OnYourMark Education (OnYourMark) is an early literacy tutoring service providing virtual, individualized, high-dosage instruction focused on foundational early literacy skills. OnYourMark is proposing a decreased dosage model for students to better understand how much time is necessary for a tutoring session to have a marked impact on student literacy achievement. They plan on serving 500 students in grades K-2 through virtual literacy tutoring.

OnYourMark Education (OnYourMark) is an early literacy tutoring service providing virtual, individualized, high-dosage instruction focused on foundational early literacy skills. OnYourMark is proposing a decreased dosage model for students to better understand how much time is necessary for a tutoring session to have a marked impact on student literacy achievement. They plan on serving 500 students in grades K-2 through virtual literacy tutoring.

Paloma is a mobile app that accelerates K-2 learning by enabling parents to provide 15 daily minutes of curriculum-aligned instruction at home. Last year — in districts like HISD, LAUSD, & Metro Nashville —76% of K-2 families tutored their kids using Paloma, boosting reading growth by 41% and math by 39%.

Pearl’s tutor intelligence platform provides technical scaffolding to manage tutor operations at any scale while consistently collecting data across both in-person and online instruction. Within this platform, Pearl can also build tools to integrate data across tutoring platforms and traditional data sources like School Information Systems (SIS). Pearl aims to increase the speed at which all partners can roll out high-impact tutoring while removing the burden of data collection from disparate sources. By streamlining data collection and management, Pearl empowers its partners to identify gaps and improve program design in real time. Pearl will serve students in more than 100 schools, partnering with districts participating in the ESSER-funded Illinois Tutoring Initiative and with schools using the OnYourMark tutoring program.

PeerTeach, with the support of Accelerate, is launching a field-advancing, large-scale study of systematic peer tutoring to bring personalized tutoring to every student in the country. In the 2024-2025 school year, PeerTeach will conduct the first-ever large-scale study of a scalable model for same-grade, classroom-based, data-driven peer tutoring in middle school math classrooms. Teachers from both of PeerTeach's district partners will use PeerTeach in two ways: during their Tier I core instruction and during Tier II intervention classes. During Tier I instruction, teachers will use PeerTeach weekly to reteach key standards among all students, replacing typical review days. During Tier II instruction, teachers will use PeerTeach twice per week during intervention blocks. This combination of tutoring both during core blocks and intervention blocks will make up the primary support that PeerTeach provides to all school partners throughout the year. The learning of each student will be documented through benchmark assessments at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. This study is an important step toward making personalized tutoring accessible to all students.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is honored to receive the Call to Effective Action grant, which will allow the PLUS team to expand their research-backed AI-driven tutoring program to underserved students and create free AI-powered training materials for all tutors. The PLUS program combines math practice software, highly skilled human tutors, and an innovative tutoring management dashboard to optimize the dosage and type of tutoring each student receives during the school day. They have a pool of over 300 tutors who will serve these students remotely during the school day, usually during math class. CMU hires site supervisors to provide in-person support, while their core partnerships and product team work on supporting the tutors and managing partnerships with schools. They will continue these efforts while building more AI-powered tools to improve the efficiency of their tutors at scale, driving closer to their goal of doubling math learning for all middle school students who work with them. Additionally, CMU aims to lay the groundwork for randomized control trials and outcomes-based cost-sharing with schools over the next school year to enable long-term sustainability of their tutoring program.

ProvenTutoring, an initiative housed at the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University, will conduct research to understand how schools can improve the adoption, implementation, and scaling of tutoring models. ProvenTutoring plans to test how to best support school leaders in selecting, planning for, and providing ongoing support for highly effective tutoring models during the school day. Additionally, ProvenTutoring will build understanding around educator decision making when adopting a tutoring model and will identify barriers to scale as experienced by providers. The team is collaborating with districts nationally to support the implementation of high-impact tutoring. Through a partnership with the Colorado Department of Education, ProvenTutoring will provide technical assistance to district grantees of its High Impact Tutoring Program. ProvenTutoring’s research design is unique, given their experience bridging the gap between research and practice by matchmaking districts with research-evaluated tutoring models.

