Deans for Impact Launches National Advocacy Network of High-Impact Tutoring Initiatives

The Aspiring Teachers as Tutors Network aims to strengthen pathways into teaching and increase the number of high-impact tutors serving students

Austin, TX – Deans for Impact (DFI) today announced that it has launched the Aspiring Teachers as Tutors Network (ATTN), a national collaborative of high-quality tutoring initiatives. The network includes 21 participating programs and aims to increase the number of aspiring teachers serving as high-impact tutors in K-12 schools and strengthen the instructional skills of future teachers.

The pandemic has significantly disrupted K-12 students’ quality of learning over the last two and a half years, disproportionately impacting students in historically marginalized communities. As education leaders work to catch students up academically, many have gravitated to tutoring as an effective intervention. State and district leaders seeking out high-dosage tutoring programs have a vital opportunity to simultaneously support students and strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce.

By mobilizing aspiring teachers as tutors, the ATTN answers the Biden-Harris administration’s call for more high-quality tutors and supports the preparation and retention of future teachers. By providing aspiring teachers with more practice-based training, tutoring gives future teachers a clearer understanding of the teaching experience and sharpens their instructional skills ahead of leading their own classrooms. 

“Aspiring teachers, and the programs that prepare them, are critical to America’s educational recovery,” says Valerie Sakimura, executive director of DFI. “The Aspiring Teachers as Tutors Network represents a unique opportunity to bring together educational leaders at all levels committed to organizing learning in a way that supports both future teachers and K-12 students, especially our most vulnerable.”

Participating programs in the ATTN have ongoing opportunities to share best practices and resources in tutoring and teacher preparation, connect with other education leaders across the country, generate and analyze evidence, and seek policy solutions to local teaching and learning challenges.

To launch the network, DFI has been awarded $750,000 in competitive grant funding from Accelerate, as part of a broader national effort to develop and scale sustainable, cost-effective, high-impact tutoring models. DFI is one of 31 research and education partners selected to receive an award. 

“We know that good tutoring programs work — partly because well-off families have used them to boost student success for generations. And we know that those same programs can be a powerful tool to close racial and economic opportunity gaps when we give less privileged students the same access. What we haven’t figured out yet is how to make high-impact tutoring available for everyone,” says Accelerate CEO Kevin Huffman. “With districts deciding how to spend one-time federal funds to combat the effects of the pandemic, solving that challenge has never been more urgent.”

Learn more about the ATTN and participating programs: deansforimpact.org/attn.

About Deans for Impact

Deans for Impact is a national non-profit organization committed to ensuring that every child is taught by a well-prepared teacher. Deans for Impact is building a movement to make pedagogy a priority in the way teachers are prepared. It does this by connecting leaders of educator-preparation programs, helping them to transform programs and influencing policy that affects their work. Guided by principles of learning science, Deans for Impact creates collaborative spaces that address real problems of practice, and provide concrete examples while recognizing the importance of local context. Deans for Impact aims to help teachers create rigorous, equitable and inclusive classrooms–so that all children thrive. For more information, visit deansforimpact.org. 

About Accelerate

Accelerate is a nonprofit organization that seeks to embed high-impact tutoring programs into public schools now and for the long term. Launched in April 2022 with an initial fund of $65 million, Accelerate funds and supports innovation in schools, launches high-quality research, and advances a federal and state policy agenda to support this work.

Accelerate is supported by Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel; Arnold Ventures; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and the Overdeck Family Foundation.

For more information, visit http://www.accelerate.us.

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Media Contact: Cece Zhou, czhou@deansforimpact.org, 248-854-0630