Editor’s note: This was first published in SCHOOLED, Mike Petrilli’s Substack, which hosts weekly education-reform conversations around K–12’s biggest topics.
As I said on the Education Gadfly Show podcast earlier this week, I’m not actually interested in whether all kids get tutoring. What I’ve always cared most about is whether all kids are learning and how we can improve public education systems to improve student outcomes, especially for low-income kids. I continue to believe tutoring is an important tool in this work. Here are three big reasons I’m sticking with tutoring as a solution that should be on the table for states, districts, and schools in 2026 and beyond, even in the midst of very real resource constraints.
1. Schools and school systems need a strategy if they are going to truly change. Conveniently, tutoring works best when part of a strategy.
The districts and states doing the best work with tutoring are the ones using tutoring strategically as a way to support specific groups of students who are performing below grade level.
The District of Columbia is a great example of a place where teacher salaries are quite high, and where tutoring is being used as part of a strategic overhaul of math instruction that includes new curriculum, teacher training, and more. Two years ago, students in D.C.’s math tutoring program gained an average of two months of learning over 15–20 weeks of tutoring. But last year, students in the program gained three months of learning. D.C. is improving their tutoring and improving their math instruction, all while paying teachers quite well.
I would love to see a school system where no student needs additional support. In the real world, at least today, that’s not the case. So if districts or states are seeking to answer the question, “How do we support students below grade level with an approach that has the highest likelihood of success while also focusing on supporting teachers to use great materials so that kids actually learn?” tutoring is a good answer. In Baltimore City Public Schools, 72 percent of kindergarten students and 64 percent of first grade students who get tutored moved at least one level up on the early literacy assessment used by the district. In Guilford County, North Carolina, tutored students outpaced the state average for growth in kindergarten and first grade. These kinds of results seem like they would also help teachers as more students in the classroom are truly prepared for grade-level work. That might help teachers like their jobs more, regardless of pay.
2. Tutoring is a back-to-basics play.
School, especially the early grades, should be focused on reading and math, with a side dish of writing and general social skills. Tutoring gets kids more time on the exact core academics that matter most. Kids benefit from more time on task, more time reading aloud to a trusted adult, or more time practicing tricky math skills. Teachers, even amazing highly-paid teachers, can’t give 30 kids the individual opportunity to showcase their practice and get specific feedback, especially in a classroom where half or more of kids are below grade-level. Pair this with the knowledge that demonstrating competence is key to building motivation, and we begin to make the case that tutoring is a back-to-basics academic effort with the added benefit of increasing student motivation towards learning.
The book from 2025 that has most influenced my thinking about education isn’t a policy or political book, but a book called Instructional Illusions by three learning scientists. In remarkably concise, clear writing they explain exactly why learning doesn’t happen in so many classrooms. One takeaway I had from that book is that activities like quality tutoring—that require the student to actually do something real with immediate feedback from a trusted adult—helps avoid many of the illusions that plague classroom settings, like the engagement illusion that lets teachers believe busy students are learning or the discovery illusion that lets teachers believe children need to discover answers for themselves.
3. Tutoring is a wonderful opportunity for growing civil service opportunities and creating an American culture of learning.
From college students looking for part-time jobs to older Americans looking to spend their time meaningfully, tutoring is an opportunity to engage many more Americans in education. We’re seeing this play out. Hundreds of thousands of Americans across all ages have raised their hands to work as tutors or mentors in the past five years.
In turn, that might help create more of a culture of learning that our country sorely needs. Education shouldn’t purely be transactional. It’s not all about the degree. America is better off if young people care about learning, about exploring the world and all its possibilities, about finding out what excites them and motivates them. So the more adults, both young and old, play a role in a child’s education, the more a child learns that learning is itself a valuable part of life, one that remains meaningful throughout adulthood. Is this wishful thinking? Absolutely! I wish it nonetheless.
