News
by Ali Tadayon / EdSource
Uploaded: Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 9:13 am 2
Time to read: about 3 minutes
Toko, a second grader at Fairmeadow Elementary School, works on an assignment in class in Palo Alto on March 16, 2022. Photo by Magali Gauthier.
Elementary students are regaining the ground they lost during the pandemic at a faster pace than older students, recent research shows, but K-12 students are still years away from a full recovery.
Comparing the most recent nationwide Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, assessment data from 8.3 million students in grades 3-8 in reading and math, researchers from the Northwest Evaluation Association testing group found that elementary school students had the most learning recovery last school year of any student group. Meanwhile, students in middle school either made slower progress recovering from learning loss or remained stagnant, NWEA researcher Karyn Lewis said in an interview with EdSource.
Lewis sees the data as a sign of hope for that group of younger students, who researchers initially anticipated would have the toughest time recovering from the pandemic’s disruption to schools.
Schools and districts apparently kept that in mind when planning their learning recovery strategies.
“It was the group we were most worried about, and rightly so because our research and that of our colleagues have shown that that was the group that was hardest hit,” Lewis said. “I think this is probably due, in part, to that message getting out, and schools and districts taking a triage approach, focusing energy on our youngest learners.”
Help sustain the local news you depend on.
Your contribution matters. Become a member today.
NWEA now anticipates that elementary students, on average, will fully recover from pandemic learning loss in three or more years. Older students are expected to recover in five or more years.
When the pandemic was raging in the fall of 2020, hundreds of thousands of families across the country opted not to enroll their children in public school, with the biggest groups being kindergartners, and students in grades one through three. Researchers, at the time, were concerned that those students would struggle most to adapt when returning to school.
California K-12 schools lost 271,000 students since Covid struck in spring 2020. Enrollment as of Census Day, always the first Wednesday of October, was 5.89 million students for the 2021-22 school year; five years ago, it was 6.23 million.
Learning loss was also a top concern of policymakers, which is why billions in federal American Rescue Plan funds have been earmarked specifically for schools to address the issue.
Lewis found that the range of abilities among students in the same grade had widened in the 2021-22 school year. Lewis attributed that to the pandemic’s uneven impact on students and said the spread was more dramatic among elementary students.
Stay informed
Get daily headlines sent straight to your inbox in our Express newsletter.
Stay informed
Get daily headlines sent straight to your inbox in our Express newsletter.
“Kids may be coming to the classroom at the same age, but they are not all stepping into the classroom with the same levels of preparation and readiness to take on grade-level content,” Lewis said.
That range of abilities will make teachers’ jobs’ “exponentially harder” than before, Lewis said.
Students across all grades had bigger gains in math than reading, according to the study. Prior research indicated that the pandemic has had larger negative impacts on math achievement compared with reading achievement.
Identifying the most effective methods and strategies used to get students back on track remains the “million-dollar question everyone is wondering right now,” Lewis said. NWEA, a not-for-profit organization that provides schools assessment options, research and professional development offerings, along with its partners, is researching what worked and what didn’t, but it’s “still too early to say,” she said.
A similar analysis by NWEA at the end of the 2020-21 school year painted a starker picture of the state of learning loss: Data indicated that across all grades, the amount of unfinished learning was growing, meaning students ended the year even further behind.
Most Viewed Stories
■ Police seek suspect after woman was sexually assaulted at Cal. Ave. pedestrian underpass
■ Menlo Park resident’s COVID-19 artwork now on display at the NIH museum
■ Once polarizing, bathrooms to become fixtures in Palo Alto parks
■ Man arrested for alleged sexual assault in California Avenue tunnel
■ Cyclist, 37, dies after collision with car on Cañada Road near Filoli estate
Most Viewed Stories
■ Police seek suspect after woman was sexually assaulted at Cal. Ave. pedestrian underpass
■ Menlo Park resident’s COVID-19 artwork now on display at the NIH museum
“At that point, it wasn’t even thinking about recovery, it was about stopping the bleeding,” Lewis said. “The good news is at the beginning of this school year, it does appear the bleeding has stopped, but it’s going to be a long road before being fully healed.”
The progress that students made last year was shared across income levels and ethnic groups, Lewis said. But the achievement disparities affecting Latino, Black and American Indian or Native Alaskan students have only widened since the pandemic began, according to the NWEA’s research. The research also found that students experienced lower academic gains than a “typical year” prior to the pandemic, with students in high-poverty schools remaining disproportionately impacted.
