The Tutoring Partnership: SIF Implementation and Outcome Evaluation

The Tutoring Partnership was a network of 28 community-based programs that provided intentional academic interventions through tutoring to students in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The common goal across these programs was improving academic outcomes for students. In 2013, the Saint Paul Schools Foundation was awarded a Social Innovation Fund (SIF) sub grant from Greater Twin Cities United Way to examine the implementation of the Tutoring Partnership and student outcomes.

Study Goals:

The goal of the study is to build upon previous research about the Tutoring Partnership by examining both student-level and program-level outcomes. The study also asked a series of questions about how the Partnership was implemented in the SIF years.

Research Questions:

The study featured both implementation and outcome questions. The research questions were:

• Implementation Questions:
  • What are program and tutor characteristics?
  • To what extent and how did the tutoring programs in Strategies A, B, and B3 participate in the services offered by the Tutoring Partnership (e.g. professional development, technical assistance, and tutor training)?
  • How do programs perceive the effectiveness of services provided to them through the Tutoring Partnership? What is their level of satisfaction with the services? How do programs perceive their growth?
  • To what extent do programs achieve Best Practices for Tutoring Programs as rated by programs on the Best Practices self-assessment?
• Outcome Questions:
  • To what extent do the three capacity building strategies (Strategies A, B, and B3) affect reading growth for students?
  • To what extent do the three capacity building strategies (Strategies A, B, and B3) affect reading proficiency for students?
  • To what extent does tutoring have a differing effect on reading growth and proficiency for low-income students, compared to students not from low-income families?
  • To what extent does tutoring have a differing effect on reading growth and proficiency for specific racial and ethnic groups?
  • To what extent does participation in the Tutoring Partnership improve program quality as measured by Program Quality Assessment over time? Does this growth differ by strategy? Does this growth differ based on the number of years receiving the intervention?

Findings:

The study found the following:

• Strategy B/B3 programs had higher rates of participation in key Tutoring Partnership services such as professional development workshops, technical assistance, and tutor training. Requiring participation in these services did have an association with higher levels of participation when comparing rates to Strategy A, who were not required to participate.
• Overall, program staff felt the support they received from the Tutoring Partnership was beneficial. Programs found the tutor trainings to be most helpful; however, participation in tutor training was relatively low.
• Overall, tutored students made greater gains in the year they were tutored. These gains were present for low-income and higher-income students, and for students from different racial/ethnic backgrounds.
• Low-income and higher income students saw significant growth in reading skills when combined over the course of the three-year study.

For more information, download the full report and report brief.