State test results released last fall in math and English scores since 2024, yet still lagged far behind the standard set before the COVID pandemic. Meanwhile, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal exam administered biannually to hundreds of thousands of students, recently placed Oregon in the country. Adjusted for student demographics and poverty levels, it ranked 50th among states in fourth-grade math and reading, 49th in eighth-grade math, and 47th in eighth-grade reading.

Now local observers are pointing to Oregon鈥檚 relatively brief school year, as well as high rates of absenteeism, as one explanation for the dismal results. In released by the nonprofit group Stand for Children, researchers show that sizable gaps in seat time between Oregon and other states 鈥� and even larger ones separating districts within Oregon 鈥� compound over years into massive disparities in opportunities to learn. Advocates argue that loose rules governing how states report attendance data also contribute to the problem.

Sarah Pope, the executive director of Stand for Children鈥檚 Oregon affiliate, said her state was 鈥渄efinitely on the low end鈥� in terms of instructional time made available to children. On average, their school year lasts 165 days (compared with 179 days in the U.S. as a whole), and students receive 9 percent fewer instructional hours than their counterparts around the country; over time, that adds up to well over one year of missed schooling.

鈥淲hen we tell people that we’re 9 percent short, their eyes glaze over because people can’t imagine what that means,鈥� Pope remarked. 鈥淏ut when we tell them it’s a year difference over the course of a K鈥�12 experience, which is like graduating as a junior, they’re like, ‘Oh gosh.’鈥�

The group鈥檚 report notes that Oregon is one of just 10 states that sets no minimum of total school days per year, allowing districts to set their own schedules so long as they hit an annual minimum of instructional hours (900 for students enrolled in kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school, and slightly more for high schoolers). In practice, the state鈥檚 average K鈥�8 student receives 1,111 hours of designated school time each year, considerably below the national average of 1,231 hours for K鈥�12 students. Only Maine, Nevada, and Hawaii provide less schooling.

Those figures are drawn from by Brown University economist Matthew Kraft, which also found that differences in instructional time between states can be dwarfed by those within states. By the end of elementary school, for example, Oregon students living in a district at the bottom of the state鈥檚 school time rankings receive a full 1.4 years less education than those in a district at the top. The gap explodes to nearly three years鈥� worth of instruction by the time those students graduate high school.

Aside from the length of the school year, the pandemic-era spike in chronic absenteeism (the percentage of students missing 10 percent or more of the school year) has further eroded the amount of time that kids spend learning. And while that trend has proven stubbornly persistent in nearly every jurisdiction, Oregon鈥檚 spike has been higher and longer-lasting than most. , a think tank based in Washington, D.C., Oregon鈥檚 rate of chronic absence reached a stunning peak of 38 percent in 2022鈥�23, only falling to 33.5 percent by 2024鈥�25 (compared with a national average of 22 percent the same year). 

Kraft, who on the subject before the education committee of the Oregon House of Representatives, said it was 鈥渨ildly inequitable鈥� for students in different parts of a state to enjoy vastly less time with teachers than those elsewhere. Both researchers and elected officials needed to examine the intersection of poor attendance and inadequate instructional time more closely, he continued.

鈥淭he outliers offering substantially less time have wound up with far less learning opportunities for students,鈥� Kraft observed in an interview with 社区黑料. 鈥淐urriculum is built around having x amount of minutes in a day to teach math or science, and when teachers and students don’t have that, the results illustrate the negative consequences.鈥�

鈥榃e should not be proud鈥�

Those consequences could be reversed with policy changes, according to Stand for Children鈥檚 analysis. 

Using existing estimates of the of and on student test scores, the authors calculated that Oregon would dramatically improve its NAEP performance by lifting statutory requirements for schooling time and cutting absenteeism to pre-COVID rates. If those conditions were both reached, they found, Oregon students enrolled in kindergarten today would move from 48th in the nation in reading to sixth-place by the beginning of high school. A somewhat smaller leap, from 49th place to 25th place, could be achieved in math scores.

As of yet, no such sweeping changes are in the offing. If anything, a combination of diminished enrollment figures 鈥� the product of both lower fertility and a COVID-era flight from public schools 鈥� has led at least some districts to consider paring the school year back further. Reynolds School District, which enrolls around 10,000 students in the suburbs east of Portland, from its school calendar in response.

During , the state was around the country where districts chose to compress learning time. It has also been one of the national leaders in popularizing the four-day school week, with operating on a truncated schedule. While sometimes popular with family and school staff, that shift often leads to a deterioration in learning and comparatively few benefits in faculty retention.

Given Oregon鈥檚 clear decline in academic achievement, Stand for Children鈥檚 Pope said that district leaders should refuse to shorten their school year at the very least. Her organization is backing the passage of , a bill that would require state authorities to report on absenteeism four times during the school year, rather than just once, as is now mandated. Such a law 鈥� scheduled for hearings before the state Senate鈥檚 education committee in the coming days 鈥� would allow for school systems to conduct earlier outreach to families when their students are at risk of becoming chronically absent.

She also supports the adoption of a more exacting definition of learning time. At the moment, she said, up to 60 of the required instructional hours can be filled through activities like professional development and parent-teacher conferences, which occur when children aren鈥檛 in school.

“Do we think it’s right that our definition of instructional time has an allowance for approximately 10 days when kids don’t have to be there? And it can count for instructional minutes?鈥� Pope asked.

Emielle Nischik, the executive director of the Oregon School Boards Association, said that the state鈥檚 students deserved 鈥渁s much time in school as students around the country. But she added that more instructional hours and better data reporting could only be gained through increases in education spending. 

鈥淥regon school funding adjusted for inflation has essentially been flat since the 1990s, even as Oregon and the federal government have added staffing and services requirements that cost money,鈥� Nischik wrote in an email. 鈥淲e are open to any discussion of increasing class time as long as it comes with the understanding that more days will cost more money.鈥�

Last summer, Gov. Tina Kotek of $11.3 billion to cover the K鈥�12 system through 2027. According to by the National Education Association, Oregon spent nearly $19,000 per pupil in daily attendance in the 2023鈥�24 school year, ranking 20th among all states. 

Kraft compared the resource of time to that of money. While lawsuits have been won to force states and districts to spend more money on schools, no such litigation has focused on learning time as a necessary educational input. 

鈥淭hat has not been the case around time, in large part because schools are following the law, and the minimums we set in many states 鈥� not all, but many 鈥� are very, very low. We should not be proud to have met these minimums.”

The scores are taken from the (TIMSS), a carefully watched assessment administered across dozens of countries every four years. The latest results were collected in 2023, with hundreds of thousands of students participating around the world. 

In the United States, fourth and eighth graders performed much worse in math last year than students at the same age levels did in 2019; average scores in the subject fell to the level seen in 1995, the first time TIMSS was conducted. Science scores were statistically unchanged over the four-year period, and academic reversals were especially noticeable among struggling students compared with higher-achieving ones. 

The results underline the persistent and complex challenge awaiting both local educators and the incoming Trump administration over the next few years. Supported by nearly $200 billion in federal emergency aid, states and districts have launched ambitious programs to combat the academic and social-emotional deficits triggered by COVID-related school closures. Several wide-ranging studies have suggested that those efforts met with only incomplete success, with the cost of a full recovery likely to exceed what has already been spent.

Thomas Dee, an economist at Stanford University, said the dispiriting figures 鈥渟houldn鈥檛 be surprising to anyone who鈥檚 been paying attention.鈥� 

鈥淭o see nearly three decades of math achievement growth evaporate over the comparatively short time since the pandemic is incredibly sobering,鈥� Dee wrote in an email. 鈥淭his evidence that we are falling behind other nations over this period further underscores that the U.S. is failing to meet the challenges of academic recovery.鈥�

Four broad findings stand out from the TIMSS release.

Math Achievement Sent Back to the Clinton Era

Previous standardized tests, whether administered at the federal or international level, have all pointed to a dreary parabola in American students鈥� academic achievement over the past few years: Scores crept upward throughout the 1990s and 2000s, only to stall at some point over the last decade and finally collapse backward during the pandemic.

The same pattern is at play in the TIMSS results, which show math scores peaking in 2011 for fourth graders and 2015 for eighth graders. Between 2019 and 2023, fourth graders鈥� scores dropped by 18 points, while eighth graders 鈥� who would have been learning their foundational math skills at the point when COVID first shuttered schools in 2020 鈥� saw a staggering 27-point drop. 

That means that the average test-taker did not perform any better than they did in 1995. Science scores, which have not seen as much upward movement as math results, also fell compared with their mid-2010s high points; fourth-graders now score nine points lower in the subject than they did nearly 30 years ago.

In all, 18 percent of eighth graders and 13 percent of fourth graders failed to hit the lowest achievement threshold on the TIMSS math test, indicating that they lacked even minimal proficiency in the subject. The proportions of ultra-low-performers were, respectively, twice and three times higher than they were in 2011.

Tom Loveless, a veteran education researcher who formerly led the Brookings Institutions Brown Center on Education Policy, argued that the pronounced dip in achievement was a long time in the making.

“One trend I’m becoming more and more confident of: U.S. slippage began before COVID,” he wrote in an email. “The pandemic merely cemented a lot of these declines in place.”

We鈥檙e Falling Behind Other Countries

America was hardly alone in grappling with pandemic-related academic reversals. The effects of COVID-19 were felt in education systems the world over, and governments adopted a variety of public health and education responses. At least one previous test, last year鈥檚 Program for International Student Assessment, found that while American schools sustained heavy losses in multiple subjects, its rankings among other nations actually improved during the pandemic 鈥� a reflection of the more severe setbacks in other countries.

This year鈥檚 TIMSS paints a different picture. While students in over a dozen countries experienced declines much like those in the United States, a similar number gained momentum in either math or science. Four countries that had ranked below the United States in fourth-grade math in 2019 (Poland, Bulgaria, Sweden, and Australia), as well as three that had ranked roughly identically (Finland, Czechia, and the Netherlands) all leapfrogged the U.S. this time around.

It鈥檚 unclear what differences may account for the progress those countries made relative to the U.S. 鈥� though many will undoubtedly wonder if their respective approaches to school closures and virtual instruction played a role. , was quick to reopen its K鈥�12 facilities after the first COVID wave in the spring of 2020.  

In a call with reporters, National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy Carr said the phenomenon is “a particularly troubling way in which the U.S. is an outlier compared to other countries.” Among 29 education systems that participated in both the 2011 and 2019 iterations of TIMSS, she added, the U.S. was the only one that saw widening score gaps between top and bottom-scoring students in both subjects and both grade levels.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a bit shocking to me that scores went up between 2019 and 2023 in a bunch of countries,鈥� Dan Goldhaber, a veteran researcher and the director of the , wrote in an email. 鈥淚鈥檇 be very curious to see the correlation between the 2019鈥�2023 change and the amount of remote learning that students received at the country level during the pandemic.鈥�

Struggling Students Are in Trouble

One of the most consistent findings in prior U.S. assessments has been the ominous pattern of low-performing students 鈥� those scoring in the bottom 10 percent of test takers 鈥� losing ground faster than their higher-achieving peers. The U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 NAEP exam, often referred to as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card, has consistently shown evidence of the widening gap in performance over the last decade.

