Recent school year saw little academic recovery, new study finds

BY MATT BARNUM CHALKBEAT

ere’s been little, if any, progress making up large learning gaps that have emerged since the onset of the pandemic, according to a new analysis of data from the testing group NWEA.

In the 2022-23 school year, students learned at a similar or slower rate compared to a typical pre-pandemic school year, the analysis found. is left intact the substantial learning losses, which have barely budged since the spring of 2021.

NWEA o ers only one data point based on a subset of American students, and more data from other exams will be needed to produce a clearer picture of academic progress during this last school year. Still, NWEA’s analysis is a concerning indication that the steep learning losses seen since the pandemic have proven di cult to ameliorate and could have lasting consequences for students and the country.

e results are “somber and sobering,” said NWEA researcher Karyn Lewis. “Whatever we’re doing, it’s not enough,” she said. “ e magnitude of the crisis is out of alignment with the scope and scale of the response and we need to do more.”

Since the onset of the COVID pandemic, NWEA, which develops and sells tests to schools, has been measuring students’ progress on math and reading exams in grades three through eight. By the spring of 2021 — according to NWEA and a string of other tests — the typical student was far behind where they would normally be. Test score gaps by race and family income, already yawning, had grown in many cases. is coincided with dramatic disruptions outside and inside schools, including extended virtual instruction. Students were learning during that time — but much more slowly than usual.

By the end of the 2021-22 school year, NWEA o ered some reason for optimism. Gaps were still there, but students in many grades had started to slowly make up ground. Learning during the school year was back to normal, perhaps even a bit better than normal. State tests also indicated that students were starting to catch up.

But NWEA’s results from the most recent school year are more pessimistic. For reasons that aren’t clear, progress stalled out, even reversed. In most grades and subjects, students actually learned at a slightly slower rate than usual. Growth in middle school reading was particularly sluggish.

In no grade or subject was there evidence of substantial catch-up this year. Instead, the learning gap this spring was not much di erent than in the spring of 2021, according to NWEA. Students of all types remain behind, but NWEA shows that Black and Hispanic students have been hurt somewhat more than white and Asian American students.

“ is is not what we were hoping to see and it’s not the message we want to be sharing at this time,” said Lewis. “But the data are what they are.”

Frustratingly, though, the data does not come with a clear explanation.

Schools were beset with challenges this past year: Chronic absenteeism remained at an alarmingly high level in many places. More teachers left the classroom than usual. Educators reported di culties managing students’ behavior and supporting their mental health.

But it’s not clear why there was more progress in the 2021-22 school year, which was also an unusually taxing year in many ways, according to teachers. Lewis said this was puzzling, but speculated that an initial burst of motivation upon returning to school buildings had zzled.

Learning loss recovery e orts have also run into hurdles. Tutoring has reached only a small subset of students. Few districts have extended the school day or year to guarantee all students more learning time.

But NWEA researchers cautioned that their data cannot speak directly to the e ectiveness or particular recovery e orts or to the federal COVID relief money more generally. “We have no access to the counterfactual of what life would be like right now absent those funds — I think it would be much more dire,” said Lewis.

It’s also possible that some combination of out-of-school factors may be driving trends in student learning. Researchers have long noted that a update to improve safety and reduce emissions from lines. e state and PHMSA regulate di erent pipelines, depending on the size of line, whether it crosses state lines and what type of liquids they carry. e Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission oversees owlines, which connect an oil or gas well to surrounding equipment. e American Petroleum InstituteColorado said in comments to the PUC that it expects the federal agency to pass a comprehensive approach to dealing with leaks and asked the state to wait until PHMSA acts. e Colorado Oil and Gas Associa-

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