Accelerate unveiled a new national grant opportunity, offering funding and strategic support to help states scale high-impact tutoring programs within their public schools. State education agencies and nonprofits with a statewide education focus are eligible to apply for $1 million from the States Leading Recovery grant program. Funding will enable states to build capacity, to develop statewide goals and frameworks for tutoring, and to offer subgrants and guidance to school districts to adopt high-impact tutoring during the school day in school year 2023-2024. Delivery models may be in-person, virtual, hybrid, or fully tech-enabled.
“We as a nation have an urgent moral obligation to help students recover learning lost during the pandemic, especially while school districts still have two years to use federal Covid-relief funding,” said Kevin Huffman, CEO of Accelerate. “High-impact tutoring can be a powerful tool to catch kids up and close racial and economic achievement gaps, but only if we can find innovative ways to make effective tutoring widely available to the students with the highest needs.”
The positive effects of tutoring on student achievement are well-documented, but significant hurdles exist to making it widely available — especially for the students who would benefit most. States and statewide-focused nonprofits can help close opportunity gaps by setting statewide focus areas, encouraging adoption of evidence-based tutoring providers, building model state regulatory frameworks, and offering implementation support to ensure that students receive targeted, individualized instruction.
“It’s rare to find a community in America where all or even most students who would benefit from tutoring have access to it, but that should be the norm,” said Accelerate Chief Strategy Officer Naeha Dean. “States are uniquely positioned to help districts solve the challenge of scaling tutoring and accelerating students’ academic recovery. This grant program is designed to support states in expanding the effective use of high-impact tutoring during the school day, particularly for students in historically underserved communities.”
Grantees will be required to provide a $1 million match via public funds or philanthropy and meet the following requirements:
- Identify a statewide focus area – content area and grade span – where tutoring will be promoted for in-school adoption in SY2023-24.
- Identify a list of eligible school districts, charter management organizations, and/or charter schools based on student assessment data.
- Offer subgrants to these districts to enable the adoption of high-impact tutoring during the school day.
- Develop criteria for eligible tutoring models and list of models that meet this criteria;
- Ease adoption for districts via implementation guidance and other support, e.g., scheduling, statewide professional development, statewide procurement.
- Participate in research to gauge the impact of tutoring, with Accelerate’s support.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit as early as possible, but may apply anytime before the final deadline of March 1, 2023.
For more information about the grant process and to view the application, visit the organization’s website at accelerate.us.
About Accelerate
Accelerate is a nonprofit organization, incubated and launched by the national nonprofit America Achieves, that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs into public schools now and for the long term. Launched in April 2022 with an initial fund of $65 million, Accelerate funds and supports innovation in schools, launches high-quality research, and advances a federal and state policy agenda to support this work. For more information, visit http://www.accelerate.us.