Committee questions Literacy Mid South funding request and seeks stronger evaluation data

Interim CEO John Nichols of Literacy Mid South presented a funding request and grant context: Literacy Mid South said it has funded programming with Tennessee Department of Education grants (about $3.7 million annually) and had applied for an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant that would contribute $6 million over four years. Nichols said Literacy Mid South’s per‑student cost under prior grants was roughly $2,300; the organization proposed contributing $1,000 per student from its grant and asked the district to contribute roughly $1,300 per student to reach the program’s scale.

District staff presented an analysis comparing the district’s in‑house tutoring program (started with ESSER funds) to Literacy Mid South’s in‑school tutoring. The administration said it defined “high‑dosage” tutoring empirically as 90% attendance across a subject for the school year after analyzing earlier cohorts; statistically significant gains were observed for students who met that threshold but not for students with lower attendance. The district reported that, in 2023–24, 13,600 unique students were tutored (16,336 tutoring enrollments) at an average attendance rate of 71%; 21% of the tutored population met the 90% high‑dosage criterion. Among high‑dosage students in certain ELA cohorts, some moved from below/approaching to met/exceeded on TCAP, but sample sizes were small and the district emphasized that the evidence was not definitive.

Board members asked direct questions about the funding split, whether charter schools and Millington schools would be included, and what independent evaluation would accompany the grant. Nichols said the EIR grant application anticipated serving about 1,500 students and that Literacy Mid South planned internal and university evaluations (University of Memphis Center for Research and Educational Policy). Board members pressed staff to provide clearer comparisons of outcomes for all tutored students, not only those who reached the 90% attendance threshold, and to spell out sustainability and matching commitments. Some board members urged funding literacy expansion despite evaluation limits; others insisted on clearer ROI and required evaluation before committing major district funds.

The committee did not take a funding vote at the meeting; members requested detailed follow‑up about proposed student counts, the district’s comparative analysis, whether proposed matching funds from private philanthropies existed, and exact per‑student numbers for the current and proposed years.