Sponsors (3)
Introduced December 9, 2025 by Cory Anthony Booker · Last progress December 9, 2025
The bill substantially expands and funds high-quality tutoring and related supports for students in high-need schools—creating paid opportunities and stronger school–college pipelines—but does so with competitive grants, administrative burdens, and cost/eligibility rules that may limit reach, flexibility, and some community providers' participation.
Students in high-need and hard-to-staff K–12 schools will receive regular, curriculum-aligned one-on-one or small-group tutoring to accelerate learning.
The bill establishes a federal funding target (authorized $500 million with at least 85% directed to direct student supports), providing substantial new resources for tutoring in high-need areas.
Tutors and mentors (including postsecondary students and recent graduates) receive stipends, paid collaboration time, and access to national service educational awards, creating paid/credentialed opportunities and a career pipeline into education.
Local consortia and LEAs must devote significant staff time to detailed grant applications and ongoing reporting, creating administrative burdens that can divert resources from instruction.
Competitive grant awards risk leaving many high-need schools without support if their consortia are not selected, concentrating benefits unevenly.
Grant funds may not be used to supplant existing tutoring or replace teachers, limiting LEA flexibility to reallocate funds to other urgent local priorities.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a competitive DOE grant program to fund consortia that recruit, train, place, and pay tutors for high-quality, standards-aligned tutoring in hard-to-staff and high-need schools, and links those positions to CNCS national service awards.
Creates a competitive Department of Education grant program that pays local consortia to recruit, train, place, and pay tutors who provide regular, standards-aligned, small-group or one-on-one instruction in hard-to-staff and high-need schools. The law defines what counts as “high-quality tutoring,” sets who can lead and join consortiums (LEAs, schools, educational service agencies, and educator preparation programs plus community partners), and requires plans for recruitment, training, supervision, and pay. It also directs the Department to work with the Corporation for National and Community Service so tutor positions funded under the program qualify as approved national service positions and so tutors may receive national service educational awards after completing their service.