The lasting impact of the pandemic on young students

Key points:

Young students need more learning support to keep up with historical academic growth trends, according to new research from Curriculum Associates, which reveals national data on the impact of the pandemic on elementary school students’ academic growth and recovery.

Student growth in the post-COVID era The report offers an assessment of student performance, tracking year-over-year growth and comparing it to historical trends. The report leverages three years of longitudinal data and is the first of its kind to analyze impacts on younger students who were not yet in formal school at the start of the pandemic. The research provides a temperature check on student academic growth, analyzing aggregate data to determine where and for whom recovery may be occurring.

Key results:

• Young students need more support to keep pace with historical growth trends.
• Older students (i.e. fourth graders in 2021) show signs of recovery in both reading and math, which in some cases align with their pre-pandemic growth trajectories.
• Students who were significantly below grade level in both reading and math at the start of the 2021-2022 school year They are not keeping pace with pre-pandemic growth trends.
• Some Students who were at or near grade level are outperforming historical growth trends.
• Students of Schools in low-income or minority communities show continuing disparities in academic growth relative to pre-pandemic trends.

“We know the pandemic has put enormous strain on our educators and school districts,” said Dr. Kristen Huff, vice president of research and evaluation at Curriculum Associates. “The variety of data and analytical approaches makes it difficult to assess the post-COVID recovery landscape. This research offers new insights into the different patterns of recovery, identifying where recovery is occurring and where more support is needed.”

Uneven recovery trends indicate that, in some cases, post-pandemic interventions were likely effective.

“While the majority of youth who are left behind are falling behind, there are a number of schools across the country where students who started behind on grade level are steadily catching up,” said Dr. Tequilla Brownie, executive director of TNTP. “The first common factor is the intentional creation of environments where students feel a sense of belonging. The other two priorities that matter most are consistent access to grade-level instruction and the presence of a unified, coherent instructional program that gives students and educators a clear path to success.”

These data underscore the need for educators, district leaders, and other stakeholders to carefully evaluate which interventions are most effective and how we can work together to change the course of learning outcomes for students who need support now.

“Even before the pandemic, many students in our district were not performing to their full potential,” said Dr. Mark Sullivan, superintendent of Birmingham City Schools. “We were dissatisfied with the number of third graders reading at grade level, so we had to be intentional in everything we do. This included training our teachers in the science of reading, setting high expectations for educators and students, and actively engaging families in their children’s learning.” This year, the district saw a 75 percent increase in the number of students reading at or above grade level.

The urgency of finding and implementing appropriate interventions is clear, especially when looking at the case of this year’s second graders, who were still out of school during the pandemic. Applied nationally, these data suggest that more than 1.3 million second graders (out of 3.5 million in the country) are behind in reading, compared with 1.1 million in 2019. More than half a million second graders (from 1.2 million to 1.7 million) are behind in math.

Learning gaps may worsen for this group of students over time as they work to catch up on foundational skills while learning new content.

For second graders and all those whose learning is not keeping pace with historical trends, this report will shape the conversation about how educators can help every student succeed.

This press release originally appeared online.

Laura Ascione is the editorial director of eSchool Media. She holds a degree from the prestigious Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

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