Nashville, TN – Throughout the month of September, the Tennessee Department of Education will be celebrating and spotlighting TN ALL Corps, the state’s high-dosage, low-ratio tutoring program to boost student outcomes and accelerate academic achievement.
High-dosage, low-ratio tutoring can significantly increase student achievement, and consists of intensive tutoring that occurs in small groups (1:3 in grades 1-5 / 1:4 ratios in grades 6-8) two to three times per week. This model helps students accelerate their learning in an individualized manner and focuses on scaffolding academic content so students can access new learning, while building upon their knowledge and skills base.
Throughout Tennessee, 87 districts are participating in TN ALL Corps to provide free tutoring for over 200,000 students over the course of three years. Districts that signed up for TN ALL Corps as early adopters provided tutoring supports to students beginning in the 2021-22 school year, and as year two of TN ALL Corps programming begins, participating districts and schools have flexibility on how to implement and create a schedule that works best for their teachers, tutors and students.
“As Tennessee continues its work to help students recover from the pandemic and accelerate their learning, the TN ALL Corps program continues to show promise and commitment from educators, districts, and communities across Tennessee to work together to improve student outcomes through high-dosage, low-ratio tutoring,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “We are focused on helping all our students achieve their highest potential, and thanks to the commitment of over a third of our school districts, our students have access to intentional tutoring and supports to set them up for success inside and outside the classroom.”
Students across the state had varying access to instruction in spring 2020 and throughout the 2020-21 school year. In January 2021, Governor Bill Lee convened the Tennessee General Assembly for a special legislative session to pass policies to help mitigate COVID-19 disruptions and support Tennessee students, including the Tennessee Accelerating Literacy and Learning Corps which codified TN ALL Corps into state law.
"TN All Corps makes a positive difference in the lives of our students. Students are teamed with our outstanding educators in small groups to dive deeper into the learning that takes place daily in our classrooms,” said Dr. Russell Dyer, Cleveland City Schools Director of Schools. “I am proud of our teachers for standing in the gap for our students and I'm equally proud of our students and families for committing their time to this effort. It truly takes a village to raise a child and I'm thankful to the State of Tennessee for identifying this need and funding it for the long-term benefit of our students."
To support implementation of the law and to aid districts in administering their TN ALL Corps programming, the department has put in place a few essential supports.
Through the department’s partnership with Zearn, students and families in the TN ALL Corps program now have access to a platform that can provide digital lessons and student progress updates in mathematics as well as a teacher-tutor-family communications tool that helps connect content to classroom instruction by easily sharing student progress reports with families and facilitating collaboration opportunities for teachers and tutors to work together to support student learning.
“Coming out of the pandemic, our district recognized the learning gaps incurred by our students. The high-dosage, low-ratio model from TN All Corps was the perfect fit for our district and students,” said Jonathan Criswell, Director of Schools, Milan Special School District. “The teachers have been able to concentrate on providing intense grade-level instructional support to students while having individualized time to ensure that students grasp previous grade-level skills which may be missing or incomplete. We are confident our targeted students will show tremendous growth over the next year.”
The department has also created a TN ALL Corps Advisory Council comprised of district leaders and early adopters of the TN ALL Corps program to help ensure that participating districts have a strong partnership with the department. The council will offer guidance on how to meet program requirements and model for what high-dosage, low-ratio tutoring can look like that includes more learning opportunities for students.
TN ALL Corps Advisory Council Members:
“We have never had a program like this. It identifies kids who are almost there. It quickly gives them the boost to be on grade level. Often, students spend forever intervention with nominal gains,” said Katie Arnold, TN ALL Coordinator, Cheatham County Schools. “I wish we could have all of our students participate in TN ALL Corps.”
Finally, in June, the department announced the expansion of TN ALL Corps to five community partners around the state including: the Niswonger Foundation, Literacy Mid-South, and United Way of Greater Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. These partners will follow the state’s high-dosage, low-ratio model for tutoring within their local program and added an additional 20,000 seats for at-risk students.
"Through our work with eighteen school districts and 5,500 students over the past 15 months, we know high-dosage tutoring works to accelerate student learning recovery. It is not physically possible for teachers, alone, to provide high-dosage tutoring to the number of students who need it,” said Debra R. Bentley, Director of Project On-Track, Niswonger Foundation. “Because of Project On-Track's design, community college and college students, parents, caregivers, and retirees are stepping up to extend the reach of teachers and support students as tutors. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime.”
For more information on the department's TN ALL Corps program, click here.
For Tennessee Department of Education media inquiries, contact Edu.MediaInquiries@tn.gov.