imperative that personalized instruction is a fundamental human right, has no expiration date. The report issued a clear call to action:  “A massive shift in mindset is needed in which education must play a key role. We must unlearn many of our current practices; practices that have been shaped over three centuries by education systems designed for an industrial age.”

The infusion of federal dollars over the past several years effectively freed school leaders in the US from having to make difficult budgetary choices. The challenge now is rethinking their budgets and investing in what works. District school leaders may argue that it’s easier said than done to change the way schools are staffed and how students spend their time during the school day. It doesn’t require an extraordinary injection of new dollars to continue to provide students with individualized instruction. It simply takes a commitment to making high-dosage tutoring a regular line item in annual public school budgets.

The old industrial model of K-12 education, where kids are seen as interchangeable widgets on an assembly line that moves at 60-minute intervals triggered by the ringing of a bell, is no longer useful or relevant. Research is clear: every kid learns at a different pace and in a different way. The best way to reach them is by tailoring lessons individually. Every school board has a chance to make tutoring a fundamental right for every learner, not an entitlement only for the privileged or a stop-gap measure to make up for instructional time lost during a global health crisis. 

Michael Thomas Duffy is president of the GO Tutors Corps, a nonprofit with a mission to provide public school students with access to quality education through high-dosage tutoring.