Senate committee advances tutoring expansion to keep students on track

Published: March 19, 2026

By: Veronica Camenzuli, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE— A bill to expand Louisiana’s high-dosage tutoring program advanced in a Senate committee Wednesday even as a broader debate is shaping up over state funding for K-12 education.

Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Mandeville, proposed spending an additional $15 million a year to provide intensive tutoring to a larger group of students. The program has been focused on K-5 students who had failed assessments in reading, and McMath’s bill would also provide the tutoring to K-8 students who fail assessments in reading, English, numeracy or math.

“We are simply expanding upon and improving a program that is leading the nation,” McMath said.

Louisiana led the nation in learning loss recovery in reading after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Harvard and Stanford universities’ Education Recovery Scorecard. McMath said that high-dosage tutoring, which takes place at least three times a week, was responsible for the improvement.

Read more at Shreveport Times.