“The more the children know you and trust you, the more they’re willing to engage in what you’re trying to teach them,” said Susana Aguilar, one of The Oakland REACH’s “literacy liberators.”
The evaluation, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, calls community members “untapped pools of talent” in the effort to improve student achievement.
Oakland Unified’s model, said researcher and lead author Ashley Jochim, also has broader implications for how schools teach basic skills in reading and math. For too long, she said, one teacher has been responsible for modifying lessons to meet the needs of 25 or more students.
“This model is clearly failing students and puts extraordinary demands on educators, especially coming out of the pandemic,” she said. “Oakland’s tutoring model shows what’s possible when we create the conditions needed to individualize instruction based on students’ learning needs.”