Arizona’s free tutoring program ends early after funding runs out

PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) ended its free tutoring program early after running out of money to fund it, officials announced.

In October, the ADE announced that the Achievement Tutoring Program would continue throughout the 2024-25 school year.

But the plan changed and the free tutoring program will no longer be available when classes resume after the winter break.

“The money ran out sooner than we thought,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Monday.

What was the Achievement Tutoring Program?

The Achievement Tutoring Program was created last year with $40 million in federal funding to address learning loss related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It started with a pilot session in November 2023 and ended this month after serving nearly 50,000 public district and charter school students over eight sessions, Horne said.

Nearly 7,000 students were enrolled in the final session.

About 22% of the students who participated gained a half-year in academics over the course of a six-week session, according to Horne.

“The program was very successful,” he said.

Why did Arizona’s free tutoring program end?

However, the program’s popularity was one of the reasons it couldn’t continue through the current school year.

“We ended up burning up more money than we expected. The session before the last cost $3 million; the last session cost $4.5 million,” Horne said.

Another factor was that the funding could no longer be used to hire teachers for tutoring and could only be spent on private companies after a federal deadline, Horne explained. In addition, some vendors submitted their billing late.

“When the bills came in, we saw the money was about to run out and we notified everybody,” he said.

ADE partners with AI tutoring program

Although the free tutoring program is no longer available, the ADE recently partnered with Khan Academy to give students access to an artificial intelligence system called Khanmigo.

The ADE allocated $1.5 million for AI tutoring for up to 100,000 students. Districts can sign up to make the program available to their students for free.

The department said that after the 100,000 spots are taken, parents will have the option of signing their kids up for Khanmigo for $25 per year.

“It’s an excellent tutor. It doesn’t answer the questions they ask; it leads into the answers by asking them questions. It’s the Socratic method,” the superintendent said.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Balin Overstolz McNair contributed to this report.

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