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Help your state get on the tutoring bandwagon

“Virginia is launching a statewide high-dosage tutoring effort called All in VA, part of a $418 million package of academic recovery measures,” reports Maureen Kelleher for The 74. “The Virginia Department of Education recommends that districts put 70% of those funds toward tutoring and plans to award contracts to Ignite Reading and Zearn to provide tutoring in reading and math, respectively.”

“The plan was announced after statewide SOL scores showed little to no improvement from the year before and a continued lag behind pre-pandemic levels,” Karina Elwood writes in her report for the Washington Post. “It applies to any students who failed or were identified as being at risk of failing, defined as any student scoring under 400 on their math or reading SOLs. Educators anticipate that in some districts more than half of the students in grades three through eight will qualify for tutoring under the guidance.”

It is a bold bet on tutoring that follows similar efforts in Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee to make tutoring the norm rather than the exception for struggling students.

It comes at a time when evidence is mounting on just how effective tutoring can be as a recovery strategy. “Young children learning to read made significant progress after participating in a high-dosage virtual tutoring program, according to new research released Wednesday,” Linda Jacobson reports in an article for the 74. “The evaluation, conducted in 12 Texas elementary schools as part of the Uplift Education charter network, found that over 1,000 K-2 students in the program scored higher on literacy tests than students without the extra support. The results translated into 26 extra days of learning in letter sounds for kindergartners and 55 extra days on decoding for first graders with a one-on-one tutor.”

With the fiscal cliff of federal dollars approaching, the time is now to prioritize spending on programs getting results.

Help more blue cities jump on the direct funding bandwagon

Fifteen years ago Ben Austin burst onto the education advocacy scene when he launched Parent Revolution. The group went on to invent and pass into law California’s landmark parent trigger law, which empowers parents to transform failing schools through community organizing. Ben eventually raised more than $20 million to bring this model to multiple states and drove a new conversation in ed reform about what kind of structural changes are needed to put parents and their kids in the driver’s seat.

Now he is back with another bold idea as the founder and CEO of Education Civil Rights Now, a national non-profit seeking to enshrine the right to a high quality education in state constitutions. Last week this initiative won the “Power to the People” award at the annual PIE Network conference. “It’s an honor to be on a journey to unrig education for kids, especially with so many leaders in the PIE and 50CAN families,” Ben told us. “We need to be working to adjust the underlying physics of politics so that politicians have the desire to put the needs of kids first.”

The genesis of Education Civil Rights Now came during the height of the pandemic. Ben explained: “The LAUSD closed our schools for longer than most major districts, my two daughters didn’t go to school for a year and a half. As a result, parents in the district sued to open all schools. When the district responded, they said the quiet part out loud in their legal briefs. They said, ‘Parents don’t have the right to a high-quality education – only a free one.’”

The big swing for ECRN over the next several months is in California, where the team is working with LA Mayor Antonio Villagrosa to qualify for a public ballot initiative, guaranteeing a right to a high-quality education in the state constitution. “That work is at a critical juncture right now,” Ben noted, “We’re about halfway towards raising the money needed for this initiative, and hope to make more progress next year.”

Key Resources

Chalkbeat reports that while Michigan chronic absenteeism numbers have fallen eight points since last year, the rate is still over 30% compared to 19% before the pandemic.

A new article from Brookings busts three myths about teacher agency, including that teacher training will automatically lead to teacher skill development or improvement.

Fordham Institute discusses the costs and benefits of grade retention, finding that retention works best when done in elementary grades.

Brookings examines urban summer programming like Philadelphia’s Playstreets, finding that the programs have potential to engage students in a way traditional summer school does not.

South Carolina, Tennessee, Iowa and Mississippi are all making major progress in learning loss recovery due to the science of reading, The 74 Million reports.

The Journal of Pediatrics is out with a new study that suggests declining mental health in children is connected to a decline in independent activities such as free play without the supervision of a parent or teacher.

Urban Institute identifies that public spending on kids is expected to decline over the next year and offers a discussion of what’s at stake.

A new analysis by Eric Hanushek in Education Next concludes that students who experienced Covid school closures are on track to have 6 percent lower earnings over their lifetime.

PNAS Nexus, a journal of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that people who exhibit toxic behavior when discussing politics online are also likely to exhibit the same toxic behavior even when discussing nonpolitical topics in nonpartisan contexts.