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Attend and achieve: Can high-impact tutoring boost student attendance?
Five years after the onset of the pandemic, schools continue to combat pandemic-era learning loss and chronic absenteeism. One evidence-based method to expedite learning recovery is high-impact tutoring. While much has been said about the positive impact of tutoring on student achievement levels, little has been conveyed about its impact on student absenteeism. A June 2025 study helps to fill this void.
A Stanford research team used student-level attendance data collected in Washington, D.C. during the 2022–23 school year. That year saw the implementation of the High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) Initiative, which funded tutoring providers across D.C. Public Schools (DCPS). The initiative aimed to expand access to high-impact English and math tutoring for K–12 at-risk students in DC schools, prioritizing those with the greatest academic needs (i.e., students who scored in the bottom two levels of math and ELA standardized assessments in the previous year). The team compared student absences on days with and without scheduled tutoring, controlling for student demographics and variations in the time and day the tutoring took place. Student and date fixed effects are included in the models to control for unobserved student characteristics and day-specific factors that may influence attendance on a scheduled tutoring day. Overall, the findings provide strong evidence that scheduled high-impact tutoring sessions help improve student attendance.
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Unlocking Apprenticeship Opportunities for Tutors
| Partnership for Student Success
Provide Feedback Through July 23rd! Draft National Guideline Standards for Tutor Apprenticeship Programs
As tutoring programs grow, evolve, and seek to diversify their funding sources, there is a promising opportunity to align with state workforce systems and apprenticeship pathways, expanding the support and recognition available for this work.
To help realize this potential, the Partnership for Student Success, the New Jersey Tutoring Corps, the National Student Support Accelerator and the Pathways Alliance drafted a set of National Guideline Standards (NGS) for registered tutor apprenticeship programs. The draft standards are now available for public comment through July 23rd.
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How Stanford is advancing responsible AI
New program empowers educational decision-makers to dream big
The SCALE Initiative is using research-driven insights to address key educational challenges, with generative AI and tutoring among the priorities. “What I’m really excited about, and I think is essential for us doing our work well, is balancing being that trusted source for education leaders on what we know works, while also holding an aspirational vision for what this technology can unlock.”
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High school redesign, dropping enrollment’s silver lining plus more budget miscellany
| EdSource
More districts are also indicating interest in high-impact tutoring, with additional research showing its effectiveness. Along with providing districts with a free, step-by-step guide and counseling for setting up a program, Stanford University-based National Student Support Accelerator is cosponsoring an effort for 40 California districts to design their own tutoring programs over the next year (go here for information on signing up).
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How a Tutor’s Gender Affects Girls’ Interest in STEM
Tutoring has become a popular intervention for schools grappling with stagnant academic achievement.
A large body of evidence demonstrates that high-impact, high-dosage tutoring can effectively move the needle on student academic outcomes.
Now, a new study from Stanford University is adding to that body of research, finding that pairing girls with female math tutors increases the students’ STEM interest and improves their academic performance in math.
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High-Dosage Tutoring Should Be Here to Stay
Alan Safran is the CEO and co-founder of Saga Education, which helps states and districts with tutoring best practices. Susanna Loeb is the founder and executive director of the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University and a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
American parents care deeply about their local schools and are committed to improving education. That’s because Americans know that education plays a crucial role in shaping our children’s future. So the ultimate question is not “should we improve public schools” but “how”?
While the news headlines about the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress felt grim, bright spots bucked the national trends in exciting and promising ways and beg for our attention. These bright spots point us in the right direction, if we’re willing to learn from them.
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Districts still have learning recovery money: Why not spend it on tutoring?
| EdSource
“Lots of other states have helped push tutoring along more than California has. I’m really optimistic that in some ways, it (California) can be a leader, because we’ve learned so much that they could really do it more effectively immediately than we could right at the beginning,” said Susanna Loeb, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education as well as the founder and executive director of the National Student Support Accelerator.
Loeb sees an opportunity for California to jump-start the state’s laggard performance on state and national achievement assessments, especially in early literacy, by creating a second or “Western” wave of tutoring.
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Deliver Results with High-Impact Tutoring
| The National Association of Elementary School Principals
In recent years, “high-impact” tutoring has emerged as a central strategy in the principal’s toolbox for addressing students’ academic needs. As elementary and middle school principals, you might have heard about this approach from district leaders, media, or even students’ families.
But what exactly makes this intervention so powerful? And why should it be integrated into your school’s efforts to support the whole child and close learning gaps?
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NSSA 2025 Conference - Scaling High-Impact Tutoring: Uniting Research and Decision Making for Effective Solutions
| National Student Support Accelerator
We are thrilled to host this annual National Student Support Accelerator event “Scaling High-Impact Tutoring: Uniting Research and Decision Making for Effective Solutions.” It's a big title—but it's exactly what we’re here to do—unite research and decision making.
This conference is a moment I look forward to all year. It’s not just a gathering of experts, educators, policymakers, and innovators. It’s a community that shares a commitment to improving student outcomes, and a belief in one of the most promising, evidence-based strategies in K-12 education today: #highimpacttutoring.
Just a few years ago, we were asking, ‘Can this even work?’—tutoring during the school day for those who need it most. Today, we know the answer is yes. Now, we get to ask, 'How do we make it even better and for more students in more schools?’
Think about where we were four years ago when we knew students could benefit from high-impact tutoring, but we weren’t so sure we could get beneficial programs to students at scale.
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