Earlier this month, Accelerate announced our incoming class of 2024 Call to Effective Action grantees—a cohort of 18 tutoring providers that stood out from a pool of roughly 200 competitive applications submitted by organizations across the country. Accelerate’s Call to Effective Action grant program is committed to evaluating scalable models of in-school-day tutoring and individualized instruction that demonstrate the potential to deliver cost-effective services on sizable scales and improve outcomes for students. There is a lot to be excited about in the year ahead. The 2024 CEA group of providers is as diverse as they are unified in their goal to scale research–backed tutoring models and drive student impact, especially for historically underserved students.
The 2024 Call to Effective Action Grantee Class
This year’s Call to Effective Action (CEA) supports eighteen grantees receiving individual awards of between $150,000-$250,000 to support program implementation and research. Among the grantees, we are delighted to welcome back six returning organizations. By intentionally balancing and curating our incoming CEA portfolio, the 2024 grantees represent a diverse array of tutoring services, both in focus and delivery methods:
- Subject Focus: Eight grantees focus on ELA, seven provide tutoring in math, and three offer tutoring in both ELA and math.
- Grade Levels: Our grantees serve students across all grades, from kindergarten to 12th grade, with most working in grades 3 and 4.
- Delivery Modalities: Six providers deliver tutoring in person, while 12 use virtual or hybrid models.
- Tutor Profiles: Grantees employ a range of tutors, most frequently including certified teachers, teacher candidates, paraprofessionals, and college students. All providers maintain low tutor-to-student ratios, with most operating at a 1:3 ratio and none exceeding 1:5.
Our grantees are all committed to conducting rigorous research and evaluation of their programs, which will take place across at least 20 states next year. Through these efforts, they plan to reach 60,000 students in more than 600 schools.
2024 Call to Effective Action Grant Award Selection
Arriving at this definitive group of grantees was not easy, and the final 2024–25 CEA portfolio is truly a reflection of Accelerate’s priorities and our identity as an evidence-building grant partner.
The 2024-25 CEA portfolio aligns with Accelerate’s research agenda. Two-thirds of awardees have program models designed to target students within a specific learner profile (e.g., multi-language learners, students with disabilities, students in rural settings) and nearly all selected applicants identified their tutoring programs as a Tier II intervention. In a nod to scalability and sustainability, twelve organizations are using technology to help control the cost of their programs and twelve have identified viable pathways for sustainability beyond the sunsetting of ESSER funding by leveraging existing resources within schools (e.g., designated time within the school schedule, human capital).
The applicant organizations selected for the 2024–25 CEA not only align with many of Accelerate’s priority areas but are well-positioned with firm district partnership commitments to take the next step in their evaluation journey.
- Innovation Grantees have, at a minimum, successfully fielded their models under real-world implementation conditions and fully documented their program design with a basis in the prevailing evidence; our Innovation awardees stand ready to generate foundational evidence on the conditions under which their tutoring models may be implemented with fidelity and initial, correlational evidence on the potential effect of their tutoring model on student outcomes.
- Promise Grantees consist of established tutoring models with prior evidence suggesting positive effects on student outcomes and identified, viable pathways to scale; Promise awardees are eager to more rigorously evaluate their program models through a Randomized Control Trial or, in select instances, a Quasi-Experimental Design , such as a regression discontinuity design.
Please hear me when I say: many amazing organizations submitted impressive–often inspiring–applications to this year’s Call to Effective Action. Nonetheless, given limited resources, our selection committee chose the organizations best positioned and ready to move across the research continuum in partnership with Accelerate in the 2024-25 school year. We are eager to partner with some of these organizations in future grant years, serving as their evidence-building collaborator when they are primed to evaluate their programs.
The diversity and quality of this year’s applicants is encouraging and a testament to the student-centered and data-driven tutoring and individualized instruction underway in the field. Our goal was to award grants to a wide range of promising tutoring programs in terms of delivery methods, subjects covered, geographical reach, and grade levels served, and we are proud of our carefully curated 2024–25 CEA cohort. We are excited to document the impact these tutoring programs will have on student learning and achievement in the coming year. Follow us on LinkedIn and stay tuned for updates on their progress, evaluation, and success!
Jennifer Bronson is Managing Director of Programs at Accelerate. Connect with her via email at jennifer.bronson@accelerate.us.
