The schooling disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic continue to reverberate across the K-12 educational system more than a year after schools closed for in-person instruction. In this study, we examined the aftermath of these disruptions by modeling student achievement trends prior to and during the pandemic, with particular focus on growth in 2020-21. The data included test scores from 4.9 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. Although the average student demonstrated positive gains in math and reading during the 2020-21 school year, students were still behind typical (pre-pandemic) averages by spring 2021 (0.16-0.26 standard deviations behind in math and 0.06-0.11 standard deviations behind in reading). Furthermore, growth in math was more variable than prior years, and much of the gains occurred among initially high-performing students pulling further ahead. Findings support the theory that the pandemic left students behind academically across the board while also worsening existing educational inequities.
Time Period(s): 2017 – 2021 (covers 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 school years)
Data Sources: 1) the NWEA Growth Research Database; 2) the 2018-19 Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey Data collected as part of the Common Core of Data (CCD) from the National Center for Education Statistics; 3) the COVID-19 Pandemic Vulnerability Index (PVI) reported at the county level by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
Scales: MAP Growth interim assessments