A similar trend can be detected in the TIMSS data, with struggling fourth-graders dropping by 37 points in their math scores between 2019 and 2023, and an astonishing 56 points since their scores hit their highest recorded level in 2011. Among all grade-subject combinations, only in eighth-grade math did relatively high performers sustain more academic harm during COVID than relatively low performers.

Goldhaber said that he had encountered 鈥渁 lot of speculation鈥� about the bifurcating patterns of achievement in recent years, but that changes in federal accountability law at the middle of the last decade may have had a particularly harmful impact on students who were already behind.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 likely a combination of the basic end of strict school accountability鈥long with the hangover from the Great Recession, which clearly impacted individuals and families differently along the income distribution,鈥� he wrote

The Gender Gap is Back

Across all previous iterations of TIMSS, male fourth-graders have tended to slightly outperform their female counterparts. Strikingly, boys in 2023 scored higher than girls in both subjects and both grade levels.

For fourth graders, the male-female disparity in math swelled to 18 points in math and seven points in science between 2019 and 2023. Meanwhile, eighth graders saw a significant gender gap in math for the first time since 2003 鈥� mostly the result of girls’ scores plummeting by 36 points in just four years.

Loveless called the re-assertion of gender gaps in this iteration of TIMSS 鈥渇ascinating.鈥�

鈥淚n a way, it’s in sync with [an effect] seen across other gaps: Everybody lost, but groups historically associated with academic struggles lost more.鈥�

These tensions escalated last year when a teacher disagreed with the superintendent’s decision to follow the advice of the school district’s lawyer and honor a transgender student’s request not to share their transition with their parents. The teacher went public and the results were swift and intense.

Hundreds of people descended on the next school board meeting. A local talk radio host said the superintendent wanted to 鈥渋ndoctrinate their children and 鈥� make them become gay and transgender.鈥� Community members verbally accosted the schools chief in public saying, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e gonna go to hell. You never read the Bible.鈥� 

The fiscal consequences were also considerable, forcing the district to divert funds from planned professional development. Ultimately, five educators left their jobs in response to the spreading unrest.

This small community鈥檚 turmoil is one of many accounts included in a new , which tries for the first time to put a dollar amount on the costs of the culture war conflicts that have consumed school districts over the past several years. The researchers estimate that the nation鈥檚 public schools spent approximately $3.2 billion in 2023-24 dealing with divisive public debates over race, gender and sexual orientation, forcing them to spend money on legal fees, security, public relations and employee hours responding to misinformation, disinformation and public records requests. 

And although the researchers said their figures don鈥檛 account for the emotional and social toll on educators and students, their numbers do include a significant and related expense: staff turnover.  

鈥淭here are many different costs that are really consequential and are undermining the ability of educators to support student learning and well-being,” said John Rogers, a professor at UCLA鈥檚 School of Education and Information Studies and the report鈥檚 lead author.

Data from the report comes from a national survey of 467 superintendents across 46 states conducted during summer 2024, followed by interviews with 42 superintendents across 12 states. Of those interviewed, 12 had taken the survey and reported moderate or high levels of conflict; the remaining 30 hadn鈥檛 taken the survey and were identified through professional leadership networks.

School districts were categorized as having either high, moderate, or low levels of conflict based on a series of questions about the nature of conflict related to culturally divisive issues, the frequency of and topics associated with personal or professional threats to superintendents and district staff and the financial and human resource costs.

Moms for Liberty, a high-profile parental rights group, was named specifically in the report in relation to board members they supported and other far-right groups accusing a western school district of indoctrinating students around sexual health issues. That superintendent cited having to spend roughly $100,000 to hire 鈥渁rmed plainclothes off-duty officers鈥� and more than $500,000 in legal fees. Superintendents and school board members being attacked as pedophiles, groomers or sexual predators was a common refrain in the report.

Moms for Liberty did not respond to a request for comment. Closely aligned with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the group鈥檚 influence over school board elections is seen as waning even if battles over curriculum content and library books are still being waged.

Of the districts surveyed, roughly one-third experienced low levels of conflict, just over one-third experienced moderate levels and just under one-third experienced high levels. About 2.5% of superintendents reported no conflict. Overall, Rogers said those surveyed 鈥渓ook a lot like superintendents from the entirety of the (national) pool鈥� in terms of their race, gender and whether they lead urban, rural or suburban districts.

Half of the schools chiefs reported that they experienced at least one instance of harassment in the 2023-24 school year. One in 10 said violent threats were directed toward them and 11% experienced property vandalism.

In order to calculate the overall fiscal costs, researchers asked superintendents about direct expenditures during the 2023-24 school year that were above and beyond what they previously would have spent for resources such as legal services or security; indirect costs, such as redeployed staff time; and employee turnover costs. 

To determine the cost of redeployed staff time, researchers took the number of hours that superintendents reported across these different activities and assigned them a dollar figure based on average district administrator wages from the . For each staff member that left the district, researchers assigned a dollar figure related to recruitment and new staff training based on research out of the .

Rogers noted that 鈥渢here鈥檚 a certain imprecision鈥� when it comes to calculating the cost of staff turnover because 鈥測ou鈥檙e asking superintendents to draw upon the knowledge that they have to make this determination鈥� of why educators and administrators left their positions. Follow-up interviews, he added, helped to bolster the reliability of these figures.

The researchers, who also include Rachel White of the University of Texas at Austin, Robert Shand of American University and Joseph Kahne of the University of California, Riverside, estimated that in their entirety, the conflict-related costs were more than enough to expand the national school breakfast program by 40% or hire 鈥渁n additional counselor or psychologist for every public high school in the United States.鈥�

Beyond the dollar figures, when speaking with superintendents, Rogers said he was particularly struck by the ways in which violent threats were playing out and how frequently it appeared there was a 鈥渃oncerted effort to disrupt, to foment conflict for the sake of fomenting conflict.鈥�

For example, he heard from a number of superintendents whose districts spent an immense amount of time fulfilling public records requests they felt had been filed in bad faith. Once the materials were compiled, they often went unused, Rogers said.

The lasting implications of these in-district battles 鈥� beyond the fiscal costs 鈥� still remain unknown and appear to be shifting with the changing landscape. Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of the History of Education at The University of Pennsylvania, recently on his previous work around the culture wars鈥� impact on history teachers, writing, 鈥淚t seems like I might have exaggerated them.鈥� 

But, he noted in an interview with 社区黑料 this week, the effects on other educators and administrators are ongoing. Within the culture wars, he鈥檚 noticed less of a focus on race and critical race theory and more on gender and sexuality, hypothesizing that this may mean history teachers feel a lesser impact than English teachers, who might be more likely to teach directly about gender.

His sees the report as a reflection of the country’s 鈥渂rittle and abusive鈥� political culture. 

鈥淭his is the school politics chapter of a much broader story about the way that politics is conducted in America,鈥� he said.

It appears that even as some of these more divisive players move on or are voted out, their political agendas may persist. That鈥檚 been the case in Pennsylvania鈥檚 Bucks County, one of the most closely watched regions for these debates. 

According to recent New York Times , despite Democrats sweeping the last school board election, not all contested books have been returned to school library shelves nor have teachers been allowed to display identity markers, like rainbow flags. Nearly a year after the Moms for Liberty-backed candidates were ousted, their presence is still felt. 

But according to research from political scientists at Ohio State University and Boston College, one of the most valuable assets of all is the endorsement of the local teachers鈥� union.

, circulated by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, finds that a union endorsement increases support for candidates by as much as 20 percentage points among various voting blocs, with the effects particularly concentrated among Democrats and those who favor organized labor. Almost no group, including Republicans, responds negatively to the endorsements, the authors found.

The study offers an intriguing explanation of exactly how teachers鈥� unions help their preferred politicians win office. Beyond storming the polls with energized members, or using to get out the vote, local teachers鈥� associations appear to triumph in large measure through their popularity with the electorate. Parents and community members from different walks of life believe that leaders who win the approval of teachers will do what is right for schools, including by improving student performance.

Ohio State political scientist Vladimir Kogan said that he and his co-author, Michael Hartney of Boston College, were struck by the 鈥渉uge positive effect鈥� of such endorsements on the public perception of candidates. Among Democrats, he noted, the boost was of approximately the same size as learning that a given candidate was a Democrat himself. 

鈥淚n American politics, it’s very hard to find a piece of information that moves votes as much as partisanship, so that’s a pretty shocking impact,鈥� Kogan said. 鈥淓ven for Republicans, it’s positive.”

The researchers investigated the scale of the political benefits by running multiple studies over the last 12 years. 

The first, in 2012, consisted of a survey administered to about 1,700 registered voters in San Diego about their voting intentions in two upcoming school board races. The elections were nonpartisan, as are contested throughout the country each year, but participants were randomly presented with biographies that either included or excluded information about one candidate鈥檚 endorsement by the San Diego Education Association. 

Among Democrats who learned of the endorsement, support shot up by 12 percentage points. Independent voters became about six points more likely to support the union-favored candidate, while for Republicans, the boost was positive but statistically negligible. Across a range of nonpartisan demographics, the effects were even larger: Respondents who rated teachers favorably were 10 points more likely to favor a union-endorsed candidate, and those who rated labor unions favorably were 20 points more likely. 

A follow-up experiment, conducted at the beginning of 2023, replicated those findings almost exactly. This poll was sent to a national sample of roughly 1,400 respondents, with some exposed at random to candidate descriptions highlighting the support of 鈥渁 local teachers鈥� union鈥� (or, more generically, 鈥渁 local teacher association鈥�). 

The average survey participant was eight percentage points more likely to opt for a candidate who received an endorsement 鈥� more than enough to swing a close election. And while that added support was again driven by those who felt warmly toward unions and teachers, reactions to the endorsement information from almost all respondent groups were either positive or effectively neutral; just one small group, those who voiced negative views of teachers, were more likely to reject a candidate after learning they had the backing of a teachers鈥� union. 

It is notable that unions’ blessing kept its potency between 2012 and 2023, a period when politics became and unions themselves for prolonging school closures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Kogan said that the lasting strength of the union movement 鈥� often cast as the villain in some of the fiercest disputes of the education reform era, including battles over school choice and teacher tenure 鈥� wasn’t widely understood by those who have opposed it. 

“This is inconsistent with the stories reformers tell,” Kogan said. “I think they underestimate how influential teachers 鈥� and teachers’ unions 鈥� are, in terms of how much voters are willing to defer to them.”

鈥業ncredible鈥� branding

Critically, Kogan and Hartney鈥檚 survey work only shows how potential voters tend to react when they discover that a particular candidate has been endorsed. It is unknown how often that information actually reaches them.

Though a fixture of local civic life, school board races are among the most opaque of any in American democracy. the National School Boards Association, participation in the elections 鈥� often conducted during off-cycle years, with no national or statewide figures to draw marginal voters 鈥� ranges from 5 to 10 percent. Since party affiliation is seldom listed on the ballot, even those who turn out don鈥檛 receive a clear signal about candidates鈥� policy preferences.

John Singleton, an economist at the University of Rochester, said that messages from trusted local groups likely played a crucial role in guiding voters鈥� decisions. Unlike statewide or congressional campaigns, he said, most school board elections generate little in the way of media coverage. 

