Test scores show American students slipping further behind despite recovery efforts

Students across the United States fell further behind academically last school year despite extensive efforts to help them recover from pandemic learning setbacks, according to an analysis of test scores released Tuesday.

The study by the research organisation NWEA, which also administers assessments in K-12 schools, lands as the 2024 deadline approaches quickly for schools to spend the last of the $190 billion in federal pandemic relief money.

There are ways schools can take better advantage of their limited resources and time to boost learning, said Chase Nordengren, the group's lead researcher for instructional strategies.

He said schools could group students based on their needs and provide targeted instruction, for example, adjusting groups as individuals progress.

“We've been trying to send the message that this is a multiyear, if not decades-long recovery period and is going to require some fundamental rethinking of the ways that not only we educate students but we think about how students are grouped and how we think about their learning,” he said.

The study used data from about 6.5 million students who took the MAP Growth assessment in reading and math since the onset of the pandemic. Those numbers were compared with data on academic growth from three years before the pandemic.

The results this year — the third full school year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit — are in some ways worse than last year, when the NWEA analysis showed students largely made academic gains that paralleled their growth pre-pandemic, said Karyn Lewis, director of the Center for School and Student Progress at NWEA, and the study's co-author.

“And because kids are making gains at rates below pre-COVID trends, that means we're not shrinking those achievement gaps. We're actually widening them,” Lewis said.

Follow The Gleaner on Twitter and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.