Key Takeaways:
- High-Impact Live-Online Tutoring Delivers Proven Results: Research shows students receiving high-impact live-online math tutoring in New Mexico performed 38% better than peers when adhering to prescribed dosage.
- Essential Best Practices Drive Success: Key factors include strong teacher-tutor communication logs, in-person proctoring for online sessions, dedicated in-school scheduling, and intentional relationship building.
- Partnerships Provide Critical Infrastructure: Leveraging user-friendly curriculum, robust tutor training and coaching, and secure virtual platforms enables scalable, high-quality execution across districts.
About Saga Education
Five years ago, New Mexico Public Education Department’s (NMPED) Michelle Korbakes didn’t know much about high-impact tutoring. Coming from a background as a district and school administrator, she had considered tutoring primarily homework help, where students dropped in for occasional help from a tutor to solve a problem as needed.
High-impact tutoring, she quickly learned, was different. Structured in a small (1:2 up to 1:4) tutor-to-student ratio, it uses curriculum aligned directly to standards, with tutors working to support core classroom instruction and meeting students for at least 90 minutes weekly throughout the school year.
Unlike traditional homework help, high-impact tutoring requires intentionally building strong, safe, comfortable, and stable relationships. Today as NMPED’s “ACCELerate NM” Project Manager, Michelle emphasized that even in virtual settings, tutors must prioritize relationship building so students feel supported and motivated to attend sessions and actively engage with their tutor.
Statewide Implementation and Proven Results
Initial efforts to roll out the program directly to New Mexico schools saw slow adoption because the concept was new. The state then shifted to managing tutors directly to deliver live-online math tutoring to schools. For a state with many rural schools, finding local tutors could present challenges that live-online tutoring helped ease. Research conducted by the University of Chicago Education Lab over two years showed that New Mexico students receiving high-impact live-online math tutoring performed 38% better than their peers, provided schools kept to the prescribed dosage.
Key Learnings and Best Practices
Michelle identified several key learnings and best practices from New Mexico’s implementation:
- Classroom Connection: A strong partnership between core classroom teachers and tutors is essential. Using a teacher-tutor communication log allows teachers to share specific areas where students struggle, enabling tutors to target specific concepts using the curriculum.
- In-Person Supervision: For live-online tutoring, having a proctor or adult present in the room ensures students stay engaged, keep cameras on, and receive immediate support for any technology issues.
- Scheduling: Finding dedicated time embedded within the school day, such as a designated intervention period, is important for successful implementation.
- Relationship Building: Prioritizing relationship-building in virtual environments helps students feel safe, comfortable, and motivated to participate fully in sessions.
The Value of Partnerships
Reflecting on the impact of free access to the Saga curriculum and Saga Coach training modules, Michelle shared: “Those things are invaluable. Those are lovely to have when we’re developing our tutors.” She noted that the curriculum is user-friendly and scripted so that tutors (even those without a formal teaching background or education degree) can easily follow the lessons, prioritize core standards, and guide student learning effectively.
In addition, Saga provides interactive, synchronous professional development and coaching with dedicated facilitators, allowing tutors to engage in direct Q&A sessions and refine their practice. As Michelle highlighted, Saga has “great people, great coaches, great facilitators” who tailor support to district needs. The partnership also relied on the Saga Connect platform for secure virtual delivery, and the state is now expanding the initiative beyond math to include literacy tutoring.
Highlighting the state’s proactive leadership, Saga CEO and Co-founder Alan P.G. Safran said, “New Mexico’s flexible and innovative approach to tutoring is a powerful model for states, especially those working to expand access across rural communities. By adapting implementation to meet local needs, they’ve shown how high-impact, live-online tutoring can deliver significant learning outcomes for students.”
For district administrators considering high-impact tutoring, Michelle’s advice is simple: put your processes and procedures in place, take a leap of faith, and start seeing results.