by PRP Group, on 11/14/2022
Insights is a SmartBrief Education Originals column that features perspectives from noted experts and leaders in education on the hot-button issues affecting schools and districts. All contributors are selected by the SmartBrief Education editorial team.
It’s not often that teachers and administrators form near-universal consensus on any topic, but since catching its breath after the chaotic first weeks of school closures, the collective voice of educators has spoken clearly: tutoring! Tutoring is what students need to address the effects of the pandemic.
Over a dozen states have launched tutoring initiatives. Some, like Texas, have gone so far as to mandate that schools provide tutoring to certain students. Scores of school districts, whether large ones like Los Angeles Unified or small ones like East Ramapo, N.Y., have initiated their own efforts to bring large-scale tutoring to students.
It’s not hard to understand why tutoring is having such a moment, especially since it’s free of the education jargon that sometimes gets attached to other types of interventions. Pretty much everyone quickly imagines a student getting regular help, in a one-on-one or small group setting, from someone with training and expertise. What’s not to like about that?