鈥淵ou could go on your school board candidate’s Facebook page and read about their policy positions, but that’s going to require you knowing who they are and seeking them out,鈥� Singleton observed. 鈥淥n the other hand, it’s possible to passively absorb that information鈥� through media and endorsements, he added.

The second survey allowed the research team to directly test the importance of union support against various other attributes that might plausibly help voters make up their minds, including candidates鈥� occupations, whether they had children, and whether they had received endorsements from other groups. In thousands of head-to-head comparisons, respondents rated imaginary candidates with randomly assigned traits.

This added wrinkle made it even clearer how influential teachers unions can be. The effect of their endorsement was larger than that of a local newspaper or chamber of commerce. Revealingly, the advantages it conferred were also greater than those of an endorsement from a cafeteria workers鈥� union 鈥� showing that teachers themselves, more so than school employees generally, command particular loyalty from their communities.

Singleton said that the successful branding exemplified by groups like the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, extending from tiny local school districts to national politics, was 鈥渒ind of incredible.鈥�

“In terms of the coordination between the grassroots and the national organizations, and the influence they have, it’s a model for other activist efforts,鈥� he said.

Notably, the 2023 study prodded participants to not only name which candidate they might support, but also which would be more likely to improve conditions in local schools. Union-endorsed candidates were, on average, thought more likely to raise teacher salaries, improve academic outcomes for students, and to be more responsive to parents. 

Kogan said the reputational improvement of being affiliated with a teachers鈥� union was highly unusual. The only comparably positive perception he could think of was the of the American Medical Association, which has exerted heavy influence in public health policy over the last century.

Until recently, Kogan argued, police unions enjoyed a similar 鈥渉alo,鈥� frequently winning voters for their chosen candidates in elections that hinged on questions of criminal justice and public safety. But has shown that, with the increasing polarization around policing and officer-involved shootings, views of those unions have taken on a more partisan skew.

鈥淢any voters, particularly Democratic ones, have realized that a candidate isn’t necessarily good just because the police union says so,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he halo effect has eroded over time for police unions, but not for teachers.鈥�

Since the mid-20th century, the town of Highland Park has resisted annexation and today operates a separate, roughly 6,700-student school district that is surrounded on all sides by the 139,723-student Dallas Independent School District. Student demographics between the two school systems 鈥� and the services they鈥檙e able to offer 鈥� are markedly different, from New America鈥檚 Education Funding Equity Initiative, which explores how school district borders across the U.S. create racial and economic segregation 鈥� often intentionally. 

Included in the report is that allows users to explore school district segregation by race and class in their own communities. 

In Dallas, students of color comprise 94% of enrollment and in Highland Park,  just 18%. Such segregation extends beyond race. In Highland Park, less than 4% of students live in poverty. In the Dallas school system, a quarter of kids are impoverished, with some of the city鈥檚 most underserved neighborhoods just a stone鈥檚 throw from Highland Park. 

Such jarring school district disparities, which create real-world gaps in learning opportunities for students, exist across the country. America鈥檚 patchwork school district borders carry serious consequences for communities and children鈥檚 academic outcomes, according to the report by New America, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C. Nationally, about 30% of school funding is generated by local property taxes, a reality that creates haves and have-nots between property-wealthy districts and those that serve predominantly low-income families. 

Much of the disparities can be blamed on inequitable housing policies, such as redlining and , which were explicitly implemented to segregate neighborhoods along race and class lines, ultimately showing up 鈥渘ot just in residential patterns but also in school budgets,鈥� said Zahava Stadler, a project director at New America who shared the findings of her research during a workshop last week at the SXSW EDU conference in Austin, Texas. 

鈥淭hese are policy choices that are being made not just in the way we鈥檝e designed school funding systems, but also in the way we actively maintain school funding systems year to year,鈥� she said. 鈥淎ll of those things are policy choices that are being made by state policymakers every single year.鈥�  

In total, researchers analyzed more than 13,000 school districts across the country, along with more than 25,000 pairs of neighboring school district borders, to identify how such arbitrary divisions work to generate inequality. Nationwide, they found that, on average, enrollment of students of color fluctuated by 14 percentage points between neighboring school districts. Along the 100 most racially segregated school district borders, however, the average difference was 78 percentage points. In other words, in one school district, students of color comprised 2% of the total enrollment while, in a district directly next door, they accounted for 80% of the student body. 

Economic segregation was similarly stark. On average, the enrollment of impoverished students fluctuated by 5.2 percentage points between neighboring school districts. Yet along the 100 most economically segregated school district borders, researchers found the average divide was roughly six times that, at 31 percentage points. One example, the Utica, New York, school district where 33% of students live in poverty, compared to the neighboring New Hartford district where 5% do. 

While school district border changes have been used by communities interested in concentrating their affluence, Stadler said the opposite 鈥� district consolidation 鈥� should be viewed as 鈥渁 tool in the toolbox of creating more equitable school districts,鈥� establishing schools that are more diverse while ensuring that all students have fairer access to educational resources. 

But local context matters. Simply merging school districts to eliminate racial and economic segregation isn鈥檛 always the most equitable solution, the report argues, as each area has its own individual policies and contexts. In South Dakota, for example, researchers observed striking racial and economic segregation between the predominantly white Custer School District and the neighboring Oglala Lakota School District, located on the high-poverty Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Indigenous students represent 96% of enrollment on the reservation and less than 4% in Custer. 

An influx of federal and state dollars has left the Oglala Lakota County Schools among South Dakota鈥檚 best-funded, but they remain among its lowest-performing. These high levels of funding 鈥渄o not ensure our children a rich education,鈥� Diana Cournoyer, executive director of the National Indian Education Association, argues in the report. Along with historical challenges and the scars of trauma and colonialism, Cournoyer said, the reservation鈥檚 schools also have to contend with bureaucracy and limitations on how they can spend those government dollars. That creates barriers in how they can use funds 鈥渢o address the unique needs of Native students, which results in inequitable access to opportunities.鈥� 

Despite the imbalance in school resources, Cournoyer notes that students on the reservation benefit from cultural and language support 鈥� something they could miss if they attended schools in Custer, even with its 鈥渘icer facilities and more advanced technology.鈥� The city and its school district were named for George Armstrong Custer, a U.S. commander who fought and killed Indigenous people on the Great Plains before his defeat at Little Bighorn. 

鈥淭hey would not be in a school environment that reflects or values their native culture,鈥� Cournoyer wrote. 鈥淭hey would be isolated, away from the protection of their family and tribal leadership. They would be more likely to encounter racism and stereotyping, making them less comfortable with expressing their Native identity.鈥�

In , middle and high schoolers handed out just-okay marks to their own schools, assigning them a B-minus for average performance. About two-thirds of those surveyed granted their local school a grade of A (22 percent) or B (44 percent), while 34 percent rated them a C, D, or F as the 2022鈥�23 school year came to a close.

It鈥檚 a report card that offers unmistakable bright spots, but also lots of areas for concern as school systems pull further away from the once-in-a-lifetime tumult imposed by COVID-19 and prolonged exposure to online learning. While schools received middling grades across 11 categories related to academics and school climate 鈥� the highest grade was a B, the lowest a C-plus 鈥� the poll showed that engagement and enthusiasm in school is lagging. Certain sub-groups, including older students and African Americans, were also relatively less sanguine about their own experiences in school.

The State of American Youth Survey, released Wednesday by Gallup and the Walton Foundation, was administered in April and May to over 2,000 public and private school students between the ages of 12 and 18. 

Stephanie Marken, who leads Gallup鈥檚 education division, said that while many respondents were 鈥渂las茅 or neutral鈥� about the performance of their schools, the poll offered a window into the mindset of kids that is rarely captured in other public opinion research. In the years to come, she added, Gallup will regularly re-poll some of the same questions used in its first such survey, while 鈥渆pisodically鈥� revisiting others according to their relevance to current events. The project鈥檚 design will allow the research team to track the same students over time.

鈥淭he benefit of this research is that we’re going into far greater depth with this generation than any other study has the ability to do,鈥� Marken said in an interview. 鈥淎 lot of people don’t take the time to interview students directly because they believe 鈥� incorrectly, I think 鈥� that they don’t have something to offer that’s unique on these issues. But there’s no replacement for speaking to youth directly.鈥�

Overall, kids had fairly positive things to say about some of the most important aspects of academic culture. Nearly half gave their school an A for 鈥渞especting who you are regardless of your race/ethnicity, gender and identity.鈥� Another 29 percent chose a B grade for the same question, while just 3 percent said their school failed in this respect.

Perhaps even more impressive, 75 percent of respondents granted either an A or B to their school for keeping them physically safe 鈥� an encouraging finding given recent concerns over a wave of violent misbehavior and bullying that coincided with students returning en masse from remote instruction. A further 64 percent rated their school either an A or B in terms of making them feel included, with just over one-third of students assigning a grade of C or below.

But the news was somewhat worse in other areas. American middle and high schools received average grades of just a C-plus in four categories: supporting mental health, adapting to students鈥� learning needs, teaching about potential careers and making students feel excited about learning. Thirty-nine percent of schools also received grades of C or below with respect to preparing students for the future.

Those concerns can loosely be grouped under the umbrella of 鈥渟tudent engagement鈥�: i.e., how educators cultivate not just feelings of student security and inclusion 鈥� which should be a given 鈥� but also involvement. Especially following the pandemic, with student absenteeism rates climbing to staggering highs in many districts, both teachers and school leaders are grappling with how to persuade kids that what they learn is directly relevant to their future lives and careers.

Concerningly, but perhaps intuitively, existing research has shown that student engagement tends to dip as children make their way through the K鈥�12 years. A found that while three-quarters of fifth graders reported high levels of engagement in their schooling, just one-third of high school students said the same. In the latest poll, just 44 percent of high schoolers gave their schools an A or B great for making them excited about learning, compared with 54 percent of middle schoolers.

鈥淭hat high school students feel more negatively than middle school students is a concern,鈥� Marken said. 鈥淭he more time they鈥檙e spending in their school system, they鈥檙e getting less and less engaged over time.”

Distinctions existed across not only grade levels, but also school types. Among private school students, 37 percent gave their schools an A grade, with 43 percent assigning a B; just 20 percent of their public school counterparts gave an average grade of A, with another 45 percent assigning a B. 

Finally, a disturbing divergence was observed among participants of different races. Thirty-seven percent of African Americans gave their schools an A for keeping them safe in the classroom, compared with 46 percent of whites and 41 percent of Hispanics who gave their schools the highest marks; just one-third assigned an A for making them feel respected regardless of their race or ethnicity (compared with 50 percent of whites and 53 percent of Hispanics). 

鈥淏lack students fared far worse than all other students on those topics, and they also gave less positive ratings to their schools overall,鈥� Marken lamented. 鈥淪o they’re having a clearly distinctive experience that needs to be addressed.”

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to 社区黑料.

The revelations came from the latest release of the , an ongoing data collection effort led by the National Center for Education Statistics. And while the results don鈥檛 include data on the number or rate of behavioral problems observed by school staff, they illustrate the methods that educators are embracing to address those problems and their sense of their own effectiveness. 

