For several years, federal pandemic relief funds helped school districts across the United States expand "high-impact" or "high-dosage" tutoring programs that proved instrumental in improving student learning and recovering from pandemic-related disruptions. Now that the main source of that funding has expired, many education leaders are scrambling to keep those vital programs afloat, facing difficult choices between cutting back services or restructuring their budgets to preserve student gains.
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. The funding ended in phases between 2022 and 2024, although some school districts received specific extensions to disburse their remaining balances.
In response to the expiration of ESSER funds, some districts have paused or significantly scaled back their tutoring offerings, 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) found that eight districts had significantly reduced their tutoring programs and another eight had experienced a pause or disruption after ESSER funding ended. However, 19 districts—representing more than half of those studied—successfully preserved or even expanded their tutoring programs despite the fiscal cliff.
Research consistently shows that high-impact tutoring, also frequently referred to as high-dosage tutoring, has been the most powerful intervention deployed to make up for pandemic learning loss. It typically occurs at least three times a week, providing targeted instruction in close coordination with regular classroom work. The NSSA notes that programs featuring frequent sessions over at least a 10-week period, delivered either individually or in small groups with data-driven instruction, can generate anywhere from three to 15 months of additional learning for participating students.
Despite its proven effectiveness, high-impact tutoring comes with a significant 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. This high cost makes it exceptionally difficult for many districts to sustain the programs without the dedicated infusion of ESSER funds they relied on for years.
For schools that have heavily invested in these initiatives and are desperately trying to retain their benefits, the central challenge is making tutoring a permanent, standard fixture of the educational model rather than a temporary fix. Devon Wible, vice president of teaching and learning at Catapult Learning, an organization that provides tutoring programs to schools, observes that districts in several states are increasingly viewing tutoring 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 ways districts are trying to make tutoring last is by keeping it integrated into the regular school day and aligning it with existing academic-support systems. While this structural integration does not completely eliminate the financial cost of tutoring, it is considerably less expensive than creating a separate, standalone extracurricular program after school hours.
Wible notes that some districts have added dedicated intervention periods or "WIN" (What I Need) blocks to their daily schedules, giving students designated time for extra support without pulling them away from core classroom instruction. She points out that this approach also encourages much tighter collaboration among classroom teachers, tutors, and specialized intervention staff, who can regularly share student data and work toward common academic goals.
The tutoring itself is designed to align seamlessly with classroom instruction. A student struggling with grade-level reading, she explains, might receive targeted coaching on foundational reading skills during the intervention block while continuing to engage with grade-level texts during regular class time. Schools use ongoing student data to identify needs, continuously adjust instruction, and determine precisely when a student 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 in kindergarten through third grade across 12 Massachusetts districts found that children made substantial literacy gains after receiving high-impact tutoring, with some making up to five additional months of reading progress.
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
David Blazar, an associate professor of education policy at the University of Maryland, suggests that an even bigger concern than outright program cancellation may be what happens to program quality when schools cannot find new funding sources and are forced to cut spending on tutoring.
Blazar recently co-authored a University of Maryland study examining tutoring programs across Maryland’s 24 school districts, looking closely at how districts are designing and scaling their initiatives. The analysis found that 18 districts offered tutoring featuring several key elements associated with stronger implementation, such as small-group instruction, frequent sessions, and delivery during normal school hours.
While the research focuses primarily on Maryland, it offers broad insight into the difficult questions districts everywhere are facing as they try to sustain tutoring after pandemic relief funding officially ends. Blazar expects that rather than eliminating tutoring entirely, districts will look for ways to cut corners by increasing group sizes, reducing session frequency, or turning to lower-cost, lower-quality providers.
"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."
Blazar’s analysis of implementation plans under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future from 2024 to 2027 found that Maryland districts planned to restructure their daily schedules specifically to keep tutoring alive. Because tutoring serves as a core mandate of the state’s landmark education policy, he expects Maryland districts to maintain a firm 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 districts across the nation trying to stretch limited local and state dollars, the ultimate challenge is figuring out where to trim costs without weakening the fundamental design features that make high-impact tutoring effective in the first place, Blazar notes.
One District’s Approach
West Feliciana Parish Schools in Louisiana offers a clear example of a district successfully finding new funding sources to embed tutoring permanently into the school day. The district had minor intervention and tutoring practices in place prior to 2024, but it dramatically expanded and formalized its school-day high-dosage tutoring program during the 2024-25 school year with assistance from state funding available through Louisiana’s Accelerate: High-Dosage Tutoring initiative.
The district created a comprehensive schoolwide master schedule incorporating a 30- to 50-minute block each day when core instruction pauses. During that dedicated window, students are divided into skill-based groups and report either to their regular classroom teacher or an interventionist for high-dosage tutoring, according to Jodi Lemoine, director of accountability at West Feliciana Parish Schools.
Students who are not receiving tutoring during that block remain in the classroom and work independently, engaging with educational software or reading library books. Meanwhile, fourth and fifth-grade students received online tutoring through external providers.
This strategic approach significantly expanded the reach of the district’s intervention program. Before the initiative was implemented, the reading intervention program served about 96 students a week. Lemoine states that number surged to more than 430 students after just one year.
"From the get-go, our philosophy was: This is gonna require good teaching, not just programs," Lemoine says.
The district closely monitors student progress every two to three weeks and adjusts instruction as necessary. Lemoine points to district assessment data showing notable gains between the fall and spring assessments of the 2025-26 school year. According to Northweast Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress data, the district saw measurable increases in overall student performance.
The district was eventually recognized by the Louisiana Department of Education as a Model of Excellence for its innovative approach to high-dosage tutoring. By December 2024, more than 45% of its kindergarten through fifth-grade students were receiving tutoring, representing more than twice the number of students who had received it previously. Furthermore, about 60% of participating students reached the established 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."
The district is currently relying on a careful combination of state and local funding to keep the program operational, but district leadership remains fully committed to sustaining it for the long term. Superintendent Hollis Milton emphasizes that the district’s success demonstrates that high-quality tutoring does not have to disappear simply because a particular federal funding stream comes to an end.
"If something’s working, you find the will, and then you’re gonna find the way," Milton says.