Accelerated Instruction

High Impact Tutoring and Student Outcomes

Texas students have experienced academic growth post-Covid but learning acceleration is still critically needed, particularly in Math. On the 2022 STAAR, only 52% of students met grade level expectations in Reading Language Arts while only 40% of students met grade level in math.¹

Evidence suggests that high impact tutoring can have a significant impact on outcomes for students:

A 2020 meta-analysis of 96 studies of high-quality tutoring programs found that students made 5 months of additional progress on average, a large pooled 0.37 effect size.¹

The average effect of tutoring programs on student achievement is larger than the effects found in approximately 85% of studies evaluating education interventions and equivalent to moving a student at the 35th percentile of the achievement distribution to the 50^th.²

“Teachers reported students' enthusiasm, and progress. They saw many positives to the program which they believed led to student success including the small teacher to student ratio, consistently teaching the same small group of students, consistent tutoring days and times and utilizing the program with fidelity.

Over 90% of students in the High Impact Tutoring reading program increased reading fluency from March 2022 to mid-May 2022. During that same time period, a majority of students gained ½ year reading level in less than 3 months as measured by our district reading assessment and most students improved substantially in basic reading TEKS as measured by our universal screener.”

— Administrator, Greenville ISD

Accelerated Instruction Requirements in Texas

Texas law requires all students who do not achieve approaches or higher on STAAR grades 3 through 8 or EOC assessments be provided accelerated instruction. These requirements, modified by House Bill 4545 of the 87^th legislature and recently updated with the passage of House Bill 1416 in the 88^th legislature, provide that qualifying students must be:

• Assigned a TIA designated teacher for the subsequent school year in the applicable subject area;

OR

• Provided supplemental instruction aligned with the research on high impact tutoring in the TEKS for the applicable grade levels and subject area in the following manner:
  • No less than 15 or 30 hours depending on student performance and is provided in the summer or at least once per week in the school year;
  • Limited to two subjects per year, prioritizing math and RLA;
  • Provided in a group of no more than four students, unless the parent or guardian of each student in the group authorizes a larger group;
  • Designed to assist the student in achieving satisfactory performance in the applicable grade level and subject area and includes effective instructional materials designed for supplemental instruction;
  • Provided by a person with training in the applicable instructional materials for the supplemental instruction and provided by one person for the entirety of their accelerated instruction.

Key Changes in Requirements from HB 1416

House Bill 1416 updated accelerated instruction requirements from House Bill 4545 by: 

• Removing the requirement for Accelerated Learning Committees while requiring Accelerated Education Plan after student fails to achieve approaches or higher on two consecutive assessments in the same subject area 
• Limiting tutoring to 2 subjects and no longer including optional assessment administrations
• Increasing student to tutor ratio from 3:1 to 4:1 ratio for tutoring group size  
• Reducing minimum hour requirement from 30 to 15 for some students* 
• Providing student to teacher ratio waivers for use of approved online curriculum (approvals available spring 2024) 

Additional details are available in the resources section below.