The improvements that students made last year should be celebrated, Lewis said, but students — especially older students — still have a long road ahead to get back on track. Academic recovery among middle school students either remained stagnant or fell further back last year. For some students, full recovery would not be attainable before the end of high school, according to NWEA’s research.
Lewis was discouraged that NWEA’s estimated timeline of full recovery extends further than the deadlines for federal recovery funds. The $15 billion for schools and districts authorized by Congress in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan has a use-it-or-lose-it deadline of January 2025.
“This was such a challenging year. Schools are still taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to getting the supports and interventions in place, and there’s still a long way to go,” Lewis said. “So I’m worried that if we strip away those federal dollars while schools are still trying to get kids caught up, it will delay the process even further.”
This story, from Bay City News Service, was originally published by EdSource.
Craving a new voice in Peninsula dining?
Sign up for the Peninsula Foodist newsletter.
Follow Palo Alto Online and the Palo Alto Weekly on Twitter @paloaltoweekly, Facebook and on Instagram @paloaltoonline for breaking news, local events, photos, videos and more.
by Ali Tadayon / EdSource /
Uploaded: Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 9:13 am
Elementary students are regaining the ground they lost during the pandemic at a faster pace than older students, recent research shows, but K-12 students are still years away from a full recovery.
Comparing the most recent nationwide Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, assessment data from 8.3 million students in grades 3-8 in reading and math, researchers from the Northwest Evaluation Association testing group found that elementary school students had the most learning recovery last school year of any student group. Meanwhile, students in middle school either made slower progress recovering from learning loss or remained stagnant, NWEA researcher Karyn Lewis said in an interview with EdSource.
Lewis sees the data as a sign of hope for that group of younger students, who researchers initially anticipated would have the toughest time recovering from the pandemic’s disruption to schools.
Schools and districts apparently kept that in mind when planning their learning recovery strategies.
“It was the group we were most worried about, and rightly so because our research and that of our colleagues have shown that that was the group that was hardest hit,” Lewis said. “I think this is probably due, in part, to that message getting out, and schools and districts taking a triage approach, focusing energy on our youngest learners.”
NWEA now anticipates that elementary students, on average, will fully recover from pandemic learning loss in three or more years. Older students are expected to recover in five or more years.
When the pandemic was raging in the fall of 2020, hundreds of thousands of families across the country opted not to enroll their children in public school, with the biggest groups being kindergartners, and students in grades one through three. Researchers, at the time, were concerned that those students would struggle most to adapt when returning to school.
California K-12 schools lost 271,000 students since Covid struck in spring 2020. Enrollment as of Census Day, always the first Wednesday of October, was 5.89 million students for the 2021-22 school year; five years ago, it was 6.23 million.
Learning loss was also a top concern of policymakers, which is why billions in federal American Rescue Plan funds have been earmarked specifically for schools to address the issue.
Lewis found that the range of abilities among students in the same grade had widened in the 2021-22 school year. Lewis attributed that to the pandemic’s uneven impact on students and said the spread was more dramatic among elementary students.
“Kids may be coming to the classroom at the same age, but they are not all stepping into the classroom with the same levels of preparation and readiness to take on grade-level content,” Lewis said.
That range of abilities will make teachers’ jobs’ “exponentially harder” than before, Lewis said.
Students across all grades had bigger gains in math than reading, according to the study. Prior research indicated that the pandemic has had larger negative impacts on math achievement compared with reading achievement.
Identifying the most effective methods and strategies used to get students back on track remains the “million-dollar question everyone is wondering right now,” Lewis said. NWEA, a not-for-profit organization that provides schools assessment options, research and professional development offerings, along with its partners, is researching what worked and what didn’t, but it’s “still too early to say,” she said.
A similar analysis by NWEA at the end of the 2020-21 school year painted a starker picture of the state of learning loss: Data indicated that across all grades, the amount of unfinished learning was growing, meaning students ended the year even further behind.
“At that point, it wasn’t even thinking about recovery, it was about stopping the bleeding,” Lewis said. “The good news is at the beginning of this school year, it does appear the bleeding has stopped, but it’s going to be a long road before being fully healed.”
The progress that students made last year was shared across income levels and ethnic groups, Lewis said. But the achievement disparities affecting Latino, Black and American Indian or Native Alaskan students have only widened since the pandemic began, according to the NWEA’s research. The research also found that students experienced lower academic gains than a “typical year” prior to the pandemic, with students in high-poverty schools remaining disproportionately impacted.
The improvements that students made last year should be celebrated, Lewis said, but students — especially older students — still have a long road ahead to get back on track. Academic recovery among middle school students either remained stagnant or fell further back last year. For some students, full recovery would not be attainable before the end of high school, according to NWEA’s research.
