April Newsletter from the CEO
by
Katherine Bassett
on
April 25, 2025
Happy Spring to All Tutoring Advocates:
During the last month, the New Jersey Tutoring Corp (NJTC) received some important news.
As you may have seen in a series of recent press releases, earlier this year, the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) named the NJTC as the first Tutor Apprenticeship Program in the country.
More information on apprenticeship programs can be found HERE, but I wanted to showcase these developments in this month’s newsletter because it is a big deal for New Jersey’s future – and, admittedly, a bit challenging to understand.
This new apprenticeship program for tutoring will enable New Jersey to better address its educator workforce shortage. As many school leaders and parents are aware, the state has faced a significant shortage of teachers and support staff for years, particularly in subjects such as math, science, and special education across all grade levels.
Naming NJTC as the first tutoring program to receive this designation is a great honor for our entire team. It enables us to build a new, trailblazing model that will be emulated nationwide. Specifically, I want to recognize Ashley Bencan, NJTC’s Chief of Staff, who worked closely with the Department of Labor to make this all a reality and led our lengthy approval process.
Over the last three years, NJTC has worked tirelessly to make New Jersey’s tutoring program the best in the country. Since our launch three years ago, we have served over 12,500 scholars and more than 200 school and district partners while creating 740 jobs statewide. In the most recent independent third-party evaluation indicated that NJTC scholars’ grade-level performance jumped by 550% in math and 150% in literacy after just one year of NJTC tutoring. And, in addition to this new federal designation, the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) at Stanford University recently announced that NJTC had received its prestigious national “Tutoring Program Design Badge,” formally indicating that NJTC meets the highest tutoring standards for Program Design.
The state’s investment in tutoring and the development of NJTC is making a profound impact.
We need your help as we are recruiting apprentices. We would appreciate any help to spread the word statewide.
As the nation’s first Tutor Apprenticeship Program (TAP), New Jersey offers working adults a streamlined and subsidized pathway into the education profession.
The NJTC TAP offers:
- Comprehensive training and mentorship, guiding tutors through key instructional competencies from building student relationships to creating and delivering effective lesson plans;
- A salary of $30/hour while mastering tutoring competencies of professionalism, planning, instruction, and environment;
- The ability to earn college credit, discounted tuition, and a stipend for post-secondary credits to access additional careers in education, such as a substitute, paraprofessional, or classroom teacher;
- Program completers will also earn a nationally recognized Tutor credential to tutor anywhere in the country.
For more information, please click HERE.
In the eyes of many, thanks to the leadership of the Murphy Administration and legislative leaders, such as Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz and Senate Education Committee Chair Vin Gopal, NJTC has become a national model for tutoring. We are excited about the results we are bringing, these new developments, our expansion, and our work.
As always, I would ask that you please contact me at anytime if you have any questions or ideas on how we can best serve our public school scholars.
With gratitude,
Katherine Bassett, CEO