NCLB Tutoring, But Not Transfers, Found to Help Student Scores

Arlington, Va.

A new federal study looking at tutoring and student-transfer provisions under the federal No Child Left Behind law suggests that those policy changes are having mixed success so far in boosting students’ academic achievement in reading and mathematics .

According to the study, which tracked the progress of the 5-year-old federal program in nine large urban school districts, students who participated in the NCLB tutoring, on average, learned more in the first year of tutoring than they had in previous years. And, while those academic gains were small, they tended to grow when students stuck with their tutors for two years or more.

On the other hand, pupils who transferred to other schools under the NCLB choice provision did no better, on average, than they had in their previous schools, according to the study, which...