Many states and school districts are eager to expand high-dosage tutoring programs, a proven way to accelerate student learning by providing personalized instruction in small group settings several times a week. But there are challenges to getting these programs successfully off the ground, like recruiting tutors in a tight labor market, fitting sessions into already packed school days, and ensuring consistent student participation.

To help practitioners address these challenges, the University of Chicago's Education Lab and MDRC launched the Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI) in 2021. PLI is supporting and studying the expansion of high-dosage tutoring programs in school districts across the country.

In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Barbara Condliffe, a senior research associate at MDRC, who's leading the implementation research on PLI, about the early lessons from the project.