Texas requires tutoring for kids failing STAAR. But here’s why students might not get it

‘It’s physically impossible’ for districts to meet the new state law.

By Emily Donaldson and Talia Richman

Staff shortages and scheduling complications threaten to derail Texas’ major push to catch up students who fell behind during the pandemic.

A new law, approved by state legislators last year, essentially requires schools to provide at least 30 hours of tutoring in each subject that a student failed or missed on state exams.

Texas had more than 2 million failed exams among elementary and middle-schoolers. Some students may have failed multiple tests and even more did not take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR.

Districts drew from billions in federal pandemic aid to hire tutors in a competitive job market and reworked their calendars to accommodate extra learning time. But they faced immense challenges finding enough staff or hours in the day.

Now, many school leaders say they won’t be able to get their kids the required intervention time. And even in districts determined to follow the letter of the law, officials aren’t sure the prescriptive statewide approach is best for children facing immense learning loss.

“It’s physically impossible for us to meet the requirements of [the law] under the current model,” Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said.

DISD won’t be able to meet the law’s requirements by the end of the school year, but Hinojosa doubts others will either, he stressed.

Some legislators didn’t expect schools to fulfill the law this year given the pressures of the pandemic. Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Kingwood, attempted to lessen the requirements during a special legislative session, but his proposal didn’t gain traction.

“We’re asking them to do the best they can,” Huberty said, noting that the Legislature will likely study the issue in the coming months so lawmakers can tweak the bill in 2023.

The Texas Education Agency backed off full enforcement as well, telling districts that officials don’t plan to strictly enforce compliance in this first year “as long as districts are making reasonable efforts to meet the requirements and there is no evidence of willful non-compliance.”

Agency spokesman Frank Ward acknowledged the potential impact of students not getting the mandated tutoring.

“This would mean that students entitled to vitally important supplemental instruction may not be prepared to engage and be successful with grade level material now and in the future,” he wrote in an email.

Stringent state guidance has districts scrambling to fulfill required administrative tasks on top of other challenges as they face their third school year impacted by the pandemic.

“We want to be able to respond to our kids’ needs, but this bill has made us react,” said Mary Webb, Frisco ISD’s director of elementary teaching and learning. “The thought behind [the law] was a good thought. But when you put all these rules and one way of doing it when you’re in this state, it’s not going to meet everything.”

For example, if an eighth-grade student failed or missed all four STAAR exams, he could be looking at 120 hours of tutoring.

Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, author of the legislation’s provisions that Texas’ schools are struggling to fulfill, acknowledged the challenges districts are facing. But the lawmaker cautioned against giving up on fulfilling any of the mandates of his House Bill 4545.

“I hope it engenders a conversation about how we go about improving public education not only for all children but children who are at the bottom,” he said. “We have to recognize that we don’t have any choice but to get them off the bottom, and it’s to our benefit to do that.”

Not enough tutors or time

When Dallas officials first estimated it would take 1,800 openings to staff the district’s ambitious tutoring plan, families and community members began to realize the enormous effort needed to tackle pandemic learning loss.

But the total number of tutors needed in DISD is larger than even those eye-popping projections, said Derek Little, the district’s deputy chief of teaching and learning. In the months since DISD started planning its tutoring program, the district discovered how challenging it was to both find enough tutors and time to get students their required intervention.

“Hiring in general, not just for tutors, but for anything in education, and beyond education, is super challenging right now,” Little said.

Schools across the region are struggling to find enough people to teach, drive buses and sub-in for those who fall ill. Some campuses had to briefly shut down earlier this year because of staffing issues.

As a result, the district has offered three ways to match campuses with tutors: Principals can choose to partner with a vendor who may bring in tutors from across the country to work with students virtually; use district staff; or tap a local community organization.

Some teachers also put in extra time tutoring their own students, said Shannon Trejo, DISD’s chief academic officer.

Even with so many hands helping out, finding time to get all students their required interventions is a struggle. Research shows that tutoring during the school day works best, but the law limits when students can be pulled out of classes.

For instance, students can’t be pulled from recess, core instruction or extracurricular courses. It’s easier to manage the limitations at an elementary level, Little said, because the blocks of classes are longer.

So if there’s not enough time to fit in tutoring during the school day, some students are having to choose between attending band or football practice and going to tutoring after school, he added.

DISD will continue tutoring into this summer, although the number of students who will get served out of the 40,000-plus group required to receive intervention is a moving target based on staffing.

Meanwhile, since the district can’t serve everyone, officials are prioritizing reading and math over science and social studies. They are also keeping equity in mind when choosing who gets access to limited resources.

This is the right approach, Huberty said. The retiring lawmaker encouraged districts pressed to reach each student in need to focus on reading interventions, followed by math, with emphasis on the children who are the most behind.

In Cedar Hill, schools use “Longhorn Time” — a roughly 45-minute to an hour block during the school day — to do learning interventions. The district is leaning on retired educators to drill down on students’ individual needs, but it’s difficult to meet the 3-to-1 ratio set out in the law.

“Some of the parameters that have been placed here make it almost impossible for school districts to implement,” Assistant Superintendent Shemeka Millner-Williams said.

Still, educators know individualized attention can make a difference and is an important tool for combating learning loss, so they are doing what they can to tutor kids who need the extra help.

“I do feel like tutoring has helped move some of our kids who are in those lower two tiers of instruction back to a more grade level-like performance,” she said.

Looking ahead

The coming months will likely bring studies and hearings on learning loss to the statehouse, providing an opportunity for lawmakers to come up with ideas to refine the legislation.

Huberty said this will give school leaders a chance to provide input on how to make the law better.

In Frisco, a high-performing district, officials want the flexibility to put together individualized plans based on their own community needs.

“Our concern is that the rules, the logistics, the compliance pieces put in place, put an overburden on the system with what the teachers have to do,” chief academic officer Wes Cunningham said. “The meetings that have to take place, the 30 hours that are mandated. Why 30 hours?”

The method for identifying children in need of tutoring also complicates matters. Districts were required to administer the STAAR test in-person last year, even as many children remained in virtual learning.

About 7% of Frisco students did not take tests, which could have automatically triggered the additional tutoring.

“Some of the kids may have needed the accelerated instruction. Some of those students may have been performing fairly well,” said Gary Nye, Frisco’s assessment and accountability director.

Frisco administered a second set of tests for some students to identify which children were on grade level and could sidestep the 30-hour requirements. But they’re worried that won’t be possible next year.

Little hopes lawmakers revisit the constraints on when students can receive tutoring to make it easier to provide intervention during the day. He also hopes lawmakers study how to do required tutoring at the high school level. Those students take end-of-course tests and could pass the class and move on to a new subject even if they failed STAAR.

“If I’m in a geometry course and you’re still providing me tutoring for algebra, it’s just a bit disjointed,” Little said.

There’s also a need to explore additional resources for tutoring Spanish-speaking students, the DISD administrator said. Roughly 1 in 5 Texas students are learning English as a language in public schools.

Despite the obstacles, education officials stress the importance of offering tutoring.

“It is top five, one of the best things you can do for students,” Little said. “We believe in it.”

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation as well as from Garrett and Cecilia Boone. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.