|
 |
The Hechinger Report
This math tutoring program gets ‘blockbuster’ results in high-poverty schools
In one year, ninth-graders learn two to three times as much math as their peers
By Tara Garcia Mathewson
January 29, 2020
The world’s wealthiest families have known for centuries how effective
tutoring is. Private tutors long educated the aristocracy and continue
to supplement the education of kids whose families can afford it. Now,
a national nonprofit has found a way to get tutoring to kids from
poorer families, too. And researchers have a growing body of evidence
showing it’s incredibly effective.
Saga Education embeds tutoring into the school day. The nonprofit
focuses on ninth grade math, a strong predictor of later success.
Students who fail algebra in ninth grade are much more likely to drop
out of school altogether, making it a particularly important time to
get kids on track.
Recent college graduates, working as Americorps members, serve as
Saga’s tutors. They work with two students at a time in a special class
that follows a Saga Education curriculum tailored to the needs of each
student and aligned with their school’s curriculum for their
traditional math class. Tutors collaborate with a school’s math
teachers and work with the same kids every day, all school year,
offering a chance for tutors to form bonds with the students and
capitalize on the benefits of mentorship along with the extra math
instruction. Tutors, few of whom went to school for teaching or math,
are trained on both the academic and relationship-building aspects of
their jobs with two coaching sessions per week and daily informal
observations that inform the coaching.
The results are, as one researcher puts it, “blockbuster.”
A randomized controlled trial out of the University of Chicago
Education Lab found students who received the tutoring class during the
2013-14 school year learned as much as two additional years’ worth of
math than their peers who didn’t get the tutoring. The study assigned
2,718 boys in ninth and 10th grade across 12 schools either to get the
tutoring or not. Those with a tutor also improved their math GPAs by
half a letter grade and performed far better on standardized tests – 20
percent better – because of the tutoring. The program led to half as
many math course failures among students who participated and led to
almost one-third fewer course failures in other subjects, showing
impressive spillover effects.
Monica Bhatt, senior research director of the U Chicago Education Lab,
said results for kids in ninth and 10th grade during the 2014-15 school
year are even more impressive. Those results will be published in a
forthcoming paper. Bhatt, who has spent 15 years in education policy
research, said the findings offer a counterpoint to those who argue it
is too difficult and expensive to change the academic trajectories of
teenagers.
“There’s this idea that you should invest in early childhood and that’s
it,” Bhatt said. “We’re seeing even by ninth grade, effects aren’t
fixed.”
At this point, the model, which serves about 3,500 kids in around two
dozen schools in Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., costs
about $3,100 per student per year, according to Antonio Gutierrez, a
co-founder of the nonprofit. For context, average education spending in
the United States in 2017 was $12,201 per pupil, ranging from a low of
$7,179 in Utah to a high of $23,091 in New York, according to U.S.
Census Bureau data.
So far, schools have paid for the tutoring with a mix of Title I
dollars – earmarked by the federal government to cover the extra costs
of serving students in poverty – and philanthropy.
Besides studying outcomes for the original model, where one tutor works
with two kids at a time, University of Chicago Education Lab
researchers are studying whether the impressive effects hold out when
each tutor works with four students. In that program design, a tutor
still works directly with only two kids at a time, monitoring the other
two students while they work through math content online. Each day, the
tutor switches which students work on a computer and which work with
the adult.
Researchers have also conducted a small pilot with first grade reading
classes, finding the tutoring model leads to significant gains on
standardized test scores for students who participate. And Bhatt’s team
designed a study to assess how effectively the program can scale up,
given the additional complications that come with having to find more
tutors and run a larger program. Results of those studies should be
public in the next year or so.
Long-term, Gutierrez hopes that Saga Education will not simply work
with more and more schools, but provide a model for schools all over
the country to adopt in-house. That would create the systemic impact
the nonprofit wants – a prospect that excites Bhatt, who has now been
studying the model for several years and knows its promise,
particularly in a field with too few ideas for how to close achievement
gaps for older kids.
“If we are serious about reducing disparities in kids’ educational
trajectories, we have to think about interventions we can apply later
in life, because we know disparities grow as kids go through the school
system and we have to ensure the interventions are not just effective,
but incredibly effective if there’s any hope of closing disparities,”
Bhatt said.
Based on the effects of the tutoring program she has seen so far, Bhatt
expects Saga Education’s model can close test score gaps between black
and white students by 20 to 50 percent. The question now is how to get
that model to the kids who need it all over the country.
|
|
|
|
