Education Week - November 23, 2022 - 5

ing: The amount of time students
spend in school varies greatly
across the United States, depending
on state laws on the minimum
number of days or hours of instruction.
States can do more on their
own to increase students' time on
task, some researchers note.
Students in states including
Alaska and Florida are only required
to attend 900 hours of
classes per year. In Maryland, the
minimum number of instructional
hours is 1,170.
That means that high school
graduates in Maryland will have
been required to attend about 160
more days of instruction in high
school than their peers in Florida
and Alaska, according to recent
research from Matt Kraft, an associate
professor of education
and economics at Brown University
and Sarah Novicoff, a graduate
student in education policy at
Stanford University.
In their paper, they suggested
the states with instructional requirements
below the national
average of 180 days should raise
them to more closely align with
others.
" Minimum learning time requirements
are blunt instruments,
but they offer a feasible top-down
policy reform that is within the
control of policymakers and district
leaders, " the paper said. " The
available evidence suggests that
these efforts would benefit millions
of U.S. students. "
Extended learning shows
promise
No matter how schools and districts
add time, how they use it
matters.
Muri, in Ector County, said districts
should focus on creating
rigorous programs and opportunities
to fill the extra time that are
engaging and interactive. Ideally,
they're different than experiences
students would get in the traditional
school year.
The Ector County district emphasizes
STEM activities during
the full-day program, which has
been a big hit with students.
" They want to be there and it's
certainly enriching and helpful
to them, as opposed to the traditional
summer school in which we
saw zero effect, " Muri said, adding
that when students who participate
take the MAP test at the
end of the summer, results show
they generally have experienced
no " summer slide " and often have
made notable progress.
That progress is enough to make
him want the program to continue.
Many districts can use federal
COVID aid dollars to implement
extended learning opportunities,
but want it to continue beyond 2024,
when the funds expire.
Armed with data showing it benefits
students, Muri said he plans to
lobby state lawmakers for funding.
" These things that have yielded
results, " he said, " those are the
things that we have to figure out how
to continue. "
WHAT THE
RESEARCH SAYS
Are Students Using
Intensive Tutoring?
What National
Data Show
By Sarah D. Sparks
Intensive tutoring is considered one of the
most effective ways to help students quickly
make up lost academic ground. That's why
the intervention has drawn millions in private
funding and become a keystone of many federal
and state plans to counter pandemic-related
learning loss in math and reading.
Yet new national data from the National
Assessment of Educational Progress suggest
students may not yet be receiving the kind and
intensity of tutoring to really get them back on
track academically.
" Tutor and then tutor again, " said Peggy Carr,
the commissioner of the National Center for
Education Statistics, which administers NAEP.
Her remarks came last month as she unveiled
national assessment results that showed the
pandemic had taken a huge bite out of students'
academic progress, with student scores in math
dropping back to levels not seen in decades.
" You can't just give lip service to high-dose
tutoring or double-dose tutoring, " Carr
continued, " you have to know what you're
doing. So the training needs to be there. "
Prior research suggests that to be most
effective, tutoring should be " high dose, " or
multiple sessions per week, and involve 1-to-1
or very small groups of students. The tutor
also should assess and support the skill each
student needs to develop in order to access
and keep up with grade-level content in a
particular subject.
Surveys conducted in spring 2019, before the
start of the pandemic, and in spring 2022, with
the latest NAEP administration, asked both
whether students attended schools that offer
teacher-led tutoring during the school day,
and how often students participate in tutoring
outside of the school day, such as in after-school
programs. The 2022 survey finds significantly
fewer 4th and 8th graders now attend schools
that offer teacher-led tutoring in math. For
example, 5 percentage points fewer 4th and 8th
graders attend schools that offer teacher-led
tutoring in math during the school day.
And fewer students in either grade said they
participate in intensive tutoring in math outside
of the normal school day in 2022, compared to
2019. For example, 14 percent of 4th graders
in 2022 said they receive math tutoring outside
of school time at least once or twice a week-
down from 16 percent in 2019. And the share of
4th graders who never got math tutoring rose
from 60 percent to 62 percent during the same
time. Reading was a bit better: the share of 4th
graders receiving at least weekly tutoring rose
since 2019, while the share at 8th grade held flat.
