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Some students get tutoring but end up as ‘intervention lifers.’ This common sense tactic could help
Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator’s review of tutoring research notes that alignment seems like it would be good practice but doesn’t have a strong research base. Jackson, research manager at the Center for Outcomes Based Contracting, said she wanted to address that gap with a randomized controlled trial.
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From Hype to Evidence: The Data on AI and Learning
| ASU News
Hale said that according to an ASU survey of 1,000 undergraduates, students are using AI as a 2 a.m. study buddy, to build flashcards and even design their own bots.
Loeb noted that concerns about using AI to cheat is the wrong thing to be focused on, and that assignments can be tailored to reduce the risk.
"I do think we have to change how we're thinking about it and give assignments where you learn. It's gotten so easy to create badly designed assignments that we have to change that," Loeb said.
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Anthropic hires Sofia Wilson to support K-12 AI expansion in US schools
Anthropic has appointed Sofia Wilson to support its US K-12 education initiatives, as the company increases its focus on deploying AI tools in schools and education systems.
Wilson announced the move in a LinkedIn post, where she said: “This week I joined Anthropic to support our US K-12 education initiatives. Our goal is to ensure every kid has access to a world-class education, regardless of zip code.”
She joins Anthropic’s Beneficial Deployments team, where she will work on expanding access to AI in education and supporting implementation across schools, educators, and partners. The move signals continued activity from AI providers in positioning their tools within formal education settings, particularly in the US K-12 sector.
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Virtual tutoring studies offer hope for early literacy outcomes
High-dosage virtual 1:1 tutoring programs analyzed in two university-led studies found significant gains for young students’ reading skills.
Dive Brief:
- Struggling readers in Missouri’s Kansas City Public Schools showed statistically significant gains in literacy outcomes when virtual high-impact tutoring was used within a multi-tiered system of support framework, a study from Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator found.
- Using 1:1 teacher-led virtual tutoring program in early literacy, the study analyzed data from 1,550 students across 14 elementary schools in grades 1-4. Students who scored “well below” grade level on benchmark assessments at the start of the 2024-25 school year particularly benefited.
- Participating students also saw significantly higher gains in annual typical growth (10.84 percentage points) and annual stretch growth (5.24 percentage points) on the i-Ready reading assessment.
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The Case for Reading Tutoring Before 3rd Grade, Not After
Tutoring has been the focus of learning-recovery initiatives following the pandemic, but many districts have struggled to sustain the labor-intensive and expensive intervention after federal recovery grants ended, and others have seen minimal effects from the programs, largely due to implementation challenges. That reality has pushed districts to reconsider not just whether tutoring works, but when it works best.
Emerging evidence on Ignite Reading and similar programs suggests virtual tutoring can be as effective as in-person tutoring at filling basic literacy skills gaps, though not always less costly. The nonprofit National Student Support Accelerator, which studies tutoring models, estimates high-intensity in-person tutoring programs typically cost $1,000 to $3,000 per student, with some programs topping $4,000 per student. Ignite Reading averages $2,500 per student, including technology and staff support.
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Lessons That Are Shaping Our 2026 Learning Agenda
Artificial Intelligence: To what degree can AI cost-effectively advance student or teacher outcomes?
While AI has the potential to improve student outcomes, the rapid proliferation of AI tools in education has outpaced the evidence base. The most recent EdTech Insiders Generative AI Map, funded by Overdeck Family Foundation, identifies more than 300 AI tools and use cases for the edtech community—signaling sizable growth from even a few months earlier. Encouragingly, EdTech Insiders has launched a partnership with Stanford SCALE to apply a shared taxonomy that documents emerging evidence, which now features more than 1,000 studies. To date, evidence most consistently supports administrative and planning use cases for AI in education, with far less conclusive findings for elementary and middle school student-facing outcomes. These findings suggest the need for funders to build the evidence base and support disciplined experimentation, which we’re excited to do in 2026.
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New Research Strengthens Case for Virtual Tutoring
| The 74
In Massachusetts, first graders who spent 15 minutes a day online with a tutor from Ignite Reading stayed on track a year later without additional tutoring, according to data shared exclusively with The 74. Students gained, on average, at least five additional months of learning over their expected growth.
Another virtual program, Hoot Reading, produced positive results in the Kansas City, Missouri, schools. Students who received one-on-one tutoring from certified teachers made greater progress than those who didn’t receive the extra help, new data shows.
“Virtual models are getting stronger,” said Amanda Neitzel, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of the Ignite Reading study. “If you go back just a few years, we had no examples of evidence-proven models and now we are getting them.”
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COVID Relief Funds are Gone, But More States Commit to High-Impact Tutoring
| The 74
In late 2024, Susanna Loeb, one of the nation’s leading researchers on tutoring, had doubts about the future of a field she’s worked hard to advance.
Over $120 billion in federal COVID relief funds were expiring, leaving school leaders and tutoring providers uncertain whether programs would continue. The incoming administration was focused on slashing Department of Education spending, not issuing new grants.
“We didn’t know if this administration would put anything into education,” said Loeb, a Stanford University professor who studies tutoring programs. “We were worried that all of the experimentation that had been going on and that access to tutoring would drop precipitously.”
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