Students will need significant support well past the pandemic funding cliff

New data on student achievement gives reason to celebrate, but also to maintain our urgency around recovery. While students across the country are beginning to rebound, too many will experience the negative impacts of the pandemic for years to come. These results, from NWEA researchers, emphasize that we need to identify and scale what’s working to help close learning gaps that worsened during the pandemic.

First, the good news. While students and teachers faced extraordinary challenges in the 2021-2022 school year, including COVID-19 surges that resulted in more school closures, student absences and staffing shortages, student growth returned to pre-pandemic trends. That’s according to our analysis of 8 million students in 25,000 public schools around the nation who took our assessments in reading and math. Some children, especially those in early elementary grades, grew at a rate that allowed them to make up some of the lost ground in the pandemic. In other words, they’re on a path toward catching up.

It’s a moment to celebrate, but we can’t be complacent. As our researchers have consistently shown, the impact of the pandemic on student achievement has been highly disproportionate and has had the greatest impact on students of color and those experiencing poverty. We’ve also seen wide variation across subjects and grades. The same holds true this year.

Using historical growth trends, we were able to estimate the amount of time it will take students in various grades to close the pandemic achievement gap (the gap between where student achievement ended in spring of 2022 and where we would have expected it to be had the pandemic disruptions not occurred). For some groups of students, like fourth graders in reading, we anticipate students will be back on track in one or two years, if the current momentum put forth by our schools continues. For the typical elementary student, we estimate a minimum of three years to reach full recovery.

Middle-school achievement data is particularly concerning. Sixth-grade through eighth-grade students made little or no progress in achievement last year relative to the 2020-21 school year. In math, eighth graders actually lost ground. If current growth patterns hold for middle schoolers, we estimate it will take more than five years meaning they won’t catch up to pre-pandemic learning levels before graduation.

Students in high-poverty schools also continue to be disproportionately impacted. While students in both low- and high-poverty schools experienced rebounding growth rates last year, students in low-poverty schools are expected to recover faster as they have less ground to make up.

While these national findings are critical in illuminating the big picture of student recovery, it is not nuanced enough to guide local decision-making. The impact of the pandemic has been highly location dependent. Local communities need to collect and analyze data and respond to it in specific and targeted ways.

Schools will need sustained support and resources in doing this hard work and deploying evidence-based interventions. That includes more federal money. We understand that this may raise eyebrows. After all, the federal government has authorized nearly $200 billion to support schools in recovery. But that funding only covers programs through 2024, and this latest research shows schools will need significant support well past that date.

States and districts also need to know now — or soon — that more support is coming so they can develop sustainable plans to get students back on track. The so-called “fiscal cliff” is making it challenging for education leaders to spend federal resources effectively to transform education in the long-term; federal policymakers should respond.

While researchers are studying which strategies and interventions are working, and what role federal resources are playing in making this possible, they already have some evidence of the kind of efforts that warrant investment now and going forward. Those include programs that provide students with more instructional time, support students most impacted, encourage the use of strong data systems that provide continuous feedback on interventions, and give teachers the high-quality resources they need to help children succeed. Importantly, there is likely no single recovery strategy that will be impactful enough to regain the ground that has been lost due to COVID-19. Schools must offer a range of layered supports and interventions that are in direct proportion to students’ specific recovery needs.

As parents of school-age children and professionals working in education policy and research, we are thrilled to see overall student growth back. It’s a reflection of what we’ve witnessed in our local schools and communities — families coming together with teachers, leaders and policymakers to support students. The road to recovery, however, is far from over. We can take a moment to celebrate the good news — we all need it — but then we have to get back to work. For the millions of children who have fallen behind through no fault of their own, we must summon the resources and the political will to give them the support they need to recover.

Lindsay Dworkin, J.D., M.P.A., M.Phil., is senior vice president of policy and communications at NWEA, a not-for-profit, research and educational services organization serving K-12 students.

Karyn Lewis, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for School and Student Progress at NWEA, and the co-author of the new research study released this week.