Quill.org’s mission is to help students become strong writers, readers, and critical thinkers by providing free, AI-powered literacy tools that deliver immediate, personalized feedback. Since our founding in 2014, more than 11 million students, the majority in under-resourced classrooms, have used Quill to build their literacy skills, receiving feedback on over 3 billion sentences. Quill’s tools are intentionally designed to support equity by providing students with the kind of real-time, revision-based writing instruction that only one-on-one coaching could previously offer.

READ USA is a non-profit organization that recruits, hires, trains, and continually develops teens from mostly under-resourced high schools in Duval County, Florida. The teens are trained to mentor and tutor elementary students using best practices of reading instruction. The READ USA tutoring model targets three populations at one time: elementary students, teen tutors, and certified teachers. Through this grant, READ USA will serve 1,500 students in grades 2-5 and will evaluate the quality of this model by assessing the literacy growth for both students and teen tutors.

Reading Futures provides small-group virtual instruction for struggling readers, including those with indications or characteristics of dyslexia. Reading Futures tutors are certified teachers, combining explicit and systematic foundational skills instruction along with the RAVE-O program. They will serve students across three elementary schools, primarily in grades 2-3. Tutoring participation will target students scoring at or below the 20th percentile using the i-Ready screener. Reading Futures hopes to evaluate the efficacy of its instructional model by demonstrating effectiveness, in a manner that is faithful to the initial research studies. Through this grant, they also hope to incorporate new insights on student behavior and attention into its instructional model.

Reading Partners empowers students in reading and beyond by providing access to individualized literacy tutoring powered by community volunteers. During the 2023-24 school year, Reading Partners will serve 7,000 students in grades K-4 in 187 schools in 12 regions across the country. Reading Partners is investing in the scale and evaluation of Reading Partners Connects, or RPCx, the online version of their widely researched in-person tutoring program.

Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) will develop state-level policies and systems to support the scaling and sustainability of high-impact tutoring. To help source qualified tutors, RIDE will expand its menu of vetted tutoring providers and pilot a new “trainee-as-tutor” model that connects trainee teachers in teacher prep programs with schools in need of tutors. The state will also test the use of a regional tutoring coordinator–a new full-time position–to help districts with the staffing capacity they need to launch new tutoring programs. The Annenberg Institute at Brown University will study the lessons learned from RIDE’s work and other states to create a policy report on how to develop a replicable, state-level model for scaling and sustaining high-impact tutoring.

Robert Cathcart serves as Policy & Legal Advisor at the South Carolina Department of Education. In that role he researches new and emerging policies, drafts bills, regulations, and provisos, and works to promote policies that educate students, support teachers, and empower parents. He is dedicated to ensuring that every parent in South Carolina has the ability and means to ensure that their child receives a high-quality education.

Dr. Roni McKee is a seasoned educational leader with over 17 years of experience spanning classroom instruction, school administration, and statewide academic leadership. She currently serves as Senior Director of Teaching and Learning at the Oklahoma State Department of Education, where she oversees strategic academic initiatives and supports educators across the state. Dr. McKee previously served as Executive Director of English Language Proficiency and Program Manager of Strategic Improvement. Prior to state leadership, she was an elementary principal at Yukon Public Schools and an English Language Arts teacher in Edmond. She holds an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Oklahoma State University, an M.Ed. from the University of Central Oklahoma, a B.S. in Elementary Education from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, and an A.A. from Northern Oklahoma College. Dr. McKee is passionate about student achievement and empowering educators to lead transformative learning in every classroom.

Saga Education is a non-profit organization that recruits and trains AmeriCorps members, referred to as Fellows, to directly tutor students in collaboration with school partners in cities throughout the country. Through this grant, Saga will provide tutoring services to students in grades 7-10 in New York City schools. Previous studies conducted using Saga’s model have revealed a significant connection between high-impact tutoring and academic achievement. Saga hopes to learn if a lower-cost model of their high-dosage tutoring will achieve similar benefits for students, which has the potential to drastically impact the number of students who may benefit from Saga’s research-backed program.

San Francisco Education Fund (SFEF) will provide virtual literacy tutoring to thousands of students citywide through the BookNook platform. The program will focus primarily on serving students in grades 2-5 who are not yet on grade level in reading. SFEF will conduct an ANCOVA study to examine the impact of the BookNook tutoring.