Especially during a period when many teachers say they are dealing with more violence and disorder among their pupils than in the pre-COVID era 鈥� of a Virginia teacher by her six-year-old student stands out as the latest and most extreme example 鈥� the findings will likely influence discussions on school discipline at local, state, and federal levels. 

Thurston Domina, a professor of educational leadership at the University of North Carolina, said that he believed that behavioral struggles have 鈥渂ecome more acute in the last few years鈥� both as kids have returned to full-time, in-person instruction and as schools have come to grapple with the effects of controversial disciplinary strategies like student suspensions.

鈥淭hese data suggest two things: First, that schools are facing substantial behavioral challenges, and second, that they don鈥檛 feel confident about the strategies they have to address them,鈥� Domina wrote in an email.

The School Pulse Panel solicits survey responses from school officials (primarily principals) around the country, periodically circulating findings to paint a picture of COVID鈥檚 impact on K鈥�12 schools. Thursday鈥檚 update presented responses gathered from over 1,000 public schools last November, each relating to school safety, attitudes toward security personnel, and the post-COVID classroom environment. 

Those school responses are of particular interest in that they can be directly compared with answers to similar questions from another authoritative NCES report from before the pandemic: the , which also quizzed school leaders on the disciplinary climate of their institutions and the strategies they employed to improve it. 

Notably, 50 percent or more of all respondents to the panel survey said that they were limited in either major or minor ways by a wide array of hindrances. Nearly three-quarters of participants said they were constrained by a lack of 鈥渁lternative placements or programs鈥� for disruptive students, while majorities said the same of inadequate funding (61 percent), lack of parental support (60 percent), insufficient teacher training in classroom management (60 percent), and likelihood of complaints from parents (50 percent).

Less numerous, but perhaps more disturbing, were the minorities who said they were held back by lack of support from teachers themselves (40 percent), or by teachers鈥� own fears of retaliation from students (32 percent). 

In most cases, these factors were cited significantly more than they were in the report from five years ago. For example, while just 6 percent and 33 percent of 2017鈥�18 respondents said that they were limited (in either a major or minor way) by lack of teacher training in classroom management, 12 percent and 48 percent said the same thing last November. 

The apparent desire for increased training stands out particularly given that it was one of the only behavioral and safety strategies listed in the survey that is not offered more frequently by schools than it was five years ago. By contrast, significantly higher percentages of schools now report engaging in 鈥減ositive behavioral intervention strategies鈥� (93 percent), crisis intervention (84 percent), recognizing self-harm or suicidal tendencies (84 percent), and recognizing bullying (84 percent). 

In a development that reflects the national and local efforts to reduce the use of what some detractors call 鈥渆xclusionary鈥� disciplinary policies, a significantly lower percentage of schools reported using out-of-school suspensions than did in 2017鈥�18 (69 percent versus 74 percent). The widespread move to curtail the practice has come as federal authorities, including Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, have explicitly urged schools to keep kids in class as much as possible.

Matthew Steinberg, a professor of education at George Mason University who has conducted on the effects of school discipline reforms, noted that Thursday鈥檚 release didn鈥檛 clearly show that behavioral conditions were deteriorating inside American schools. Still, he added, the documented decrease in exclusionary discipline and the lack of new guidance suggests that schools aren鈥檛 鈥減roviding the necessary supports for teachers and educators to address student behavioral issues in the classroom.鈥�

“The question is whether or not student behavior and misconduct have gotten worse in the wake of COVID, independent of whether suspension is used as a disciplinary consequence,鈥� Steinberg said. A reduction in suspensions might result in the presence of more students exhibiting COVID-related behavioral problems, he added 鈥� which might, in turn, 鈥渁dversely affect the environment within classrooms, with potentially important implications for student learning.鈥� 

It was the year that Dr. Anthony Fauci, America鈥檚 most prominent public health authority, declared that the country was 鈥�,鈥� as COVID case rates plummeted from their Omicron highs. By the fall, President Biden was with that sentiment, noting that most people had laid down their masks and returned to something like normal. 

And around the possibility of winter surges in American schools, the most visible hallmarks of the COVID era have at last receded. The lurching progression from in-person to virtual classes is over, following an explosion of school exposures last winter. Mask mandates, social distancing, and endless disinfectant wipes are also predominantly a thing of the past, with virtually all children approved to receive vaccines. 

But in terms of the pandemic鈥檚 impact on education, it鈥檚 still only the end of the beginning. With each month, new findings emerge revealing more about what remote instruction did to learning and how families reacted. The potentially lifelong shadow the virus has cast over K-12 students 鈥� from how babies develop speech to what today鈥檚 adolescents will earn decades from now 鈥� is largely mysterious. 

Previous editions of this list have covered the wider world of education policy and research: issues like school financing, choice, accountability, and testing. This year, 社区黑料 is focusing exclusively on the lessons of the COVID era 鈥� one that is now passing from the scene 鈥� and the questions that remain in its wake.

Here, laid out in charts, maps, and tables, are 14 discoveries that changed how we think about schools in 2022.

The scope of learning loss

By the end of last year, a steady trickle of research had already begun to reveal the harm wrought by prolonged school closures and the transition to virtual instruction. But this fall brought the most definitive evidence yet of the scale of learning lost over more than two years of COVID-disrupted schooling: fresh testing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the Nation鈥檚 Report Card, pointing to severe declines in core subjects. 

The unprecedented drop in math scores, which fell by an average of eight points for eighth graders and five points for fourth graders, was especially disturbing. But reversals in literacy were also notable, with sizable increases in the number of students testing below even the 鈥渂asic鈥� level of reading proficiency. What鈥檚 more, the results affirmed dismal findings from NAEP鈥檚 鈥淟ong-Term Trends鈥� test 鈥� an earlier version of the exam that has been administered since the early 1970s 鈥� showing that the pandemic set back nine-year-olds鈥� performance in math and reading to levels last seen two decades ago. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing a lot of that very long-term progress completely erased over the course of a couple of years,鈥� said Dan Goldhaber, a University of Washington professor, of the long-term results.

As many experts warned, additional research has also made clear that the academic damage of COVID was not shared equally. NWEA, the nonprofit testing group whose MAP exam has proven an invaluable assessment tool throughout the pandemic, released a study in November indicating that already-wide achievement gaps in elementary classrooms have grown between 5 and 10 percent in the last few years. Those disparities grew, NWEA analysts specified, because of slumping achievement among struggling students. 

College entrance exams contributed yet another dispiriting perspective, with average scores on the ACT slipping below 20 for the first time since the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Only about one in twelve test-takers from low-income families met standards of college readiness across all of the test鈥檚 four subjects.

In 2022, researchers, educators, and the public discovered the full extent of what COVID did to K-12 learning. 2023 will provide a test of how quickly that learning can be restored 鈥� and how seriously we are approaching the problem.

The geography of remote learning

Multiple studies have identified a strong association between academic backsliding and time spent in remote learning. And while different states and districts switched back to in-person instruction at different speeds, a disturbing commonality emerged: The least-advantaged kids were usually the slowest to return to the classroom.

co-authored by experts at NWEA, the CALDER Center at the American Institutes for Research, and Harvard鈥檚 Center for Education Policy Research used data from over 2 million students to show that 鈥� whether in states that reopened schools relatively quickly, like Florida, or those that stayed remote much longer, like Virginia 鈥� schools serving the highest proportions of low-income students spent the most weeks remote during the 2020鈥�21 academic year. Notably, however, the socioeconomic gaps in exposure to virtual teaching were much larger among the group of predominantly blue states that tended to reopen more hesitantly. In those states, high-poverty schools spent more than two additional months in Zoom classrooms than low-poverty schools. 

Harvard economist and study co-author Thomas Kane observed that the greater prevalence of remote learning among poor students, who are already less likely to succeed academically than their better-off peers, could be an additional driver of achievement gaps for years to come. In an interview with 社区黑料, Kane said that the academic recovery interventions planned by school districts were 鈥渘owhere near enough鈥� to compensate for COVID鈥檚 toll.

鈥淏ased on what I鈥檓 seeing, most districts are going to find that students are still lagging far behind when they take their state tests in May 2023,鈥� Kane said.

But was the public convinced by the reams of detailed and well-intentioned research on the results of online learning? Public polling suggests that the answer is ambiguous. At least 鈥� albeit one conducted before much of the research on learning loss was released 鈥� indicated that Americans prioritized curbing the pandemic鈥檚 spread over keeping schools open.

Poorer districts lost the most

Few doubt that some amount of learning loss is linked to the hasty and unplanned adoption of remote instruction. How much is still ambiguous, however. released in October 鈥� devised by Harvard鈥檚 Kane and the eminent Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, among others 鈥� leveraged a combination of state test scores and federal NAEP results to deliver a granular, district-by-district overview of the pandemic鈥檚 academic impact.

While the researchers found that academic performance in predominantly in-person districts held up much better than mostly remote districts within the same state, they also stipulated that school closures were not 鈥渢he primary factor driving achievement losses鈥�; some states that spent much of the pandemic open as usual, such as Maine, sustained far greater score declines than those that saw widespread closures, such as California. And beyond the question of remote-versus-in-person, it is clear that districts with greater concentrations of poor students experienced the worst academic effects over the last few years.

In districts where 70 percent or more of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, average math performance fell by 0.66 grade levels. By contrast, in districts where fewer than 39 percent of students qualified for free lunch, only 0.45 grade levels of math achievement were lost. Above all, the ultra-local look at test scores showed a startling amount of variation in how different school districts experienced the same event; in reading, almost 15 percent of all students were enrolled in districts where achievement actually grew during the pandemic.

Enrollment fell as families fled 

The pandemic left an impact on schools far beyond its blow to student achievement. Due to a combination of public dissatisfaction, increased mobility, and economic upheaval, families withdrew from their public schools in unprecedented numbers 鈥� as many as 1.5 million during the 2020鈥�21 school year, or about 3 percent of all public K-12 enrollment, according to a 2021 report from NCES.

Further scholarly investigation has unearthed the important role that learning modality played in that flight. According to a comprehensive report from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the districts that spent the most time remote throughout the first pandemic school year lost at least 500,000 more students than they would have if they had stayed open during that time. And in the period that followed, fewer students returned than did to districts where campuses mostly operated in-person. 

The findings suggested that widespread loss of students was not just 鈥減andemic-related; it was pandemic-response related,鈥� Nat Malkus, AEI鈥檚 deputy director of education policy, told 社区黑料鈥檚 Linda Jacobson. 

Meanwhile, enrollment trends detected this spring by the data company Burbio showed that major urban districts continued losing students through the 2021鈥�22 school year. Only a handful of states examined by the organization during that time saw an enrollment increase of more than 1 percent compared with the previous year.

The youngest weren鈥檛 spared

While we鈥檝e gained a better empirical understanding of how K-12 students鈥� lives and learning trajectories were altered by COVID, it will be years before we fully grasp the ways in which the youngest Americans were affected. But a provocative study of child development and language acquisition has already given cause for alarm.

Using LENA 鈥渢alk pedometers鈥� 鈥� a that measures the number of spoken interactions occurring in the vicinity of young children, as well as their own vocalizations 鈥� researchers at Brown discovered that babies born after July 2020 produced fewer vocalizations and demonstrated slower verbal growth than comparable children born before 2019. The younger group of babies also experienced slower growth of white matter 鈥� subcortical nerve fibers that facilitate communication between different regions of the brain 鈥� perhaps the result of hearing fewer words spoken and engaging less often with their caregivers. 

