Accelerate is encouraged by the proposed rules Treasury and the IRS released today for the federal scholarship tax credit. High-impact tutoring is the most effective education intervention we have, and academic tutoring is a qualified expense under the credit. But today’s rules still don’t define what eligible tutoring programs should look like. With a narrow exception, there is almost no quality control on the tutoring that Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs) fund, leaving them free to back any model they choose, regardless of whether it works.
The rules do make it easier for low-income students to qualify. Students whose families participate in certain federal benefit programs are automatically eligible, and a “safe harbor” covers students selected for tutoring by schools in high-poverty areas. For safe-harbor students only, an independent audit must show that tutors were qualified, that the program’s impact on student learning was assessed, and that services were delivered at “a duration and frequency commonly required to produce benefit.” It’s the closest these rules come to a quality standard, but Treasury estimates the safe harbor will add only about 170,000 eligible students in a program that could fund at least two million scholarships a year. Those requirements should be defined with more specificity and applied to every student receiving tutoring through an SGO.
That matters because the evidence for high-impact tutoring is unusually strong, but program design is what makes it work, including at least three sessions a week in small groups of no more than four students per tutor. Without clear standards, scholarship dollars can flow to programs with no grounding in the research. We’ve seen that approach before. The Supplemental Education Services program under No Child Left Behind lacked both a definition of quality and meaningful oversight of tutoring providers, and it was a $2.5 billion failure.
This isn’t the end of the road. The comment period is open, a hearing is scheduled, and Treasury has said it will clarify eligible expenses, including tutoring, in separate guidance that it’s treating as a high priority. Among the questions that still need answering:
- What will the definition of academic tutoring specifically require (e.g., frequency, group size)?
- Will the new quality standard reach more than the 0.6% of eligible students covered by the low-income safe harbor?
- Will “individual academic tutoring” include the small-group sessions the most effective high-impact tutoring programs use?
- How do school districts fit into the program’s payment mechanics?
- Will families, schools, and policymakers be able to see data on how many students received tutoring, how much they received, and whether it helped?
By Treasury’s own estimate, $26 billion a year will flow through this credit by 2030, which would make it the largest new source of education funding in a generation. It could deliver high-quality tutoring to hundreds of thousands of students below grade level, but that investment will pay off only if the money goes to programs that actually work. Accelerate will continue to advocate alongside tutoring providers, school leaders, and research partners to ensure that the final rules follow the evidence and deliver for students
