U.S. students in grades 3-8 slipped further behind in math, reading in 2022-23, NWEA report finds
An average student will need the equivalent of 4.1 additional months of schooling, on top of their regular school time, to catch up in reading, and 4.5 more months in math, researchers estimated. Credit: Brittainy Newman
Students nationwide fell further behind in reading and math last school year despite billions of federal relief dollars spent to close achievement gaps that widened during the pandemic, a new report released Tuesday found.
For many, the 2022-23 academic year was considered the first normal school year since the pandemic hit, with no remote learning or mask mandates in New York.
But achievement gains during the term not only fell short of pre-pandemic times but were in some ways worse than 2021-22, according to NWEA, a Portland, Oregon-based research organization that also administers assessments in K-12 schools.
“Because kids are making gains at rates below pre-COVID trends, that means we’re not shrinking those achievement gaps,” said Karyn Lewis, director of the Center for School and Student Progress at NWEA who co-authored the report. “We’re actually widening them.”
Lewis and Megan Kuhfeld, the other co-author, examined test scores of about 6.7 million students in grades 3-8 in 20,000 public schools since the onset of the pandemic. NWEA does not have a regional data breakdown for New York or Long Island.
Achievement gains trailed across grades except the youngest cohort in third grade, which made above-average progress. Black and Hispanic students remained furthest from recovery, the report said.
An average student will need the equivalent of 4.1 additional months of schooling, on top of their regular school time, to catch up in reading, and 4.5 more months in math, researchers estimated.
Middle-schoolers on average need more instruction time to make up for the gaps than elementary schoolchildren do. The amount of time needed for eighth-graders to catch up rises to 7.4 months in reading and 9.1 months in math.
Alan Singer, a Hofstra University education professor, said the stall in academic catchup for middle-schoolers is particularly concerning as the pandemic may have interfered with their habit of learning, which puts them at higher risk of falling further behind.
“Up to the age of 10, kids really just like school, and then it becomes more of a chore as it becomes more academically serious,” he said. “The concern is that the love of learning, the joy of learning and the excitement was dulled because of the COVID experience, and that may be very difficult to get back.”
The additional schooling cannot be compressed into a one-shot intervention or single school year, the report’s authors wrote. Instead, the gaps require “a sustained and comprehensive effort spread over several years” — not by 2024 when the federal relief money runs out.
Since 2020, federal authorities have earmarked $14 billion in relief for schools throughout New York, including more than $520 million in Nassau and Suffolk counties, Newsday previously reported.
Singer said the ending of the federal dollars will likely make learning recovery even more difficult.
“My concern is that if the money is removed, it's not just the kids won’t catch up, but it's likely that they will fall further and further behind,” he said.
Schools across the nation, including in the 124 districts on Long Island, have taken steps to help students recover from pandemic learning loss, though the latest NWEA analysis along with recent federal test results clearly showed they are far from enough.
“Schools are doing the right things,” Lewis said. "They’re just not doing enough of the right things. And I think that’s because we’ve underestimated how persistent the effects of COVID will be on kids.”
The president of Nassau County Council of School Superintendents, Maria Rianna, superintendent of Glen Cove City schools, and her counterpart at the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association, Tim Hearney, superintendent of Bayport-Blue Point schools, had no comment on the report Tuesday.
With AP
Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.
