In response to the Notice 2025-70 published by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the implementation of Section 25F enacted through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, Accelerate filed a comment responding to the questions raised in the notice.
FEDERAL COMMENT LETTER
Re: Notice 2025-70 – Request for Comments on Implementation of §25F Scholarship Granting Organizations
Submitted to: Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury
Submitted by: Accelerate: The National Collaborative for Accelerated Learning
Docket Reference: Notice 2025-70
I. Introduction
We appreciate the opportunity to provide comment in response to Notice 2025-70, which seeks input on the implementation of §25F of the Internal Revenue Code, enacted under §70411 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Pub. L. 119-21. As Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) prepare preliminary guidance and future proposed regulations, particularly those relating to state certification requirements (Notice §3.03), SGO operational requirements (Notice §§2.03–2.04), reporting and recordkeeping (Notice §4.05), and multistate organizational issues (Notice §4.02), we respectfully submit the following comments.
Congressional intent for §25F is clear: to expand access to qualified elementary and secondary education expenses (§25F(c)(4)), including “academic tutoring,” in both public and private educational settings. As Treasury considers implementation, we urge the agency to maintain this broad statutory intent while ensuring that SGOs and states adopt verification mechanisms strong enough to prevent the quality, oversight, and compliance failures seen in past supplemental education programs—notably Supplemental Educational Services (SES) under No Child Left Behind, which multiple large-scale studies found supported low-quality providers, weak monitoring, and little or no academic impact.
High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) is the most effective student intervention currently known in American education. This conclusion is not theoretical—it is grounded in an unprecedented national investment of more than $7.5 billion in pandemic-era recovery funding, which produced hundreds of state and district implementations and a growing body of rigorous evaluations. Across these studies, the strongest and most consistent gains in student learning come from well-designed HIT programs.
HIT is also a flexible intervention: it can be successfully delivered in private schools, public schools, and out-of-school environments, so long as implementation adheres to evidence-based models—frequent sessions, consistent tutor–student relationships, trained tutors, research-based curriculum, and robust progress monitoring.
The greatest threat to the success of HIT under the §25F federal scholarship program is the emergence of low-quality, low-dosage tutoring models with little or no evidence base. Poorly implemented tutoring not only fails to produce academic gains—it consumes taxpayer-subsidized scholarship dollars without delivering results to students. The policy recommendations below are designed to prevent this outcome.
History has shown us that the Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provision under the No Child Left Behind Act authorized a wide range of supplemental education offerings that reached $500 million a year. Yet the tutoring, and many other interventions, delivered under SES were consistently shown by research to be low-quality, weakly monitored, and largely ineffective. Evaluations across multiple states and districts found poor recordkeeping, inconsistent provider quality, and virtually no measurable impact on student achievement, despite substantial federal investment. Importantly, SES tutoring programs did not resemble today’s high-impact tutoring (HIT) models, which feature structured dosage, trained tutors, and data-driven instruction and now have the strongest evidence base of any K–12 intervention studied to date. As federal agencies consider new scholarship pathways, the SES experience serves as a critical reminder that only well-defined, evidence-based tutoring models yield meaningful results for students.
Finally, because HIT is measurable, states and SGOs can apply return-on-investment (ROI) and cost-effectiveness tools to ensure that scholarship funds are used responsibly and in ways that deliver meaningful learning gains per dollar spent. These tools are already in use across multiple states and should be supported—not undermined—by federal regulations.
The following eight policy items, therefore, represent the most strategic opportunities for IRS/Treasury to ensure that the §25F scholarship program will be prepared for state SGO certifications, verifications and reporting protocols that can support high-impact tutoring as an allowable activity with successful SGO compliance.
II. Recommendations (Organized by Notice Sections)
A. Recommendations Relating to State Certification (Notice §3.03)
1. Use the term “High-Impact Tutoring (HIT)” to replace “academic tutoring” in interpretive guidance.
Notice §2.02 references “academic tutoring” as an allowable qualified expense under §25F(c)(4). We recommend that IRS use the term High-Impact Tutoring in guidance to help states avoid ambiguity when certifying SGOs under §3.03. This revision does not introduce new requirements but promotes clarity and consistency with current research and federal/state practice. It also aligns with the current adoption of “High-Impact Tutoring” in use by the U.S. Department of Education in their grant priorities.
2. Provide descriptive, non-binding HIT characteristics to support state SGO certification.
Under Notice §3.03(6), states must adopt policies and procedures to “make [their] own independent determination” that SGOs meet statutory requirements. Without creating new regulatory standards, IRS may offer descriptive language explaining the core components of high-impact tutoring (e.g., frequency, consistent tutor–student relationships, progress monitoring). This would assist states in evaluating whether expenditures submitted by SGOs reasonably reflect bona fide educational services as intended by §25F(c)(4).
3. Reaffirm and clarify congressional intent that public school students may use SGO-funded scholarships to access high-impact tutoring as a qualified educational expense.