If the cognitive development of young learners was slowed by the extraordinary social isolation imposed by daycare closures and lockdowns of public spaces, it will produce unavoidable consequences for schools in the next decade.

Old before their time

Even as social and intellectual growth was apparently slowed for some infants and babies, psychologists warn that the compounded stress of the last few years may have harmfully accelerated the maturation process for older kids.

A slew of surveys highlight newly elevated levels of student stress, the product of public health worries, economic anxiety, and even domestic abuse. But a recently published offers proof that those factors actually changed the neurobiology of some adolescents. Examining MRIs of 128 matched subjects 鈥� half measured before and half after the pandemic began 鈥� a team of psychologists found that the group assessed after COVID demonstrated higher 鈥渂rain age鈥� than their chronological age and experienced faster growth in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas of the brain that regulate fear, stress, and memory.

Such sped-up aging has historically been seen in cases of household trauma and neglect, and its consequences can include decreased capacity across a range of intellectual functions. Follow-up scans are already planned to assess whether the process has been remediated.

Teachers under strain

Adults in schools have shown their own signs of exhaustion. In a survey of nearly 4,000 K-12 teachers and principals conducted by the RAND Corporation, about one-third said they intended to quit their jobs, a significantly higher proportion than it found during the chaotic pandemic months of early 2021. 

That figure almost certainly doesn鈥檛 betoken a future exodus from the profession; educators have historically been much more likely to say they intend to leave than to ultimately act on those plans. But it could mean that large numbers will stay in their jobs past the point of burnout, their effectiveness permanently dimmed. On average, the poll found that the teachers and principals were more than twice as likely to report experiencing frequent, job-related stress than other workers.

Teachers were also twice as likely as comparable adults to say they were not 鈥渃oping well鈥� with their stress. While the most commonly cited contributing factor was the task of addressing learning loss, some school employees also complained of staff shortages and the difficulty of managing their own childcare responsibilities. 

Social shuffle

It shouldn鈥檛 come as any surprise that young adults鈥� personal relationships, no less than their academic prospects, were fundamentally changed by months spent away from their peers. 

In some ways, those changes were positive: According to a June poll released by Pew, 45 percent of American kids between the ages of 13 and 17 said they felt closer to their parents after two years of disrupted schooling. But sizable minorities also reported feeling less close to friends, classmates, teachers, and extended family, a web of social connections that might have proven vital during a lengthy period of difficulty. 

Somewhat surprisingly for a survey administered over two years after the emergence of COVID, nearly 20 percent of the teen respondents said they had not attended classes exclusively in-person during the spring of 2022 (a time of somewhat elevated virus case rates). About two-thirds said they would prefer a return to entirely in-person schooling in the future.

Future earnings endangered

The downstream consequences of thwarted or deferred academic success are destined to include financial disadvantages; after all, today鈥檚 underserved pupils are tomorrow鈥檚 underprepared workers. But until the fall release of NAEP, it was difficult to produce a broadly shared measure of American students鈥� stifled progress. 

With the arrival of those scores, Harvard economist Kane 鈥� him again 鈥� and Dartmouth professor Douglas O. Staiger immediately calculated a projection of how much potential income could be lost due to diminished math learning among eighth-graders since 2020. Based on the historical correlation between math gains on NAEP and professional earnings growth, the figure they reached was astounding: $900 billion of future earnings, if the declines in learning were to remain permanent for all students in the United States.

鈥淲hen there are improvements in scores, those kids coming out of school are going to have better outcomes later in life,鈥� Staiger told 社区黑料. 鈥淎nd we can infer from this recent decline that all the cohorts in school now are going to do a bit worse than we expected.鈥� 

The paper was one of a series of analyses focusing specifically on the drop in math knowledge, which appears to have been particularly significant. But the extended disruption to literacy instruction left a substantial mark as well, particularly among students at the beginning of their reading careers. Amplify, a curriculum provider, released data this fall showing that 4 percent fewer second graders and 8 percent fewer first graders are reaching grade-level reading goals than in 2019; meanwhile, almost one-third of third graders were assessed as needing 鈥渋ntensive intervention.鈥�

Those bleak findings echo the results of Curriculum Associates鈥� i-Ready assessment, which revealed that the percentage of elementary students reading below grade level grew between 2021 and 2022. That subgroup of students, sometimes called the 鈥�COVID cohort,鈥� is running out of time to get back on track.

Costs of recovery

The havoc inflicted by the pandemic is now an inescapable fact for schools, families, and public authorities to deal with. But what鈥檚 it going to take to surmount the considerable educational challenges and get kids back on track?

The federal government has allocated roughly $190 billion in relief funding to states for that purpose. But , that amount won鈥檛 be sufficient to get the job done. The true cost, they say, will fall somewhere between $325 billion and $930 billion, huge sums that include not only the pedagogical resources to restore lost learning opportunities from the last several years, but also the out-of-school interventions that power so much of the academic growth that goes on inside classrooms. 

There is no indication that anywhere near that level of funding 鈥� or even any further money at all 鈥� is coming. In the meantime, school districts are only required to spend 20 percent of their federal aid on learning recovery. 

Latino students take a hit

Children of all backgrounds were bruised by the effects of shuttered schools, but among them, Latino students are notable for having recently enjoyed sustained academic momentum. As their share of the national student body has increased to nearly 30 percent, they have also seen rising achievement scores and post-secondary outcomes compared with their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

COVID put that progress on pause, according to from the advocacy organization UnidosUS. After leaping from 71 percent to 82 percent over the last decade, the on-time high school graduation rate for Latino students fell slightly in 2021. Worse still, the rate of college enrollment for Latino freshmen shrunk by 7.8 percent between the spring of 2020 and 2021. That figure bounced back somewhat over the next academic year 鈥� along with rates of college-going for most Americans 鈥� but still fell below the pre-pandemic norm.

The particular stumbles experienced by Latino kids have explanations that both precede the pandemic and are directly linked to it, the report found. Long before 2020, Latino households were less likely to report having a computer or high-speed broadband in the home. Meanwhile, Latino students were disproportionately likely to be enrolled in low-income schools, which were themselves more likely to stay remote longer during the pandemic.

Explosion of absenteeism

Along with the surge of full-on disenrollment from schools, a shocking number of K-12 students spent the last few years missing day after day of instruction. Just how many days of absence is difficult to know precisely, however, because of ambiguities in the way attendance figures were collected during the COVID era.

An released this fall indicated that over 10 million students were chronically absent (i.e., missing over 10 percent of the school year) in 2020鈥�21. That would be an increase of more than 25 percent relative to the pre-pandemic norm, but from Johns Hopkins University and the nonprofit group Attendance Works, it is also very likely a serious underestimate. Because of challenges in knowing which students 鈥渁ttended鈥� all of their virtual lessons (versus simply logging into Zoom and then logging off, for instance), statewide absence counts in the NCES figures sometimes vary widely from district-level reporting.

Based on the early release of more detailed 2021鈥�22 figures from California, Connecticut, Ohio, and Virginia, the authors wrote, it is reasonable to predict that as many as 16 million kids were chronically absent last school year, a doubling of the pre-pandemic number. 

The teacher exodus that wasn鈥檛

Were American schools plagued with teacher absences this year, or not? It was a question that captivated news sources, but also divided education experts, because it contained an even thornier question within it: If the supply of teachers remains mostly steady, but demand for them spikes, are they truly at a deficit?

In spite of widespread fears that veteran teachers were quitting in huge numbers as a reaction to the pandemic, no mass departure ever took place, according to a paper by Brown economist Matt Kraft. Turnover actually fell slightly in the summer of 2020 and stayed within the typical annual range the next year. But weak hiring during the first few months of the pandemic may have contributed to higher-than-usual vacancy rates, perhaps triggered by fears of Great Recession-style budget cuts that never materialized.

In fact, a windfall of federal cash followed instead, leading districts to add new jobs in late 2020 and 2021, and the resultant hiring spree has indeed made candidates for teaching positions hard to find. But even that phenomenon isn鈥檛 true everywhere, since numbers differ widely across state lines. According to a paper released this summer, Mississippi鈥檚 rate of vacancies per 10,000 students is more than 68 times higher than that of Utah. 

Hopeful signs

As the long legacy of COVID grew clearer, research in 2022 gave the education world plenty of reasons to worry. But it has also contributed some hopeful signs of renewed progress in schools. 

The good omens aren鈥檛 popping up everywhere, but some are to be found in state-level testing, which has resumed around the country after being suspended for at least the first pandemic year. According to Tennessee鈥檚 state exams, the number of students meeting or beating grade-level reading standards rose from 29 percent in 2020鈥�21 to over 36 percent in 2021鈥�22. In all, more than three-quarters of the state鈥檚 school districts reported reading scores higher than were seen in the pre-pandemic period. 

鈥淲e are seeing this broadly across the state, and across district types 鈥� urban, rural and suburban,鈥� Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn told 社区黑料鈥檚 Beth Hawkins. 鈥淲e are really, really proud of what our districts have done.鈥�

Several other Southern states have begun to make their turnaround, with Mississippi a particular standout. This of 2021鈥�22 testing data showed average scores in math, English, and science nearing or exceeding 2019 levels, while performance on the U.S. history exam skyrocketed compared with 2020鈥�21 (the first in which it had been given). Just as notably, 鈥� a state-mandated test that students must pass to progress to the fourth grade 鈥� fell by only .6 percentage points between 2019 and 2022. 

Eighth-grade math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the 鈥淣ation鈥檚 Report Card,鈥� fell by a jarring eight points since the test was last administered in 2019, while fourth-grade scores dropped by five points; both are the largest math declines ever recorded on the test. In reading, both fourth- and eighth-grade scores fell by three points, leaving them statistically unchanged since 1992, when NAEP was first rolled out. 

The findings comport with those of previous assessments of students鈥� COVID-era achievement, whether conducted by academic researchers or state and district authorities, which have shown undeniable evidence of diminished performance in English and especially math. Just a few months ago, the release of scores for 9-year-olds on NAEP鈥檚 鈥淟ong-Term Trends鈥� assessment 鈥� a different exam measuring today鈥檚 students against a baseline set in the early 1970s 鈥� offered similarly ominous results.

Even still, the education world has waited nervously for the unveiling of today鈥檚 data, perhaps the most important federal scores to appear since the pandemic began. Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said that while relative stability in reading scores across some of the nation鈥檚 largest districts offered a few 鈥渂right spots 鈥� amidst all the chaos of the pandemic,鈥� the unprecedented reversals in math should spark serious concern.

鈥淣ormally for a NAEP assessment 鈥� we’re talking about significant differences of two or three points,鈥� Carr said on a Friday call with reporters. 鈥淪o an eight-point decline that we’re seeing in the math data is stark. It is troubling. It is significant.鈥�

A look at the results in their entirety show just how significant. There were no statistically significant gains in math, for either fourth or eighth graders, in any state in 2022. Instead, fourth-grade scores dropped significantly in 43 jurisdictions (either the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity) while remaining statistically unchanged in 10. Eighth-grade math fell in 51 jurisdictions while holding steady in just two, Utah and the DoDEA schools. The average eighth-grade score has not only fallen since 2019 鈥� it is significantly lower than when the test was administered in 2003.

