Students need help catching up. Tennessee tries tutoring.
Sarah Cox, a fifth grade student in northeastern Tennessee, knows precisely what she likes best about school: seeing her friends, math class, and recess. This year, there’s a new routine creeping up on her list of favorites: small group tutoring.
“I’ve set a lot of goals, like learning how to be better at grammar,” says Sarah after a tutoring session on thesis statements. “I’ve never been good at it, so it’s definitely something I want to achieve because of better job opportunities.”
East Side Elementary School, where Sarah attends, sits next to the rolling Appalachian Mountains in Elizabethton, Tennessee. The school is an early adopter of a “high-dosage, low-ratio” statewide tutoring program, where students meet in small groups for several intensive sessions per week.
The stakes are high, in Tennessee and nationally, for educators tasked with catching students up from once-in-a-century learning interruptions, including initialpandemic shutdowns and reports of ongoing high student and staff absenteeism in
