Planning for a Peer Tutoring Resource Center in Oakland - a report prepared by Urban Strategies Council for the R.A.D. Schwartz Foundation
Peer tutoring is a student-led, site-based instructional strategy used to support improved academic achievement and social-emotional outcomes across the nation (and in Oakland) for more than 30 years.In the late 1970s, the R.A.D. Schwartz Foundation initiated and supported for 12 years a peer tutoring program in the Oakland Unified School District (California) that eventually served more than 30 schools and regularly brought together educators, civic leaders, and parents for learning conferences.
Based on the early success of this peer tutoring program and the current school reform movement in Oakland focused on the whole child, the Schwartz Foundation, in recent years, became interested in establishing a permanent resource for teachers, administrators, after school practitioners, parents, and anyone else interested in using peer tutoring as an instructional strategy.
In 2012, the Schwartz Foundation asked Urban Strategies Council to initiate an inquiry process among Oakland schools (public, charter, parochial and independent) to determine interest in such a resource and advise on its development. The report below, Planning for a Peer Tutoring Resource Center in Oakland, examines promising practices and outcomes for peer tutoring; presents findings on current peer tutoring practices and capacity needs in Oakland schools; and makes recommendations for establishing a peer tutoring resource center beginning with an online resource library accessible to anyone interested in developing peer tutoring programs in a classroom or across a school.