Translated into the exam鈥檚 performance levels, a massive downward shift can be seen. In 2019, 34% of fourth graders and 27% of eighth graders scored below the 鈥淣AEP Basic鈥� level in reading 鈥� the most rudimentary threshold of English mastery classified by the test. In 2022, those groups had grown to 37% of fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders, respectively. The below-basic classification also swelled in math, from 19% of fourth graders and 31% of eighth graders in 2019 to 25% of fourth graders and 38% of eighth graders in 2022.

Beneath the headline numbers, differing effects among student groups also made an impact on longstanding achievement gaps. For example, gaps expanded in fourth-grade math performance between white and African-American students, white and Hispanic students, male and female students, and students with and without disabilities. Conversely, gaps actually closed between many of the same groups in eighth-grade reading 鈥� including by a surprising seven points between English learners and native English speakers. 

Brown University economist Emily Oster, who has studied the effects of COVID and remote learning on student achievement, said that trends in NAEP scores were dynamic and varied, making them difficult to distill. Big-picture phenomena, however, broadly lined up with the existing evidence, she argued.

“Every state has four numbers, so one can construct quite a lot of different narratives around that. But the general patterns are that the losses are big, they’re much bigger in math than in reading, and they’re much bigger in more vulnerable kids. Those seem like things that are very consistent with every other piece of information that we’ve seen in post-pandemic testing.”

Julia Rafal-Baer is a K-12 education expert who serves on the National Assessment Governing Board, a nonpartisan body that sets policy for NAEP. In a statement, she said the results demonstrated the existence of 鈥渁n education crisis鈥� that demanded new solutions.

鈥淭he latest data isn鈥檛 telling us anything we didn鈥檛 already know,鈥� Rafal-Baer wrote in an email. 鈥淐OVID was exceptionally disruptive, and we鈥檙e running out of time to ensure that kids can indeed recover from this level of unfinished learning.鈥�

State-by-state comparisons difficult

No state could be said to have defied the downward pressure exerted by the pandemic and its countless challenges to learning. But the national averages do conceal substantial variation across different areas of the country. 

Some of the states where scores dropped the furthest, for example, were clustered in the mid-Atlantic region. Delaware鈥檚 fourth-grade math scores dropped an astonishing 14 points 鈥� nearly three times the national average 鈥� while its losses in fourth-grade reading (-9), eighth-grade math (-12), and eighth-grade reading (-7) were also significant. Virginia (-11 points in fourth-grade math), Maryland (-11 in eighth-grade math), and the District of Columbia (-8 in fourth-grade reading) also saw some of the worst declines across various grade/subject combinations.

By contrast, a small group of states seemed to weather COVID reasonably well, experiencing less severe declines than most. Overall, while performance in eighth-grade math was weakened virtually everywhere, 10 jurisdictions, including Georgia and Wisconsin, saw no statistically significant decline in fourth-grade math. Another 22 were able to stave off declines in fourth-grade reading, while 18 did so in eighth-grade reading. 

A small number of states 鈥� Alabama, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa and Louisiana 鈥� kept scores from significantly falling in three out of four grade/subject combinations. Most impressive of all, Department of Defense Education Activity schools 鈥� 160 across 11 foreign countries, seven states, and two territories, each serving military families 鈥� saw no statistically significant drops in any subject or age group. Eighth graders in DoDEA schools, in fact, made the only statistically significant growth of any student group in this round of NAEP, improving in reading by two points since 2019. 

The differences between states will naturally raise questions about the procedures they followed to offer schooling during the pandemic. Among the states that saw the largest score declines, many stuck with remote learning far into the 2020-21 school year as a precaution against COVID spread. 

Oster, whose previous research has found that longer periods of remote instruction were linked with more severe learning loss, called the results 鈥渧ery consistent with what we’ve seen in state-level data, which suggests that places that had the most in-person learning lost less than the places that had more virtual learning.鈥� Even so, she added, a state like California 鈥� where she would have expected student scores to fall especially dramatically based on that correlation 鈥� instead saw more modest declines.

NCES鈥檚 Carr argued that the release provided little scope for comparisons between states, since so many jurisdictions experienced 鈥渕assive, comprehensive declines.鈥�

鈥淭here’s nothing in this data that says we can draw a straight line between the time spent in remote learning, in and of itself, and student achievement,鈥� she said. 鈥淟et’s not forget that remote learning looked very different across the United States 鈥� the quality, all the factors that were associated with implementing remote learning. It is extremely complex.鈥� 

Megan Kuhfeld, a researcher at the nonprofit testing organization NWEA, said that the average NAEP effects dovetailed with her own expectations based on of post-pandemic learning loss. That said, she agreed with Carr that the huge diversity of COVID learning policies 鈥� where neighboring school districts sometimes took radically different approaches 鈥� made direct comparisons difficult.

鈥� has supported the idea that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps, but I think it is harder to make that sort of inference at the state level because district reopening policies often varied widely within states,鈥� Kuhfeld wrote in an email.

Urban districts fared better in reading 

If a silver lining exists within the release, it comes from some of America’s biggest cities.

In addition to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., 26 urban school districts around the country participate in NAEP’s Trial Urban District Assessment program. The measure offers a unique look inside districts that collectively enroll millions of students and were subject to substantially different state-level public health policies.

Disappointingly, math results in these districts were no better than elsewhere: Fourth-grade and eighth-grade scores alike sank by eight points on average, matching or surpassing the declines for the nation as a whole. 

Performance in English, however, offered somewhat sunnier news: Average scores in reading held up in 17 cities, falling in just nine. Fully 21 of the 26 urban districts managed the same in eighth-grade reading, with only Shelby County, Tennessee; Jefferson County, Kentucky; Guilford County, North Carolina; and Cleveland, Ohio, experiencing statistically significant drops. In Los Angeles, the nation鈥檚 second-largest district, eighth-grade reading performance even improved. 

Michael Petrilli, who leads reform-oriented Thomas B. Fordham Institute, nevertheless took a dark view of the overall NAEP outcomes. 

“There’s no sugar coating these awful results,” Petrilli said. “Save for Los Angeles (which I honestly cannot explain), the only question is whether states and localities did bad or worse. These data tell us how big a hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Now it’s up to all of us to dig ourselves 鈥� and our students 鈥� out.” 

Others took a somewhat more hopeful outlook. Tom Loveless, a longtime education researcher who formerly led the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, said the urban districts鈥� results provided “a glimmer of hope in these otherwise dismal data.” Moreover, he added, both the NAEP data and state standardized test scores have already shown evidence that student achievement is bouncing back from its pandemic nadir.

Going forward, Loveless observed, state and school district leaders will likely view this round of scores as a kind of new student performance baseline. That could provide an accountability mechanism if things don’t improve.

“I think 2021 was probably the bottom, and we’re getting little shards of progress in these NAEP data,” he said. “But I’m expecting [the 2024 NAEP results] to look quite a bit better, and the state tests, too. If they don’t, I think people will start raising harsh questions.”

Teacher turnover rates are actually about the same as they were before the pandemic, according to through the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. Flush with pandemic relief money and faced with the generational challenge of fostering learning recovery, school districts are hiring for more positions and leaving vacancies open for longer.

A wide-ranging analysis of employment trends from national and state-level sources, the brief does confirm that the K-12 workforce shrank significantly after the onset of COVID-19 and its disruptions to schooling. After roughly a half-decade of steady growth, total public school jobs decreased by roughly 9% through May 2020. The initial drop represented more than twice the number of positions erased during the financial crisis of 2008. 

But the data also suggested that those positions were disproportionately cut from non-teaching ranks. Occupational records from both national and state sources showed measured declines among nurses, administrative support staff, paraprofessionals and other predominantly non-instructional employees. Across all the states included in the study, there was actually generally less teacher turnover during the summer of 2020 鈥� likely the residue of that year鈥檚 severe economic slowdown, which discouraged many from leaving their jobs. (During the summer of 2021, seven of those states saw an average turnover increase of 1.2 percentage points, effectively bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels.)

Confusion about the state of the education field has emerged due to a lack of consistently reported data on millions of school employees, the authors argue. In fact, the report was only made possible by combining several overlapping federal data sets 鈥� each with its own liabilities 鈥� with additional findings from 16 states that publicly reported annual statistics on turnover through the first year of the pandemic.

Matthew Kraft, a Brown economist and the paper鈥檚 lead author, said he was 鈥渧ery concerned鈥� about the increased burnout teachers reported experiencing over the last few years. While a true mass exodus of educators hasn鈥檛 yet occurred, Kraft said that profession-wide exhaustion could someday trigger one. But he added that short-term instability in the education workforce has 鈥渙bfuscated鈥� longer-term issues of working conditions and public funding that demand more thorough examination.

鈥淭here’s no doubt that this story [of educator dissatisfaction and turnover] is catching our national attention, and it’s generating headlines,鈥� Kraft said. 鈥淭he problem is that most of those stories are asking a question for which there is a nuanced response, and nuance isn’t communicated effectively in our sound-bite world.鈥�

Kraft and his co-author, Joshua Bleiberg, culled figures from four surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, each collecting regular reports from tens or hundreds of thousands of employers in both the private and public sectors. That information allowed them to not only generate month-by-month estimates of the total number of elementary and secondary education jobs, but also form a clearer view of the large swings in hirings, resignations and layoffs between March 2020 and May 2022.

The pair supplemented that picture with files from 16 state education agencies 鈥� though these additions were complicated by the states鈥� differing definitions of turnover. For the purposes of their study, Kraft and Bleiberg described it as the percentage of teachers in one school year who did not return to the same school or district in the next year.

One possible explanation for the vacancies that did linger was a period of weak job growth after schools were closed in spring 2020. According to one federal survey, K-12 and higher education institutions collectively hired 32,000 fewer educators per month over the first six months of the pandemic. That belt-tightening was likely caused by worries that the austerity measures of the last global economic downturn would be repeated, Kraft remarked.

鈥淲e had lived through the lessons of the Great Recession, which substantially cut education funding over multiple years and led to hundreds of thousands of teachers being laid off,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o schools were cautious, and I think rightly so, about filling positions even from natural turnover.鈥�

After the slashed budgets of the 2010s, few if any observers predicted the federal government would allocate nearly $200 billion in pandemic relief to American schools. If that understandable misapprehension guided decisions during the early phases of the crisis, a general absence of accurate, real-time data has further clouded the picture ever since. 

The deficiencies of public data sources are several, Kraft and Bleiberg note. Some surveys don鈥檛 clearly differentiate among K-12 employees, such that job additions or attrition among non-instructional staff can be conflated with those affecting teachers. Others make it hard to differentiate between public K-12 schools and private institutions (or even colleges and universities). And as with virtually all data regularly collected by the government, figures are subject to serious revisions even months after their initial publication. 

Chad Aldeman is the policy director of Georgetown University鈥檚 Edunomics Lab, a research group that studies education finance. In an email to 社区黑料, Aldeman called national teacher employment data 鈥渁t best a patchwork quilt of federal, state and local databases, much of it several years old.鈥� That disorganization makes it difficult to answer even basic questions, such as how many job openings exist throughout the nation鈥檚 K-12 schools and which specific positions principals and superintendents are hiring.

