By Daniel Stefanski |

One of Arizona’s official tutoring programs for the state’s children is getting results.

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne recently highlighted the success of the Arizona Department of Education’s Achievement Tutoring Program, noting that “student registrations total 17,324 over three six-week sessions so far this year.”

In a statement to champion this news, Horne said, “So far, more than 20 percent of those students tested have seen academic gains representing half a school year of learning within six weeks of tutoring. This helps these students to be better prepared for success at the next grade level. Other students have seen smaller gains, and some have exceeded a half-year’s progress, but every increase in the proficiency rate is important.”

The state’s schools chief added, “I urge parents of public-school children to take advantage of this opportunity. It is available at participating schools or through private tutoring services at no cost to the parents. A child who is struggling in reading or math deserves this chance to be more successful in the classroom and children already doing well can do even better.”

According to the department’s website, the Achievement Tutoring Program is “a new tutoring program designed to provide reading, writing, and mathematics tutoring for students in grades K-12. The tutoring is provided by both public school districts or charters and approved tutoring providers with the goal of increasing student proficiency on the statewide AASA in alignment with Arizona State Standards as well as improving reading, writing, and math in every grade level.”

The department offers this program to “any student enrolled in a public or charter school in grades K-12 with an emphasis on those who tested below proficient in reading, writing, or mathematics on the Arizona Academic Standards Assessment (AASA) and are not eligible for an existing support service the Arizona Department of Education offers.”

Horne’s release shared several testimonials about the success of this program. One was from “a parent who reported her first-grade son received tutoring at his elementary school and is ‘now the fastest reader in his class… This program is revolutionary…very, very powerful and successful! Keep it up!’”

Another was from a tutor who “said her student faced ‘just the right amount of challenge. He is so cute, he said ‘There is no stopping me’ – and his mom said she can really see his confidence growing!”

Another was from a parent who said, “I just want to take a moment to thank you all for this amazing program! Our oldest child was at risk of failing this year math and thanks to the tutoring program is now scoring at 82% (was at 23%)! The impact has been tremendously positive!”

The program was started late last year, “using federal dollars earmarked to address learning loss due to the COVID pandemic” – per the information from the Arizona Department of Education.

Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.