The New Era of Tutoring: Q&A with Liz Cohen (Part 2)
Sustaining what works, the open frontier of ESAs, and what’s next
Note: Informed Choice will pause next week for Thanksgiving. Regular posts return the following week on 12/2. We hope you enjoy your holiday. - PDP
A few days ago in Part 1, Liz Cohen walked us through how tutoring scaled so quickly during and after the pandemic. She also shared what the early evidence suggests. Today we pick up that conversation with an eye toward what comes next.
Part 2 turns to the questions many districts, schools, providers, and families are facing right now. How do you sustain tutoring when funding sources and amounts become less certain? How do you balance competing priorities of access, options, flexibility, quality, and accountability? How might ESAs and tax credits reshape tutoring markets? And what new models or technologies are emerging for more options?
Liz has spent the past several years researching how districts and schools have adopted and implemented tutoring programs. Her new book, The Future of Tutoring, brings those developments, observations, and stories into clear focus. I’m grateful she stayed with us for another round! Especially as we think about where tutoring and K–12 choice can intersect and what that combination could mean for families in the years ahead.
Below is the second half of our Q&A.
Liz Cohen. The Future of Tutoring: Lessons from 10,000 School District Tutoring Initiatives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2025.
Sustainability
Paul: What’s a practical step districts and schools can take this school year to sustain tutoring programs as pandemic (ESSER) funds run out?
Liz: The first step is to make sure you have data that shows your tutoring program works. We want to sustain programs that have impact. Then get that data in front of as many people as possible–school boards and city councils and state legislators and parent groups. “Here’s the difference we are making for kids and classrooms and communities. Here’s what we’re willing to give up to keep it going, can you help us make up the difference.” Because you also have to be willing to give up some budget of your own, potentially.
Paul: How can districts and states balance accountability and flexibility – ensuring students get what they need and results without stifling local innovation or trusted partnerships?
Liz: Outcomes-based contracts (OBC) are a great way to do this. It requires the district or school to get very clear on exactly what they hope to achieve, and to partner with a tutoring provider who agrees to those expectations. Using OBC also means that if you don’t get desired results, there’s money available to repurpose. I’d love to see states incentivize this kind of contracting with additional funds, for example if you use an OBC, you unlock some additional funding.
Paul: What leadership traits have you found most important to keeping alive tutoring programs after initial momentum fades?
Liz: Leaders who have a clear goal and see tutoring as a strategy to reach that goal. You need a north star. This has nothing to do with tutoring, it’s just about good leadership. I make the point in the book that there are great schools who don’t use tutoring–but they all have a north star and a clear strategy. Great education leaders also know that implementation work never, ever ends.
Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)
Paul: In a market environment having ESAs where parents can choose directly, what information or signals should they look for to increase the chances they can find effective tutoring?
Liz: The two big pieces for parents to think about is how much tutoring they are hoping to get (the dosage) and then who the tutor is. I would consider the following pieces:
Pick one subject, at least to start.
You want the tutoring to take place 2-3 times a week.
Ideally, the tutor has expertise in tutoring this subject and has some information or context about the curriculum or subject matter your child needs support with (2nd grade reading in Texas, for example). If you’re hiring an individual, you can also think: will my child respond best to a young person? An older person? A male tutor?
Establish some clear metrics or expectations with the tutor or program. After six weeks, what difference should you expect to see? How will the tutor adjust if those expectations aren’t met?
Note: There are 21 ESA programs in 18 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida (2), Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee (3), Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Source: EdChoice. “What Is an Education Savings Account (ESA)?” EdChoice, 2025.
Paul: Do you think statewide ESAs can change the tutoring marketplace? And if so, in what ways?
Liz: Absolutely, and I would add that the federal tax-credit scholarship is another vehicle to change the tutoring marketplace as well. Louisiana is a great example. The Steve Carter Tutoring Program gives eligible families dollars to pay for out-of-school tutoring with a list of approved providers. If schools or districts can’t get their own tutoring programs off the ground, this is another way to do it. But the trick is it really needs to be connected to the skills the child needs help with, and there’s plenty to learn from why Supplemental Education Services under NCLB didn’t work at all!
This is an area where my thinking continues to evolve, actually. I was initially bearish on afterschool tutoring programs and tutoring vouchers because that wasn’t where the evidence pointed at tutoring having the biggest impact. But in the last year, I’ve seen tremendous growth in successful out-of-school tutoring paid for with public dollars. We’re seeing, again because of that parent empowerment movement, a lot of interest from parents in getting their kids tutoring through these kinds of programs. Arkansas also has a similar program to Louisiana–I haven’t seen data, and I’d been rather skeptical, but I’ve heard it’s gone pretty well and I’m hoping to learn more soon (hint: Arkansas tutoring folks, call me!).
