For several years, federal pandemic relief funds helped school districts across the United States expand “high-impact” or “high-dosage” tutoring programs that demonstrably improved student learning and helped reverse pandemic-era academic regression. Now that the primary source of that financial backing has expired, education leaders across the country are scrambling to keep those vital programs afloat.
Between March 2020 and March 2021, Congress allocated nearly $190.5 billion to public education through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund. This represented the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education in United States history. Designed to help schools navigate the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19, the funding ended in phases between 2022 and 2024, though a subset of districts received federal liquidation extensions to stretch their remaining dollars.
In the wake of the funding cliff, school districts have taken varied paths. Some education systems have been forced to pause or significantly scale back their tutoring initiatives, while others are working aggressively to save them by weaving them directly into their core academic systems and standard operating budgets. A 2026 analysis of 35 districts conducted by the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) revealed that eight districts had significantly reduced their tutoring offerings, and another eight had experienced a distinct pause or disruption after ESSER funds officially dried up. However, 19 districts—representing more than half of those studied—successfully preserved or even expanded their tutoring programs despite the fiscal headwinds.
Extensive educational research shows that high-impact tutoring, frequently referred to as high-dosage tutoring, has stood out as the single most powerful intervention deployed to make up for pandemic learning loss. It typically occurs at least three times a week, providing highly targeted instruction that coordinates directly with regular classroom work. According to the NSSA, programs featuring frequent sessions over at least 10 weeks, delivered either individually or in small groups alongside data-driven instruction, can generate anywhere from three to 15 months of additional academic learning.
Yet, this level of intensive academic support carries a steep price tag. According to research from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, high-impact tutoring costs an estimated $1,200 to $2,500 per student annually. Without the safety net of ESSER funds, meeting these recurring expenses has proven exceptionally difficult for districts operating on tight local and state budgets.
For schools that have heavily invested in these programs and are eager to retain their hard-won benefits, the central challenge is making tutoring a permanent, standard fixture rather than a temporary fix. Devon Wible, vice president of teaching and learning at Catapult Learning, a provider of supplemental educational services to schools, observes that districts in several states are increasingly viewing tutoring not as an add-on, but as a foundational layer of academic support.
“A few years ago, when ESSER funds were here, the conversation was, ‘Let’s see if it works,’” Wible says. “Now it’s, ‘How do we sustain this?’”
Building Tutoring Into Existing Systems
One of the primary strategies districts are utilizing to make tutoring last is keeping it firmly anchored as part of the regular school day and existing academic-support frameworks. While this structural integration does not entirely eliminate the cost of providing tutoring, it is significantly less expensive than creating a separate, standalone extracurricular program that requires specialized staffing, separate transportation, and after-hours facilities management.
Wible explains that some districts have creatively added dedicated intervention periods or “WIN” (What I Need) blocks to their daily master schedules. This adjustment carves out protected time for students to receive extra academic support without pulling them away from core classroom instruction. She notes that this embedded approach also encourages much tighter, more effective collaboration among classroom teachers, professional tutors, and intervention staff, all of whom can share real-time student data and work together toward common academic goals.
Under this model, tutoring is carefully designed to align with ongoing classroom instruction. For instance, a student who is struggling with grade-level reading might receive targeted coaching on foundational reading phonics and decoding skills while continuing to engage with complex grade-level texts alongside their peers during regular class time. Schools rely on ongoing student assessment data to identify specific learning needs, dynamically adjust instruction, and determine precisely when a student has mastered a concept and is ready to exit the program.
“Ultimately, our shared goal is that students experience classroom instruction, intervention and tutoring as one coherent learning experience,” Wible says.
Wible has witnessed the tangible impact of this cohesive approach firsthand. A Catapult analysis of roughly 700 students spanning kindergarten through third grade across 12 Massachusetts school districts found that young learners made substantial literacy gains after receiving high-impact tutoring, with some making up to five additional months of reading progress compared to historical baselines.
In one specific Massachusetts district, the results were especially striking. After just 12 weeks of structured tutoring, the share of students in kindergarten and first grade performing at or above grade level jumped dramatically from 11% to 55%, according to Wible.
Protecting What Works
Despite these encouraging localized successes, academic experts warn that financial pressures could threaten the structural integrity of these interventions. David Blazar, an associate professor of education policy at the University of Maryland, suggests that the deeper concern may not be whether tutoring survives in name, but what happens to program quality when schools cannot find alternative funding sources and are forced to cut spending.
