Share your department's work while engaging high school students during College Day at Brown, on Thursday, April 14, 2022!

This immersive one-day program will bring about 200 local high school students to campus to introduce or further expose them to the world of higher education.

During the two years that COVID-19 has upended school for millions of families, education leaders have increasingly touted one tool as a means of compensating for lost learning: personalized tutors. As a growing number of state and federal authorities pledge to make high-quality tutoring available to struggling students, a new study demonstrates positive, if modest, results from an experimental pilot that launched last spring. 

In early January 2022, six faculty members from Brown were among 200 American scholars recognized by Education Week for their highly influential educational research. The annual Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings seek to spotlight United States researchers who did the most to shape educational practice and policy in the last year. Among those listed were Professor of Economics Emily Oster; Director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform Susanna Loeb; Associate Professor of Education Matthew Kraft; Professor of Sociology Prudence Carter; Associate Professor of Education Policy Lindsay Page; and Associate Professor of Education John Papay. 

The online tutoring field is fairly new, and many companies said they either did not have data proving their program’s effectiveness, or were still collecting it. Several pointed to small studies from Britain and Italy showing promising results.

But critics say online tutoring rarely matches up to in-person tutoring, and that only a few such services replicate strategies that research has shown to be most effective: a paid, trained tutor who has a consistent personal relationship with a student; sessions during the school day, so that students do not skip lessons; and at least three sessions per week.

By John Papay

Ensuring that research crosses the divide to practice has been a long-standing challenge in the academy. There is tremendous value in disseminating research broadly, as highlighted by the Edu-Scholar Rankings. To “move ideas from the pages of barely read journals,” as rankings creator Rick Hess writes, “into the real world of policy and practice” should be a goal of both scholars and educators.

When considering how schools can best support middle and high schoolers struggling with either the foundational skills of reading or reading comprehension, experts point to a research-backed strategy that can help close academic gaps: high-impact tutoring.

The term refers to an intensive form of tutoring that is offered through a school, is informed by data on individual students’ needs, aligns to classroom work, and can be effective in getting students to grade level faster. Yet few districts have been able to implement that kind of programming prior to the pandemic because of such challenges as cost and staff shortages. New federal relief funds are helping more districts explore the possibility.

Susanna Loeb, Matthew Kraft, Lindsay Page, and John Papay are named to 2022 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings.

The metrics recognize university-based scholars in the U.S. who are doing the most to influence educational policy and practice. The rubric reflects both a scholar's larger body of work and their impact on the public discourse last year.