North Dakota's schools should make student tutoring, state-funded preschool and teacher coaching more widely available as part of a comprehensive improvement plan, a consultant's report says.

The state's Commission on Education Improvement will use the report's conclusions in making recommendations to the North Dakota Legislature next year, said its chairman, Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple. The panel discussed the report Wednesday during a meeting in Dickinson.

"I think things have started to come together on a number of different fronts, but we still have a lot of work to do," Dalrymple said. "It's starting to jell."

The cost of the consultant's proposals is still being calculated, Dalrymple said. Gov. John Hoeven has outlined plans to ask the Legislature to increase state aid to schools by $100 million during the 2009-2011 budget period, which begins July 1.

The report, written by Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, advocates state aid to local schools to offer preschool classes to 3- and 4-year-olds.

The Legislature only recently approved aid for full-day kindergarten classes. The report suggests North Dakota could begin a state-funded preschool initiative in selected districts.

Schools also should have tutors available for students who are struggling with their class work, available to meet with students individually or in small groups, the report says.

Having a tutor on hand may help students work out their problems and rejoin their regular classes more quickly, the report says. It suggests having at least one tutor per school.

"The idea there is that with a little bit of assistance at the right time, a student can return to a course and not need any further tutoring if it's done on a timely basis," Dalrymple said.

One of the report's primary conclusions is that students would benefit from having instructional coaches available to their teachers, to observe them and suggest ways they may improve their instruction. It suggests a ratio of one instructional coach for every 200 students.

The report advocates increasing the number of days set aside for teacher professional development from two days to 10, to provide more intensive training on various aspects of education.

"Improving teacher effectiveness through high quality professional development is arguably as important as all of the other resource strategies identified," the report says. "Better instruction is the key aspect of the education system that will improve student learning."

Dalrymple said there was little chance state lawmakers would agree to finance eight more teacher training days, but he said other methods for increasing the amount of development time might be more acceptable.

One possibility is adding one day to North Dakota's school year, then dismissing students early during four school days to provide a few development hours for teachers at the day's end, Dalrymple said.