Blazar recently co-authored a University of Maryland study examining tutoring programs across all 24 of Maryland’s school districts, analyzing how local educational agencies were designing and scaling their academic support initiatives. The analysis found that 18 districts offered tutoring featuring several key components associated with stronger implementation, such as small-group instruction, frequent weekly sessions, and delivery during regular school hours.
While the research specifically focused on Maryland, it offers valuable insight into the broader existential questions districts face nationwide as they attempt to sustain tutoring in a post-relief funding environment. Blazar anticipates that as financial crunches deepen, districts will likely consider increasing group sizes, reducing session frequencies, or turning to lower-cost, less rigorous providers rather than completely eliminating tutoring from their budgets.
“The more likely change is quieter and, in some ways, more consequential: erosion of the design features that make tutoring work,” Blazar says. “When you have to find savings, dosage — and other components of quality, including how many students work with the same tutor simultaneously — are very likely to change.”
At the same time, Blazar’s analysis of implementation plans under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future from 2024 to 2027 revealed that Maryland districts planned to intentionally restructure their daily schedules to keep tutoring operational. Because tutoring serves as a core statutory mandate of the state’s landmark education reform policy, he expects Maryland districts to maintain a firm institutional commitment to the strategy.
“I think they will continue because it is a core part of the Blueprint, and there is growing consensus that tutoring is a critical resource for improving student outcomes, so it is money well spent,” Blazar says.
For school districts everywhere trying to stretch limited local and state dollars, the ultimate challenge is figuring out precisely where to trim operational costs without undermining the core pedagogical features that make high-impact tutoring effective in the first place, Blazar notes.
One District’s Approach
West Feliciana Parish Schools in Louisiana provides a clear example of a local school system successfully securing alternative funding sources to embed tutoring directly into the rhythm of the school day. While the district had utilized basic intervention and tutoring practices prior to 2024, it dramatically expanded and formalized its school-day high-dosage tutoring program during the 2024-25 academic year with critical financial and structural assistance from Louisiana’s Accelerate: High-Dosage Tutoring initiative.
The district engineered a comprehensive schoolwide master schedule featuring a dedicated 30- to 50-minute block each day when traditional core instruction pauses across the board. During this designated window, students are strategically divided into skill-based groups and report either to their primary classroom teacher or a specialized interventionist for high-dosage tutoring, according to Jodi Lemoine, director of accountability at West Feliciana Parish Schools.
Meanwhile, students who are not receiving tutoring during that specific time block remain in the classroom to work independently, utilizing targeted educational software or engaging with library books. Furthermore, the district arranged for fourth and fifth-grade students to receive specialized online tutoring through vetted external providers.
This thoughtful structural approach significantly expanded the reach of the district’s intervention infrastructure. Before the state-supported initiative rolled out, the local reading intervention program served roughly 96 students a week. Lemoine reports that that number surged to more than 430 students after just one year of implementation.
“From the get-go, our philosophy was: This is gonna require good teaching, not just programs,” Lemoine says.
The district closely monitors individual student progress every two to three weeks, making agile adjustments as necessary. Lemoine points to district assessment data showing significant academic gains between the fall and spring assessments of the 2025-26 school year. According to data from the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Measures of Academic Progress, the district recorded notable upward shifts in overall student performance metrics.
In recognition of these achievements, the Louisiana Department of Education officially recognized West Feliciana Parish Schools as a Model of Excellence for its innovative approach to high-dosage tutoring. By December 2024, more than 45% of the district’s kindergarten through fifth-grade students were actively receiving tutoring—more than double the participation rate seen prior to the initiative. Additionally, about 60% of participating students successfully reached the established performance benchmark on their targeted literacy skill at the very first progress-monitoring checkpoint.
“We have figured out a way to use the resources we have smarter,” Lemoine says. “Our high-dose tutoring program is truly an example of that: Work smarter, not harder.”
Although the district is currently relying on a deliberate combination of state and local revenue streams to keep the program operational, school leadership remains deeply committed to sustaining it over the long term. Superintendent Hollis Milton emphasizes that the district’s success demonstrates that high-quality academic interventions do not simply have to vanish the moment a specific federal funding stream expires.
“If something’s working, you find the will, and then you’re gonna find the way,” Milton says.