In normal circumstances, that kind of opacity paves the way to misguided policy choices. But at a time of unprecedented tumult in the labor market, it might come at the cost of critical, one-time resources that could otherwise be spent helping students climb back from years of lost learning. Aldeman said he was aware of cases in which districts were poaching from their neighbors, or even cannibalizing their own workforce, to fill specialist roles.

鈥淚 don’t think state and federal policymakers are taking these data gaps seriously,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淚nstead, states seem to be spending their own money blindly, and I don’t see many thoughtful plans to track the spending alongside student outcomes to make sure the increased staffing levels actually translate into better services for students.鈥�

Kraft said that public confusion over the nature of teacher shortages is a serious concern, pointing to showing higher vacancy rates at high-poverty or predominantly minority schools. The difficulties those schools face in hiring, and the increased stress suffered by their staff, are persistent problems that call out redress through higher pay and better working conditions, he argued; misbegotten narratives based on incomplete information could only make them harder to solve.

鈥淲e are failing these communities by failing to understand the nature of the problem, Kraft said. 鈥淎nd by failing to understand the nature of the problem, we may well diagnose it incorrectly and prescribe remedies that fail to address the underlying, structural inequities.鈥�

New research released last month has offered persuasive new evidence of the potential of summer learning opportunities, particularly in STEM subjects. One, a meta-analysis compiling the findings of dozens of prior studies over the last two years, shows consistent gains in math achievement resulting from student enrollment in summer coursework. Another showed participants in a summer STEM program enjoying significant later-life benefits, including greater success in college and higher earnings. 

The papers emerged just as national leaders made a concerted push to broaden access to summer instruction. In July, to spend more of their federal relief funds on tutoring, afterschool activities, and summer enrichment. Next, the Department of Education the Engage Every Student Initiative, a public-private partnership designed to guide local communities toward evidence-based programming. The administration to highlight the work of schools that have expanded their summer offerings.

The campaign demonstrates the promise that many experts see in summer learning 鈥� and the enormous academic challenges facing the nation鈥檚 schools after three school years disrupted by COVID-19. Along with extended school days and a stiff dose of high-quality tutoring, researchers and policymakers alike are turning to the traditionally vacant summer months as an untapped resource in the battle against academic erosion. 

Kathleen Lynch, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut and coauthor of the meta-analysis, said the existing research shows not only that summer learning is an effective means of bolstering academic growth, but also a worthy recipient of finite COVID recovery dollars.

鈥淪ummer programs provide an opportunity for children to catch up on material they may have missed, or to enrich their learning on new topics aligned with their interests,鈥� Lynch wrote in an email. 鈥淚 would recommend an effort to replicate successful models over the next few years, as schools and districts continue to combat learning setbacks that children experienced due to the pandemic.鈥�  

Lynch and her co-authors cast a wide net to gather relevant findings from existing research dating between 1998 and 2020, ultimately selecting 37 studies of summer math initiatives that included control groups against whom program effects could be assessed. Programs could be conducted in a school, a community site, or private homes, and while some of the experiments were exclusively math-focused, others provided instruction in other subjects as well.

Participation in the programs significantly lifted children鈥檚 math performance. The average effect size of .1 standard deviations (a common measure showing the difference in any group from the statistical mean) in improved standardized test scores compares favorably to other touted learning interventions, such as teacher merit pay and school choice. And the benefits were similar in scope regardless of whether a given program served primarily low-income or high-income children. 

That distinction is critical given the intense diversity of summer learning experiences. Many are operated by school districts on a remedial basis, recruiting (or requiring the participation of) students who struggled academically during the year. Historically, these forms of summer school with poor attendance and low engagement from participants.

By contrast, Lynch noted, 鈥渃ontemporary summer programs increasingly focus on enrichment, hands-on activities, and learning via projects and inquiry.鈥� Such programs, offered electively, are more likely to attract high-achieving pupils from relatively advantaged families.

focused on a particular initiative that attempted to split the difference by signing up high-achieving students from racial or ethnic backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in STEM fields. The program, offered by an elite technical university located in the Northeast, draws a disproportionately nonwhite field of rising high school seniors with top test scores and an average GPA of 3.86. 

Researchers from Columbia Teachers College, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the consulting company Mathematica assessed the effects of three separate varieties of the program: two summer residential periods (one week and six weeks, respectively) on campus, complete with direct coursework in STEM subjects as well as workshops and visits to STEM-focused workplaces, as well as a six-month engagement that was primarily offered to participants online. 

In all, participants from the 2014, 2015, and 2016 cohorts of experiment gained impressive life advantages in the years to come. Across all three summer offerings, students were more likely than members of a demographically similar control group to enroll in college, as well as persist and finish with a degree. Perhaps most importantly, since the program鈥檚 top priority was to diversify the STEM pipeline, participants offered seats in the six-week residential experience were 33 percent more likely to graduate in four years with a STEM degree. 

Sarah Cohodes, an associate professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a co-author of the study, said that the experiment provides evidence of a somewhat rarefied type of summer learning opportunity, tailored to students who were likely to enjoy its full benefits. That makes it a limited, though suggestive, window into what can be expected from summer school generally.

鈥淒oes it look like what we’re thinking about when we’re thinking about remediating learning loss? No, it doesn’t,鈥� Cohodes said. 鈥淏ut I think you can see this as an existence proof that, yes, carefully designed programs targeted at the right level for students can make a huge difference for their life trajectories, and it is possible to create summer opportunities that change the lives of students.鈥� 

Intriguingly, the study鈥檚 findings in terms of college outcomes aren鈥檛 clearly attributable to a particular facet of the college program; for instance, graduation rates after five years with a STEM degree were not significantly different in the one-week experience versus the six-week experience. This suggests that the benefits might be attributable to the simple influence of gathering students from traditionally underrepresented groups together on a prestigious campus, Cohodes argued.

鈥淚t’s not clear that the learning that made a difference here was standard, ‘I know more physics than I knew before’-type learning,鈥� she observed. 鈥淎 lot of it seemed to be around knowledge of the college application process, knowledge of what was out there, peer effects and social networks.鈥�

The development of non-cognitive skills and traits was an explicit point of focus in Lynch鈥檚 compilation of summer learning studies. Across a range of 37 non-cognitive outcomes (including mindsets and attitudes, social skills, and academic behaviors like school attendance), summer math programs were associated with positive movement in 27; the average effect size for those outcomes was roughly equivalent to the programs鈥� effects on math test scores and course grades, with notable reductions to school-year absenteeism.

鈥淭he number of studies that measured noncognitive impacts is relatively small, but the evidence we found suggested that there鈥檚 unlikely to be a tradeoff between learning and noncognitive outcomes from attending summer programs,鈥� Lynch said.

One example singled out in the meta-analysis was the Horizons National Summer Enrichment Program, an intensive summer intervention serving thousands of low-income pre-K鈥�8 students across dozens of affiliates in 20 states. A commissioned by the organization found that its enrollees were less likely to be chronically absent or repeat a grade. A Horizons affiliate in New Haven, Connecticut, on the first lady鈥檚 July tour of summer learning and enrichment programs.

As policymakers at the state and federal levels search for tools to restore the academic growth forfeited during the pandemic, they will have access to thousands of existing summer schools, camps, and enrichment activities targeted toward K-12 students of different ages and achievement levels. National Summer Learning Association CEO Aaron Dworkin, who accompanied First Lady Biden on her visit to Horizons, said in an interview that this panoply of approaches 鈥� wedded to ample government support 鈥� could make a significant impact in the next few years.

“We have a lot of people who are doing what they think is best, but we can support and train them and invest in them so that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. A lot of people have tried already and learned the hard way. What’s different is that we have a lot of training, data, intermediaries, and infrastructure to support all kinds of people who are trying to be helpful right now.”

After two years of a pandemic, Gelman is proud that her students have learned to speak up for themselves. For example, they asked for a room in the school to gather when they鈥檙e feeling emotionally overwhelmed. But as seniors prepare to graduate, she said it鈥檚 鈥渂een like pulling teeth鈥� to keep them focused on academics.

鈥淭hey wanted teachers to stop giving them homework,鈥� she said. 鈥淭heir priority is their mental health, not college.鈥�

The pandemic鈥檚 impact on this year鈥檚 graduates is captured in new survey data showing that one in four seniors has changed their future plans because of COVID, and some have less desire to continue their education. Published Wednesday by YouthTruth, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, the data shows English learners, LGBTQ youth and students of color were more likely to reconsider their next steps. The results are based on responses from over 28,000 high school seniors from both 2019 and this year, allowing for comparison to the last senior class to graduate before the pandemic. 

Black and Hispanic students and boys, for example, are less likely to say they want to go to college than those who graduated in 2019. Eighteen percent of this year鈥檚 graduates said they considered dropping out. But that rate was much higher among LGBTQ students (26%) and transgender students (37%). And Hispanic students are more likely than white students to say they鈥檙e unsure about their next steps 鈥� 14% compared with 9%.

Less access to college and career counseling could be one reason for the shift in attitudes.

In 2019, 40% of graduates reported receiving guidance from their schools about career pathways, according to the YouthTruth results. Among students in this year鈥檚 class, 33% said they received such guidance. And the percentage of students saying there鈥檚 an adult they could ask to write a college recommendation letter declined for males, students in rural schools and Hispanic students.

鈥業 felt like I was all alone鈥�

Seniors told 社区黑料 they felt reluctant to seek help and that counselors sometimes didn鈥檛 offer guidance unless asked.

Yan Kyaw, a senior at Senn High School in Chicago, said his school partnered with OneGoal, a nonprofit focusing on preparing students for higher education. But he had a hard time taking advantage of the help while learning remotely.

鈥淚 did have a support system, but I didn鈥檛 use them because I felt like I was all alone,鈥� said Kyaw, who will attend the University of Illinois Chicago and study business. In junior year, he didn鈥檛 ask for feedback on his college essays. He often found himself sitting on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He described his high school years as 鈥渁 punch in the gut.鈥�

Due to the pandemic, many seniors went without the kind of volunteer and internship experiences colleges often look for and had fewer in-person college fairs and opportunities to 鈥渟et their feet on a college campus to do a tour,鈥� said Geoff Heckman, head of the counseling department at Platte County High School, near Kansas City, Missouri. 

Students have 鈥渄one their best to pick next steps based upon virtual tools and online information,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut without the genuine face-to-face conversation that is so helpful in making that determination about which direction they really want to pursue.鈥�

Rajsi Rani, who鈥檚 graduating from Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, California, said she missed informal communication the most. 

鈥淏ecause everything was virtual, there was no knowledge passed by word of mouth, which I’ve found is very helpful for this kind of information,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 did my own research on career ideas. It was not provided by my school to the extent that I think it was pre-pandemic.鈥�

For some students, the pandemic wasn鈥檛 necessarily a setback, but instead helped them identify their goals.

Monty Woods, who attends Milwaukie High, said he always planned to stay close to home and attend Clackamas Community College. He takes care of his mother, who is disabled, and said he used to think about becoming a teacher. But the pandemic changed his mind. 