Prior to the pandemic, intensive tutoring had
been largely a voluntary activity outside the
school day, often offered in partnership with
community groups or paid privately by parents.
But researchers and policymakers have been
pushing for more tutoring to be done within
the school day and aligned more directly with
school curriculum and student needs.
For example, President Biden pledged
to leverage the AmeriCorps to bring in an
additional 250,000 new tutors and mentors to
U.S. schools during the next three years, and
a coalition of education foundations called
Accelerate has raised more than $65 million to
build tutoring capacity and training in school
districts.
Amanda Neitzel, assistant professor for the
Center for Research and Reform in Education
at Johns Hopkins University, which studies
tutoring interventions in schools, said that
while many tutoring initiatives nationwide
happen outside of the school day, these rely
on family support and engagement, and,
" participation in these initiatives can be
shockingly low and inconsistent, " Neitzel said.
CRRE and other research groups launched
the Proven Tutoring initiative during the
pandemic, which works with districts to
identify evidence-based tutoring programs and
train teachers to incorporate intensive tutoring
into the school day.
" Tutoring outside the school day can also
exacerbate inequities because anything
outside of school is voluntary, and the students
who need it the most may have barriers to
participation, " said Neitzel and Jen Krajewski,
director of outreach and engagement at
Proven Tutoring, in an email.
There are challenges to scaling high-quality,
school-day tutoring, Neitzel said. Smallgroup
and 1-to-1 pullout tutoring sessions
can be difficult to schedule around wholeclass
instruction in the core subjects. Space
also becomes tight when a third or more of
students perform below even basic level in
math and reading.
Neitzel and Carr both voiced concern that,
with schools already fighting to hire enough
teachers for regular math and reading classes,
hiring, training, and retaining qualified tutors
has become tough for schools and outside
providers alike.
Even in schools offering tutoring through
the school or partner organizations, families
often don't know about the resources available
for their children-or don't realize how far
behind their children are, said Anna King,
the president of the National Parent Teacher
Association. In a survey earlier this year,
National PTA found only 46 percent of parents
reported that their child's teacher had talked
with them about a plan to correct their child's
learning loss. And, she said, most parents don't
know that federal recovery funding can be
used to support intensive tutoring for students
who are behind academically.
" We can't live in our silos and think that
everything is going to be OK. We actually
have to have honest, tough discussions, and
we have to empower and engage our families,
our parents, and our guardians, " King said.
" Parents and teachers need the space to
have a direct conversation about student
performance, what that looks like. "
Sandi White, a senior vice president of
institutional partnerships at the for-profit
Tutor.com/The Princeton Review, said online
tutoring demand doubled from 2020 to 2021,
and increased by 2.5 times from 2021 to this
year. The company now holds webinars for
teachers and principals and trains teachers
in how to model for students connecting and
working with tutors.
" We know that seeking help is hard, so
facilitating easy access to tutoring is key for
getting students to connect for support, " White
said in an email.
Neitzel and Krajewski recommended that
districts create a structure for high-dose
tutoring in and out of school, including:
* Use an evidence-based model for the
tutoring intervention.
* Ensure teachers or outside tutors are
trained to implement a tutoring program and
align it to the school's curriculum.
* Where possible, embed tutors into a
school's daily schedule rather than asking
students to be tutored outside of school.
* Partner with outside groups to help
disseminate information and deliver tutoring
sessions.
* Monitor students' progress, including
having a " tutoring team " to serve as a liaison
between teachers and outside tutors.
ONLINE DATA: (How Do Students Get
Intensive Tutoring?) See data
visualizations comparing 2019 and 2022
online.
From remote learning for young children to playground infection risks, schooling under the pandemic is raising a lot of questions for teachers and education leaders. This
research column aims to help readers understand what the research says-and doesn't say-about our new context for learning. If you have a question, please send it to
ssparks@educationweek.org.
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Education Week - November 23, 2022

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