More than four years after widespread school lockdowns began during the COVID-19 pandemic, many children are still feeling the impact on their education. Student test score growth has still not rebounded to pre-COVID levels, with some children needing up to nine months of additional education to catch up, according to a new report from the nonprofit Northwest Assessment Association (NWEA).
“Our findings make it clear that the road to recovery from the pandemic’s impact on student achievement is far from over,” reads a research note released by the NWEA this week. “Even for those entering education years after the initial pandemic outbreak, For the system’s youngest students, the impact continues to be felt. By the end of 2021-22, we are optimistic that the worst is over and recovery has begun, unfortunately, for the past two academic years. The data no longer supports this conclusion.
NWEA researchers studied the performance of more than 7.7 million public school students in grades 3 to 8 who took the nonprofit’s reading and math assessments since the start of the pandemic. The NWEA found that in the 2023-24 school year, test score growth continued to be below pre-pandemic trends for all but the youngest students.
These score gaps mean that the average eighth grader will need more than nine months of extra study to catch up to pre-COVID achievement levels. The least affected students — third graders, most of whom weren’t even in school at the start of the pandemic — will need 2.2 months and 1.3 months of additional education to catch up in reading and math, respectively.
“By the end of the 2023-24 school year, students across all grade levels will need the equivalent of 4.8 months of additional learning on average to catch up to pre-COVID levels in reading and 4.3 months in math.” Report read. “Pre-pandemic learning rates varied by grade and subject. Younger students tended to make greater gains each year than older students, with gains in math tending to be slightly greater than gains in reading. .
The report notes that recovery is unlikely to be easy and many students are likely to continue to struggle for the foreseeable future. While it will be years before the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education is understood, it is difficult not to see the long-term or permanent damage that school lockdowns are doing to millions of students.
“Accepting a new normal of lower achievement and widening inequality is not an option,” the report reads. “Instead, we must remain committed to using data-driven strategies to understand and address the specific impacts on our students to ensure they thrive. needed support.”
