Washington, D.C., announced Feb. 2 its third major investment in high-impact tutoring (HIT), a form of intensive individual or small-group tutoring.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), the state education agency for the District, will support an additional 3,600 students with their investment and hopes to close opportunity gaps in learning created during COVID-19 online classes. D.C. will divide the funds between nine tutoring organizations across the city, according to a D.C. government press release. 

Bowser said disruptions in learning due to the pandemic made it necessary to invest in educational support like HIT.

“We know that many students are still recovering from the time spent out of the classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic and need extra support to rebuild confidence in learning,” Bowser said in the Feb. 2 press release. “There are also students who were already struggling academically before the pandemic, and that’s why we are focused on strengthening and scaling up our high-impact tutoring program.”

The English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency rate for D.C. students in third to eighth grade dropped from 38 to 30 percent between 2019 and 2022. Similarly, math proficiency dropped from 32 to 22 percent.

The increased funds for HIT will focus on aiding at-risk groups because of the disproportionate impacts the pandemic had on learning disruption, according to the press release.

“The disruptions in learning that occurred during the pandemic disproportionately impacted students of color, students from lower-income families and students who were already struggling academically,” the press release read. “The HIT programming prioritizes these students and ensures they have the supports needed to achieve academically.”

The ELA proficiency rates for Black and Hispanic students in D.C. dropped 7.7 and 7.0 percentage points, respectively, compared to the 5.3% drop for white students. For math, the proficiency rate dropped 13.4 percentage points for Hispanic students, 12.0 for Black students and 8.7 percentage points for white students.

Antonio Gutierrez, co-founder of Saga Education, a high-impact, in-school tutoring organization receiving funding from the District, said that HIT is an efficient and tested approach to combating learning challenges.

“High impact tutoring, when implemented with fidelity, is one of the most cost-effective approaches ever rigorously evaluated in U.S. Public Education,” Gutierrez wrote to The Hoya. “It is an area worthy of additional exploration and investment.” 

Of the nine organizations receiving funding in the form of Scaling HIT Grants, six will partner with schools, two will work in schools and within communities at non-school sites and one will provide HIT in non-school sites only. 

Organizations obtaining the grants include American University; Great Oaks Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to career-technical programs and services for youth and adults; Horton’s Kids, an organization helping children and families in Ward 8 with academics, youth development, health and wellness and family engagement; and Lana Learn, a global education and training company.

Bowser has committed more than $39 million over three years to HIT programming and announced in the press release that her goal is to deliver HIT to at least 10,000 D.C. students, which is 2,000 more students than OSSE’s original goal in September 2022. 

HIT as an intervention strategy has proven to be successful in improving student learning, according to the release.

“HIT allows students to receive intensive tutoring, either one-to-one or in very small groups, on a sustained basis over a semester or longer,” the release read. “This type of tutoring has strong evidence supporting its effectiveness among all learning interventions.”

D.C. State Superintendent Christina Grant said that the experiences students have in HIT programs positively impact the trajectory of their entire educational career.

“The relationships that students build with tutors in the HIT programming shapes their learning experiences for life,” said Grant in the press release. “It’s important that all students in DC have the confidence to learn and grow academically, and we know that having more tutors in our schools will ensure that our most vulnerable students are better supported and prevent achievement gaps from growing.”