Expanding Access to Tutors: Nonprofit Grants $6 Million to 32 Learning Organizations Across 20 States to Help More Students

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Tutoring nonprofit Accelerate today announced millions of dollars in new grants to a diverse mix of 32 “innovative” providers working to “make high-impact tutoring sustainable and cost-effective” across the country. 

Thursday’s grants, totaling $6 million, add to a growing number of commitments from the outfit that was incubated and launched by the nonprofit America Achieves in the spring of 2022 to confront the educational impact of the pandemic. 

Last month the organization announced five “States Leading Recovery” grants, each in the amount of $1 million, providing funds to Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana and Ohio to bolster state education agencies’ efforts to rapidly develop and scale tutoring programs with the aim of making “tutoring a standard part of the American school day.” Previously in November, Accelerate also announced $10 million in grants to 31 groups to make tutoring more accessible and affordable. 

Accelerate’s mission extends beyond tutoring programming to funding more research around implementation and best practices. In a launch essay penned by Accelerate CEO Kevin Huffman and Executive Chair Janice Jackson and published exclusively by The 74 on April, 19, 2022, the duo wrote about Accelerate’s urgent focus on getting more tutoring to more students more quickly in more effective ways: “The nation’s public schools will spend billions of dollars over the next two school years on tutoring and personalized learning in the effort to catch students up. It is critical that these resources both help those who desperately need support today and build a base of knowledge that will change how schools operate moving forward. This can be accomplished only through a commitment to innovation, research and efficient sharing of lessons learned. We are hopeful that Accelerate can help fill this role.”

Research was also a component of Thursday’s announcement, with Accelerate noting that “every grantee will engage in research during the 2023-2024 school year, and ten grantees will participate in an Accelerate-funded research.” 

Below is Thursday’s full release on the 32 programs receiving either $150,000 “Innovation” grants or $250,000 “Promise” grants: 

Today’s grants come from Accelerate’s Call to Effective Action program, which supports innovation, research, and implementation in the tutoring field in order to help expand access to high-impact tutoring and raise student achievement. Grantees are working in 20 states across the country. 

“The evidence behind tutoring as an intervention is strong and the field is making tremendous progress, but we still need more providers with a proven track record that can also scale,” said Accelerate CEO Kevin Huffman. “Before the federal pandemic relief dollars dry up, we have an opportunity – and a responsibility – to identify these providers and ensure they are able to deliver cost-effective programs and present evidence that they get results for kids.”

A recent Tyton Partners survey finds that many districts intend to continue investing in tutoring after ESSER funding expires. However, teachers today are stretched thin as they continue to address pandemic-era learning gaps. High-impact tutoring must be made classroom-ready and easy to implement to fulfill its promise as an intervention. For these grants, Accelerate prioritized tutoring providers that are using technology to reduce barriers to individualized instruction; identifying untapped sources of potential tutors such as paraprofessionals or college students; aligning tutoring content with high-quality instructional materials; and/or designing programming to serve particular groups of students such as multi-language learners, students with disabilities, and those in rural settings.

All Call to Effective Action grantees have shown a commitment to developing and scaling research-backed tutoring models that improve outcomes for all students, especially those in historically underserved communities. Grantees have been selected for one of two grant tracks, Innovation Grants or Promise Grants. High-potential tutoring models that do not yet have preliminary or early-stage evidence of impact on student outcomes received Innovation Grants of up to $150,000 each to support program development, implementation, and data collection. Established tutoring models with evidence of scalability and positive student outcomes received Promise Grants of up to $250,000 each to support program implementation to further develop the respective model’s evidence base. 

Every grantee will engage in research during the 2023-2024 school year, and ten grantees will participate in an Accelerate-funded research cohort led by J-PAL North America, a regional office of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As a part of this cohort, organizations will be matched with a researcher in the J-PAL network, attend trainings on key evaluation concepts, and receive support to run high-quality randomized evaluations. 

“Every student deserves the resources and opportunities to be successful in school,” said NYC Public Schools Chancellor David C. Banks. “We are so honored to receive this grant, which will greatly expand access to high impact tutoring for students at over 80 New York City public schools.” 

“Amplify Tutoring is honored to be a second year recipient of an Accelerate grant,” said Alanna Phelan, Vice President of Tutoring at Amplify. “This partnership will enable us to further build our evidence base as we continue to scale and innovate on our high-impact tutoring solutions that strengthen reading outcomes for students nationwide. We are excited to contribute to research about how effective tutoring can be transformative for young scholars.” 

“The Call to Effective Action grant will help Joyful Readers serve more than 1,000 Philadelphia elementary students through our high-impact AmeriCorps reading tutoring program in the 23-24 school year,” said David Weinstein, Founder & Executive Director of Joyful Readers. “We’re grateful to Accelerate for this grant and excited to partner with national experts in the field to improve our implementation, evaluation, and ultimately, our student outcomes. Being recognized by a national leader like Accelerate validates the hard work of our staff, AmeriCorps tutors, and school and district partners.” 

The grantees of the 2023 Call to Effective Action program are, in alphabetical order:

100 Black Men of Metro Baton Rouge

Air Education

Amplify

Bamboo Learning

Bay Area Tutoring Association

District of Columbia Public Schools

Elevate Birmingham and Leaders of Excellence

FEV Tutor

Heart Math Tutoring

Ignite! Reading

Illuminate Literacy

Intervene K-12

Joyful Readers

JUMP Math

KIPP Indy

Littera Education Inc

New York City Public Schools (The Fund for Public Schools)

Oko Labs

Once

OnYourMark Education

Peer Teach

READ USA, Inc.

Reading Futures

Reading Partners

Saga Education

Southeast Community Foundation

The Literacy Lab

Third Space Learning

Trustees of Boston University

Tutored by Teachers

Values to Action

Zearn

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to both Accelerate and The 74.

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