The Education Department released a letter encouraging colleges to let their students take work-study jobs as K-12 tutors.
Colleges and universities should deploy more of their own students as paid tutors in local schools, the Biden administration has said.
In a “dear colleague” letter,the U.S. Department of Education encouraged colleges and universities to use Federal Work-Study Program funds to pay their students so they can serve as mentors, tutors, student success coaches, and wraparound student support coordinators for school-age children in their communities. The administration hopes the strategy can help K-12 districts that are struggling to find enough people to help their students catch up from a pandemic-induced academic slide.
Through the work-study program, college students who are struggling to afford the cost of school can work part-time jobs. The Biden administration is pushing colleges to allow more students to work these jobs off campus to help districts use tutoring to aid their students’ academic recovery.
So far, 26 colleges and universities have committed to using the work-study funding or other resources to increase the number of their students working as mentors and tutors in classrooms.
The May 10 letter comes nearly a year after the Education Department announced the National Partnership for Student Success, an initiative to supply 250,000 tutors and mentors to American schools through partnerships with AmeriCorps and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University. Since the initiative was announced last July, the number of organizations committed has grown from 75 to nearly 130, according to the letter.
“By serving as tutors and mentors, college students can make a positive difference in the lives of children and youth, and ultimately, it is in the best interests of our colleges and universities to help accelerate academic recovery in our public elementary and secondary schools,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
