Test Score Patterns Across Three COVID-19-Impacted School Years

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a seismic and ongoing disruption to K–12 schooling. Using test scores from 5.4 million U.S. students in Grades 3–8, we tracked changes in math and reading achievement across the first 2 years of the pandemic. Average math test scores in the fall of 2021 in Grades 3–8 were .20–.27 standard deviation (SD) lower relative to same-grade peers in the fall of 2019, while reading test scores decreased by .09–.18 SD. Achievement gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by .10–.20 SD, primarily during the 2020–2021 school year. Achievement disparities by student race/ethnicity also widened substantively. Observed declines are more substantial than during other recent school disruptions, such as those due to natural disasters.

Impacts of the COVID-19 disruption on the language and literacy development of monolingual and heritage bilingual children in the United States

“…1) how much progress did bilingual and monolingual children make in their English language and literacy development during the COVID-19 school disruption? As most COVID-19 related studies showed slower learning gains (e.g., Kilbride et al, 2021aKilbride et al, , 2021bKuhfeld et al, 2022), we predicted that across groups, children may show slower-than-expected progress in comparison to prior age-related norms. In particular, bilingual children were expected to be especially susceptible to having slower learning gains in both spoken and written English language skills.…”

“…Georgiou (2021) found that, while English-speaking Canadian 2nd and 3rd graders had decreases in their reading fluency and comprehension skills, 4th-9th graders maintained adequate reading progress compared to the cohorts in pre-pandemic years. Kuhfeld et al (2022) analyzed reading achievement data on 5 million US students and found that 3rd-8th graders had no significant change in their reading performance by the 2020 fall semester (i.e., the first semester after the major school disruption).…”

“Wearing a Mask Won't Protect Us from Our History”: The Impact of COVID‐19 on Black Children and Families

“…Prior to the pandemic, Black children were more likely to lose instructional time due to disproportionate discipline strategies (Losen & Martinez, 2020; U.S. GAO, 2018), and evidence suggests prepandemic losses were magnified by pandemic‐related school closures (Kuhfeld et al, 2022). Institutionalized patterns of racial discrimination against Black children, including disparate disciplinary practices resulting in the school‐to‐prison pipeline (C. Y. Kim et al, 2010), have fueled deep distrust of schools among Black communities (Gilbert et al, 2020; Shapiro et al, 2021).…”

“…Poor school conditions existed long before the pandemic (Frankenberg et al, 2019) exacerbation of inequalities brought on by the pandemic is particularly troubling for Black families in under-resourced schools. For example, in the early months of the pandemic, scholars forecasted that low-SES schools would see greater learning losses among their students as a function of school closures , and follow-up studies show evidence of these disparities (Agostinelli et al, 2022;Kuhfeld et al, 2022). Beyond academic learning, pandemic closures and subsequent reopening restrictions have required schools to invest resources to support student and staff′s physical safety, mental health, and socioemotional well-being.…”

Optimal lockdowns

“…Moreover, there is also a growing literature on the underpreparedness of students entering college after two years of remote or otherwise disrupted learning (Kuhfeld et al, 2022 ). Jack et al (forthcoming), looking at district-level schooling data in the United States for grades 3–8 found significantly larger declines in math and English language arts pass rates in districts forced to provide remote learning compared to those that were allowed to remain in-person.…”