Section 25F(c)(4), through its explicit cross-reference to §530(b)(3)(A), authorizes scholarships to be used for “academic tutoring” incurred in connection with enrollment or attendance at a public school, not solely private or religious schools. The Congressional Research Service summary also makes this clear. To operationalize this intent and avoid misinterpretation during state certification and SGO oversight, IRS guidance should make clear that:
- A public school student may receive a scholarship from an SGO and use those funds to access high-impact tutoring (HIT) delivered during the school day, after school, or outside the school setting;
- The tutoring may be provided by a third-party tutoring organization contracted by the SGO or the school, so long as the service is delivered to an eligible student and properly documented as a qualified educational expense; and
- Scholarship funds may be used to pay for tutoring services that supplement—but do not replace—core public school instruction, consistent with the statutory requirement that expenses be incurred “in connection with” enrollment or attendance.
This clarification would ensure that public school students are not unintentionally excluded from accessing tutoring supports Congress expressly authorized, and it would prevent implementation interpretations that treat tutoring as a private-school-only benefit. Clear guidance on this point is especially important given that high-impact tutoring is most commonly delivered through school-based or school-aligned models serving public school students.
B. Recommendations Relating to SGO Verification and Compliance (Notice §§2.03, 3.03)
4. Clarify that SGOs may incorporate evidence of provider effectiveness into their verification processes.
Notice §3.03 requires states to certify SGOs’ compliance with §25F(c)(5), including verifying that SGOs adhere to statutory restrictions on scholarship use. IRS should clarify that SGOs may rely on evidence of effectiveness (including alignment with federal evidence tiers such as ESSA Tiers I–III) as part of their internal verification systems. This strengthens the integrity of compliance and aligns with congressional intent that scholarships support legitimate educational activities.
Where applicable, IRS should also clarify that SGOs may rely on existing State-approved vendor lists or similar state vetting mechanisms—where such lists exist—as part of their internal verification processes, provided the SGO independently confirms compliance with all applicable §25F requirements.
5. Clarify that SGOs’ required written policies may include procedures for assessing tutoring vendor quality and verifying service delivery.
Under Notice §3.03(6), SGOs must maintain policies that enable states to independently verify statutory compliance. IRS should state that SGOs may document quality-assurance procedures—such as verifying tutoring dosage, tutor qualifications, or instructional alignment—as part of these required written policies. Such written policies may include, where applicable, reference to State-approved provider lists or other State vetting processes used by the SGO as part of its compliance documentation. This ensures SGOs can substantiate that expenditures represent legitimate “qualified expenses” under §25F(c)(4).
6. Clarify that SGOs may maintain documentation of tutoring sessions and related service delivery as part of their recordkeeping obligations.
Notice §4.05 requests comment on SGO recordkeeping. IRS should clarify that SGOs may maintain logs of tutoring sessions, attendance, and progress summaries solely for the purpose of substantiating that scholarship payments represent bona fide education services. This does not require SGOs to collect student outcome data but enables accurate state and IRS verification under §25F(h).
C. Recommendations Relating to Qualified Tutoring Expenditures (Notice §2.03 and §4.05)
7. Clarify that SGOs may document tutor training, instructional materials, and other supports that are necessary to deliver tutoring as part of verifying a qualified tutoring expenditure.
Notice §2.03 requires SGOs to prevent co-mingling and verify expenditure eligibility. Many tutoring services are not limited to the time a tutor spends directly with a student. In practice, high-quality tutoring programs often include tutor training, instructional materials, progress-monitoring tools, and supervision that are essential to delivering the tutoring itself. IRS should clarify that, when these elements are integral to the tutoring service provided to the student, SGOs may document them as part of the tutoring expenditure for purposes of recordkeeping and compliance.
This clarification would help SGOs accurately demonstrate that scholarship funds were used for legitimate tutoring services, without expanding allowable uses beyond those authorized in §25F.
D. Recommendations Relating to Multistate SGO Operations (Notice §4.02)
8. Clarify workable compliance rules for multistate SGOs, including support for group-based tutoring consistent with the no-earmarking rules.
Notice §4.02 identifies multistate operations as a major area for future guidance. IRS should clarify that multistate SGOs may contract with tutoring providers operating across multiple states if they maintain reasonable systems for tracking donor designations and scholarship expenditures by state, consistent with §25F(c)(3) and §25F(g)(1).
IRS should also confirm—strictly as a compliance matter—that SGOs may pay for tutoring delivered to groups of eligible students, provided individual scholarship awards remain independent and donors do not earmark funds for specific children (§25F(d)(1)(E)). This clarification prevents unintended barriers to HIT delivery in public schools and aligns with congressional intent to make tutoring widely accessible to eligible students regardless of school type or state of residence.
III. Conclusion
We appreciate the IRS’s attention to early implementation issues under Notice 2025-70 and respectfully encourage you to adopt clarifications that promote program integrity, state-level consistency, and equitable access to high-impact tutoring. HIT now represents the strongest evidence base of any K–12 intervention yet studied, and thoughtful implementation of §25F can ensure that scholarship funds are used effectively and responsibly.
By contrast, the experience of Supplemental Educational Services (SES) demonstrates the risks associated with low-quality, weakly monitored supplemental education programs. The implementation choices made now—particularly around state certification, SGO verification, and multistate operations—will help avoid similar pitfalls and ensure both fidelity to congressional intent and meaningful educational benefit to students.
Thank you for your consideration. These comments are offered to assist Treasury and the IRS with near-term implementation clarity and are not intended to preempt future policy questions that may be addressed through proposed regulations.
We welcome the opportunity to support the Treasury Department and IRS as guidance and proposed regulations are developed.
Kevin Huffman
CEO
Accelerate: The National Collaborative for Accelerated Learning