Big picture: imagine a world in which procuring a tutor isn’t only for families with means. Imagine a world in which a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) provides scholarships to low-income families to get afterschool tutoring with approved providers who understand local curriculum and have access to student achievement data, and can work on exactly what kids need. Imagine a world in which a state says, “It’s our obligation to get every 3rd-grade student reading on grade level. So if your child isn’t on track, here’s a tutoring ESA and we’ll link you with providers who know your district’s curriculum and will help your child not only read, but believe he is a reader.”
Looking to the Future
Paul: What emerging tutoring models or technologies most excite you today? And what should we be cautious about as AI and personalization expand?
Liz: It all excites me! Here are four different pieces I’m so excited about right now:
Small-burst early-literacy tutoring programs like Once and Chapter One that are changing how we teach reading (and helping parents be better teachers themselves).
There’s a pilot underway with another early literacy tutoring program that replaces some human tutoring with technology-assisted learning in a model that is less expensive and it looks like it is equally impactful - waiting on the data!
Really cool spoken-AI tutoring, like the program Third Space Learning has built based on thousands of hours of human math tutoring that they’ve conducted over the past two decades.
AI tutor coaches that make human tutoring more immediately effective, and help even more individuals serve as great tutors.
As for caution, just remember there is no silver bullet. It’s okay to want human tutors. It’s okay to be AI-tutor curious, especially in a resource-constrained world. Remember your goal, keep your strategy in mind, make sure the choices you make serve that strategy and goal. Education has always been a human-first endeavor, and I don’t anticipate that truly changing. The question is where AI can enhance the human experience.
Paul: How do you see the balance between human connection and tech innovation evolving in the tutoring space over the next five years?
Liz: This is maybe the most important question to ask right now! I think human connection will continue to be paramount in the tutoring space, and the ways that tech can support and enhance those connections will get better and better. In the next five years, we will certainly have more tech-first tools, like genAI-supported tutors. We don’t know yet how those use cases will develop. For schools or parents who are looking for students to not only learn, but to advance academically in the context of a meaningful adult relationship, they will continue to prioritize human tutoring.
Paul: Wrapping up now and thinking about key takeaways from The Future of Tutoring. In a few sentences for each, what do you say to: (a) state policymakers, (b) school and district leaders, (c) parents, (d) educators, and (e) researchers?
Liz: To everyone who has already been engaged in the tutoring movement, I would first say thank you. And that, I hope I told your story well.
To everyone else, I would say: Young people across America are hungry for meaningful relationships with caring adults. And many adults want to work as tutors, building those relationships and contributing to a thriving American society. Young people across America deserve to show up to school knowing that if they struggle, there is someone to help. The opportunity to democratize access to personalized instruction is here.
If you’re a state policymaker, this is a chance to build school systems that work for everyone. If you’re a school or district leader, this is a valuable tool that can address several of your chronic pain points. If you’re a parent, you already know you want this for your child (a lot of you are already paying for it on your own!). If you’re an educator, wouldn’t your job be easier if more of your students were on similar academic footing and more engaged in school? If you’re a researcher, please continue the excellent work of evaluating programs as they’re launching and digging into the details of why and how various aspects of tutoring programs matter to outcomes.
Paul: If you’d had another year to research and write, what aspect of tutoring – or perhaps implementation of tutoring – would you have wanted to dig into more deeply?
Liz: I really want to dig into the afterschool tutoring programs, as I mentioned earlier. I hope we get more evidence to see if we’re truly moving the needle for kids with that work (trust but verify, always!). I also have a lot of questions about why tutoring works, what it means for how we ask kids to think and learn throughout the day, and whether we can reopen sticky conversations about time in the school day. I think about Cal Newport’s work on “Deep Work”, the idea that it’s becoming a rare skill to be able to focus without distraction on cognitively demanding tasks. Can tutoring be the vehicle to get kids skilled at deep work?
Thanks to Liz for sharing her time and insights across this two-part interview. In both parts of our Q&A, we saw how tutoring isn’t just a pandemic response but a durable strategy for student learning—when it’s anchored to clear purpose, steady leadership, and strong relationships between tutors and students.
As attention shifts to funding, sustainability, ESAs, and new technologies, the real question is how to keep the momentum focused on fit and on what helps students most. Liz’s book is a valuable guide for anyone working in those areas. Her insights point to opportunities ahead and to the different paths tutoring could take in the years to come.
For readers who want to go further, here are a handful of links related to Liz’s work and The Future of Tutoring:
Lessons from Pandemic-Era Tutoring (Nat Malkus interviews Liz Cohen, The Report Card podcast via AEI)
“A Pragmatic Tutoring Road Map” (book review by Michael Thomas Duffy for EdNext)
“The Post-Pandemic Promise of High-Impact Tutoring” (Q&A: Liz and Greg Toppo)