Just before winter break, a tutor I work with in Akron Public Schools stated what had become soberingly obvious based upon students’ December test results: “In order to work with all the third, fourth and fifth graders who need to get to grade level, we have to sacrifice our time with first and second graders. There’re just not enough of us.”
Nationwide, the longer schools were 100% remote during the COVID-19 pandemic, the farther behind students in those districts fell. Tutors like myself are tasked with teaching grade-level skills such as multiplication and division to fourth and fifth graders (they were kindergartners and first graders when APS was remote) who have yet to master addition and subtraction.
Disparities among affluent and poorer districts had been slowly shrinking in the years before the pandemic. Those gains were vaporized in schools that remained closed to in-person learning longterm. Many students fell a year or more behind in both math and reading.
Intensive, small-group tutoring has proven an effective tool to help kids get to grade level, which is why the federal government, and many states, have invested in it. But not all tutoring is equally beneficial.