Articulate the model dimensions based on a landscape analysis and understanding of your partner district needs. This foundational clarity will support program leaders to:
- Make purposeful and consistent model design decisions aligned with the program’s value proposition.
- Prevent mission creep and make decisions that serve the needs of the community.
- Scale up quickly and make decisions about trade-offs without the program losing focus.
Design your program informed by research.
- While opportunities for further research remain, a solid base of initial evidence can guide program design. The Tutoring Quality Improvement System self-assessment can be used to see how closely your program is aligned to research.
- New programs lack impact data, but being able to highlight that specific model design decisions are based on research will help secure funding sources and build partnerships with school districts or other stakeholders.
Instead of trying to design a perfect program from the start, invest in opportunities for evaluating effectiveness and continuous improvement.
- As one program leader shared, “You could spend three years trying to build the most perfect tutoring program, but our current mindset is: We need to do something now. We need to build in ways to quickly understand what is working (and not working) and quickly course correct.”
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