鈥淚 saw how it just drained every single staff member,鈥� he said. Now he plans to study business administration.

鈥楾aking a pause鈥� 

Some seniors also missed out on financial aid counseling. The survey shows that only a quarter of this year鈥檚 graduates said they received help on how to apply for assistance, compared with a third in 2019.

That decline shows up in . According to the National College Attainment Network, overall rates 鈥� including first-time filers 鈥� have dropped almost 9% compared to last year, continuing the downward trend that began in 2020. Every state saw a decline, ranging from less than 2% in Texas to almost 17% in Michigan.

The Network鈥檚 report notes that 鈥渉igh schools are having to triage supports to students, with learning loss and academics, mental wellness and basic needs often getting more attention and investment than postsecondary transitions.鈥� The researchers suggested the 鈥渉ot economy鈥� could also be pushing some students to choose work over college, especially those who were on the fence. 

The pandemic鈥檚 strain on family budgets pushed many students to take jobs or increase the number of hours they were working. Shelly Reggiani, executive director of equity, community engagement and communications in the North Clackamas district, which includes Milwaukie High, heard from students working as many as 30 hours a week 鈥渢o keep the lights on.鈥�

鈥淭hese young people were forced into taking on that adult role at such a young age,鈥� she said. In the past, she added, the term, 鈥済ap year,鈥� often referred to travel plans or putting off a year of college sports. Now, she said, 鈥渋t almost seems to be synonymous with, 鈥業鈥檓 taking a pause.鈥� 鈥�

Milwaukie High senior JohnTasia Simmons, who goes by 鈥淭ae tae,鈥� is just glad she pulled her grades up enough to get into Portland State University. She鈥檚 struggled with a learning disability her whole life, which she said was 鈥渘ot a good mix鈥� with online learning. She fell behind in algebra and English, and almost failed history.

鈥淢y assignments were just stacking up. My grades were looking friggin鈥� terrible,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 thought I would have to start off in community college.鈥�

As the United States approaches the end of another school year marked irrevocably by COVID, the paper鈥檚 findings are merely the latest to show substantial academic reversals resulting from lengthy school closures, uneven execution of virtual learning, and the effects of countless social and economic upheavals over the last two years.

Study co-author Megan Kuhfeld, a senior research analyst at the nonprofit research group NWEA, declared herself 鈥渟urprised in some ways that the results were a lot bigger鈥� than those following the seminal natural disaster of recent American history. But while the 鈥渃oncentration of disrupted schooling鈥� immediately following Katrina was especially intense, Kuhfeld argued, most affected children were relocated and enrolled in new schools within a matter of months. 

鈥淚f you think about how prolonged the disruptions were, it does make sense to me that we saw larger drops than we did during the hurricane,鈥� she said. 

The study, by Brown University鈥檚 Annenberg Institute for School Reform, examines student performance on NWEA鈥檚 Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, which assesses growth in both reading and math. The test is typically administered in participating K-12 schools three times during the school year, and results include demographic information detailing student age, gender and race or ethnicity.

All told, the study鈥檚 sample comprised roughly 5.4 million students in grades 3鈥�8 across a swath of 12,000 elementary and middle schools; those schools represented between 12 percent and 15 percent of all American schools in each grade. To illustrate the learning trajectory of these students during the pandemic, Kuhfeld and her collaborators tracked the scores of same-age test-takers during the fall of 2019, 2020, and 2021.

As expected, the arrow pointed downward over those three academic years. Average math scores dropped by a range of 3.3 points to 4.5 points (sixth graders and eighth graders, respectively)during the period under examination, while reading scores dropped between 1.5 and three points (eighth graders and third graders, respectively).

To put those figures in perspective, the authors followed up with , which compared the negative impact captured on the MAP tests to the positive growth catalyzed by various education policy interventions in separate studies. The pandemic-related hit to math scores among elementary schoolers between 2019 and 2021 was nearly three times as large as the benefit that similar students have received from a specialized course of summer instruction in the subject. Score slippage for middle schoolers was larger in magnitude than the boost that comparable children received from high-dosage tutoring, one of the most effective education interventions that has ever been measured. 

Mike Magee, who recently stepped down as CEO of the education advocacy group Chiefs for Change, called the study 鈥測et another indication that an alarming number of students have fallen far behind during the pandemic.鈥� He called for a range of remedies 鈥� including extending the school day, offering higher-quality instructional materials, and deploying more tutors 鈥� to arrest the downward momentum in achievement.

鈥淐ovid has exacerbated inequities and widened gaps,鈥� Magee wrote in an email. 鈥淚f schools do not have an uncompromising focus on academics, the lasting consequences will be catastrophic 鈥� and Black and brown children, and those who live in poverty, will hurt the most.鈥�

Indeed, the study also detected widening disparities in academic performance between students of different levels of socioeconomic advantage. In just two years, the already sizable gap in reading performance between students enrolled at relatively high-poverty schools (those in which over 75 percent of students are eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch) and relatively low-poverty schools (those in which fewer than 25 percent are eligible) expanded by 15 percent. The gap in math performance grew by 20 percent.

Longtime education observer Tom Loveless, the former director of Brookings鈥檚 Brown Center on Education Policy, was struck by the sheer toll exacted by COVID鈥檚 disruption to learning, but also the smaller stories within the learning loss.

鈥淲hat’s interesting is that the losses from the pandemic seem to be the opposite of the learning gains registered over the past three decades,鈥� Loveless wrote in an email. 鈥淪ince the early 1990s, greater gains were made by younger kids than older kids, and math gains outpaced gains in reading. Now 鈥� at least in early studies of pandemic effects 鈥� we are seeing greater losses by younger students compared to older ones and a larger setback in math compared to reading.鈥�

The explanation for the subject-specific differences in MAP scores is still unclear, though Loveless added that math performance may simply be 鈥渕ore sensitive to schooling鈥� 鈥� and therefore vulnerable to decline when schools shut down. Evidence for that theory can be found in a curious time lag: Even after the sudden impact of school closures in the spring of 2020, reading scores measured that autumn were still only modestly affected, sinking much further over the course of the 2020-21 school year. But significant declines in math scores were apparent in fall 2020 MAP performance.

Kuhfeld agreed that previous research has shown that math learning 鈥渟eems to be more sensitive to time in school,鈥� which could account for the steeper backsliding in that subject. But she added that the MAP results can鈥檛 capture the lost growth among early readers in the first and second grades, who were just beginning to develop the foundational skills of literacy when COVID hit.

鈥淭hose kids who were first-graders when the pandemic started are now in third grade,鈥� Kuhfeld observed. 鈥淭here’s probably going to be a cumulative effect where kids who missed out on those formative, learning-to-read experiences will probably see even larger negative effects on reading than we’ve observed so far.鈥�

Further research will additionally clarify the extent to which the educational consequences of the pandemic differed among students in different learning environments, she added. One study 鈥� circulated last fall by a team of academics including Brown economist Emily Oster 鈥� has already found that learning loss was much greater in school districts that kept remote schooling for longer. Kuhfeld argued that there was likely to be 鈥渉uge variation鈥� based on the time children spent in physical classrooms.

鈥淚t was probably worse for certain groups that either didn’t have access to in-person instruction, or maybe had access but chose not to go for health or other reasons,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he kind of scary part is knowing that this was the average effect; there were certainly a number of students who had larger drops than what we’re reporting.”

But until recently, it remained unclear what impact the decision had on California鈥檚 Chicano students.

This spring, in a published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, scholars Francisca Antman and Kalena Cortes filled the gap with the first-ever quantitative analysis of the case鈥檚 long-run impacts. 

Participating in desegregation, they found, led to a significant increase in educational attainment for Mexican-American students. Those born after the ruling completed nearly a full year of schooling more than a comparison cohort born 10 years prior and were nearly 20% more likely to graduate from high school. In the decades following the case, Chicano students in highly segregated counties were able to cut by more than half the disparity in their schooling outcomes with those of Chicano students in minimally segregated counties.

鈥淲hat we see is really a dramatic rise in educational attainment for Hispanics after the end of de jure segregation,鈥� said Antman, an associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. That finding, she noted, held true 鈥減articularly in those areas that we think were most likely to be segregated.鈥�

In California before the Mendez decision, segregating Mexican-American students into separate schools was common practice, driven to a large extent by . Those who advocated for separate schools claimed Hispanic students were unclean, intellectually inferior and lacking English language skills 鈥� even though Mexican-American youth who did not speak Spanish were also segregated.

Today, Latino residents make up of the U.S. population and an even of the nation鈥檚 public school student body. Yet Latino youth continue to be . Analyzing the Mendez decision is key to understanding the present circumstances for Latino students and families, the authors .

With desegregation, Antman explained, 鈥淗ispanic students [began to] have access to white classrooms or schools that they didn’t before鈥� 鈥� meaning more resources and improved facilities. Though exact data on the flow of financial resources does not exist, she and her co-author hypothesize that such shifts may have triggered the outsized benefits for Chicano youth.

At the same time, education outcomes improved for all learners, Mexican-American and white students alike.

鈥淓ducational attainment is rising for all groups,鈥� she said, adding that students nationwide tended to complete more schooling over the time period her study observed.

There is no official record of which areas separated Mexican-American students into separate schools as exists for school segregation in the American South 鈥� posing a major obstacle to research on the topic. That did not stop Antman and Cortes.

鈥淎 lot of times, researchers only pursue questions that they can answer [cleanly with existing data],鈥� said the CU Boulder economist. But 鈥渟ometimes the question is so important that you want to pursue it even if you can’t get the absolute best, clearest answer.鈥�

She and her co-author got around the limitation by using 1940 census data to create a proxy measure for segregation levels. According to historical accounts, areas with the highest share of Hispanics in their population were the locales with the most rampant segregation. The researchers then identified the top quarter of California counties with the highest share of Hispanic residents and compared them to the bottom quarter with the least to represent high- and low-segregation counties.

In another key hurdle, records are also absent on how effectively each school district followed through on the desegregation effort. Implementation varied at the local level with some districts opening separate schools or maintaining segregation in certain grade levels while desegregating others. The authors account for the messy rollout using what鈥檚 called an 鈥渋ntent-to-treat鈥� approach that includes all students in their analysis, regardless of their district鈥檚 follow through on desegregation. The method simply measures the effect of students鈥� exposure to the legal change. If anything, the approach would understate the impacts of integration, the authors explain, by grouping students who experienced desegregation together with those who remained separated.

As with the Brown case, impacts grew over time, Antman and Cortes found. Mexican-American students who were toddlers at the time of Mendez were likely to complete more total years of schooling than those who were in primary school (who in turn were more likely to see higher educational attainment than their older peers). Achievement gaps between Chicano and white students closed over time.

Compared to cohorts that began school before Mendez, those who matriculated after segregation was outlawed were 18.4% more likely to graduate from junior high school and 19.4% more likely to graduate from high school, the analysis revealed.

Fast forward to the current day, and school segregation levels nationwide have 鈥� with a for Latino students, who continue to have than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. and have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. With that backdrop, Antman said her results underscore the continued need for integration.

鈥淪ome might might say, 鈥榃ell, would it really matter to desegregate [in the present day]?鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淭his certainly would suggest that it would matter very much.鈥