January unleashed a torrent of bad news for American public education. The release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores revealed concerning drops in reading and math performance, particularly for low-achieving students.
Policymakers sounded alarms after Washington announced the proposed elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. Meanwhile, the specter of immigration officers patrolling school campuses sent state and district leaders scrambling.
Amid these national setbacks, Connecticut is charting a different course, one that invests in proven strategies rather than retreating from them.
In his biennium budget, Gov. Ned Lamont announced a $5 million investment in the state’s high-dosage tutoring (HDT) program, beginning FY 2027. This represents a pragmatic and indispensable investment in our students, all of whom deserve personalized learning opportunities, differentiated supports, and above all, dedicated educators. The Connecticut General Assembly should embrace and build upon this proposal wholeheartedly.
Until recently, I worked at the Connecticut State Department of Education, where I led a small team that launched Connecticut’s first statewide mathematics High-Dosage Tutoring Program in over 40 districts in 2023. Like the rest of the country, our state experienced math performance declines after the pandemic, undermining the state’s future STEM workforce and setting us back years of progress. Wealthier families turned to private tutors to compensate for lost learning time, widening achievement gaps between high-need and affluent students. Ensuring all students graduate with strong math skills wasn’t just an urgent imperative— it was a moral obligation.
Research shows when implemented with fidelity, high-dosage tutoring during school hours delivers outsized learning gains for students. Indeed, middle-school students participating in the Connecticut HDT Program experienced increases in math proficiency rates in 2024 and over 85 percent of educators rated the program as highly or slightly effective in improving math confidence, achievement, and engagement.
One superintendent of an HDT middle school claimed “in my experience of 45 years in education, [HDT] is one of the best interventions I have seen work.” By the end of the experience, many schools reported non-HDT students asking for tutoring after seeing their peers enjoy the experience.
But the benefits of HDT extend beyond test scores – it also plays a crucial role in engagement and attendance. Research from Washington D.C.’s tutoring program showed that HDT led to increases in school attendance. Building a connection with a tutor through frequent, small-group sessions can motivate students to attend school consistently, engage in productive struggle, and take more risks. Indeed, one Connecticut HDT district leader reported that “HDT improved overall math culture in our classrooms. Reluctant learners with lower confidence were supported in becoming active participants and leaders.”
While Connecticut did a lot right with its program, we also saw what doesn’t work. Tutoring offered virtually in after-school settings leads to significant underusage (over 90 percent of Connecticut districts offered tutoring in person during the school day). But that doesn’t mean technology has no role in tutoring. Indeed, rapid advancements in education technology like AI platforms cannot completely replace a human tutor, but when paired with less-experienced tutors, they can augment instruction.
Second, strong leadership is critical for effective implementation. Like most educational programs, good intentions and well-designed plans count for very little if there isn’t strong execution of them from school leadership. Finally, developing tutor talent is critical. Not everyone can be an excellent tutor on day one, but through intentional, ongoing professional development, average tutors today can become superior tomorrow.
With this additional allotment in the governor’s budget, Connecticut can continue developing HDT proof points in districts across the state. And it couldn’t come at a more urgent time. Connecticut’s NAEP scores didn’t show significant declines in student performance, but we are still behind pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, heightened public awareness around Connecticut’s disconnected youth crisis and ongoing trepidation around federal funding cuts only make smart investments in programs like HDT more necessary. We won’t reach perfect with this budget, but we can make schools better with it, and in our world of public education, better is good.
In today’s complex political landscape, state and local government remain our strongest hope for ensuring we do right by students. Connecticut received $1.1 billion in COVID-19 funding under President Biden, allowing us to innovate and design programs that didn’t just address problems created by the pandemic, but also those that existed before. And today, we are wiser for it.
By marshaling our resources, leadership, and unwavering dedication to students, Connecticut can build upon the progress of high-dosage tutoring, ensuring it delivers on the promise of providing a world-class education to Connecticut students, and setting a new standard for educational excellence in schools.
John Scianimanico is the former Director of Special Projects for the Connecticut State Department of Education.