Lewis was discouraged that NWEA’s estimated timeline of full recovery extends further than the deadlines for federal recovery funds. The $15 billion for schools and districts authorized by Congress in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan has a use-it-or-lose-it deadline of January 2025.
“This was such a challenging year. Schools are still taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to getting the supports and interventions in place, and there’s still a long way to go,” Lewis said. “So I’m worried that if we strip away those federal dollars while schools are still trying to get kids caught up, it will delay the process even further.”
This story, from Bay City News Service, was originally published by EdSource.
Elementary students are regaining the ground they lost during the pandemic at a faster pace than older students, recent research shows, but K-12 students are still years away from a full recovery.
Comparing the most recent nationwide Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, assessment data from 8.3 million students in grades 3-8 in reading and math, researchers from the Northwest Evaluation Association testing group found that elementary school students had the most learning recovery last school year of any student group. Meanwhile, students in middle school either made slower progress recovering from learning loss or remained stagnant, NWEA researcher Karyn Lewis said in an interview with EdSource.
Lewis sees the data as a sign of hope for that group of younger students, who researchers initially anticipated would have the toughest time recovering from the pandemic’s disruption to schools.
Schools and districts apparently kept that in mind when planning their learning recovery strategies.
“It was the group we were most worried about, and rightly so because our research and that of our colleagues have shown that that was the group that was hardest hit,” Lewis said. “I think this is probably due, in part, to that message getting out, and schools and districts taking a triage approach, focusing energy on our youngest learners.”
NWEA now anticipates that elementary students, on average, will fully recover from pandemic learning loss in three or more years. Older students are expected to recover in five or more years.
When the pandemic was raging in the fall of 2020, hundreds of thousands of families across the country opted not to enroll their children in public school, with the biggest groups being kindergartners, and students in grades one through three. Researchers, at the time, were concerned that those students would struggle most to adapt when returning to school.
California K-12 schools lost 271,000 students since Covid struck in spring 2020. Enrollment as of Census Day, always the first Wednesday of October, was 5.89 million students for the 2021-22 school year; five years ago, it was 6.23 million.
Learning loss was also a top concern of policymakers, which is why billions in federal American Rescue Plan funds have been earmarked specifically for schools to address the issue.
Lewis found that the range of abilities among students in the same grade had widened in the 2021-22 school year. Lewis attributed that to the pandemic’s uneven impact on students and said the spread was more dramatic among elementary students.
“Kids may be coming to the classroom at the same age, but they are not all stepping into the classroom with the same levels of preparation and readiness to take on grade-level content,” Lewis said.
That range of abilities will make teachers’ jobs’ “exponentially harder” than before, Lewis said.
Students across all grades had bigger gains in math than reading, according to the study. Prior research indicated that the pandemic has had larger negative impacts on math achievement compared with reading achievement.
Identifying the most effective methods and strategies used to get students back on track remains the “million-dollar question everyone is wondering right now,” Lewis said. NWEA, a not-for-profit organization that provides schools assessment options, research and professional development offerings, along with its partners, is researching what worked and what didn’t, but it’s “still too early to say,” she said.
A similar analysis by NWEA at the end of the 2020-21 school year painted a starker picture of the state of learning loss: Data indicated that across all grades, the amount of unfinished learning was growing, meaning students ended the year even further behind.
“At that point, it wasn’t even thinking about recovery, it was about stopping the bleeding,” Lewis said. “The good news is at the beginning of this school year, it does appear the bleeding has stopped, but it’s going to be a long road before being fully healed.”
The progress that students made last year was shared across income levels and ethnic groups, Lewis said. But the achievement disparities affecting Latino, Black and American Indian or Native Alaskan students have only widened since the pandemic began, according to the NWEA’s research. The research also found that students experienced lower academic gains than a “typical year” prior to the pandemic, with students in high-poverty schools remaining disproportionately impacted.
The improvements that students made last year should be celebrated, Lewis said, but students — especially older students — still have a long road ahead to get back on track. Academic recovery among middle school students either remained stagnant or fell further back last year. For some students, full recovery would not be attainable before the end of high school, according to NWEA’s research.
Lewis was discouraged that NWEA’s estimated timeline of full recovery extends further than the deadlines for federal recovery funds. The $15 billion for schools and districts authorized by Congress in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan has a use-it-or-lose-it deadline of January 2025.
“This was such a challenging year. Schools are still taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to getting the supports and interventions in place, and there’s still a long way to go,” Lewis said. “So I’m worried that if we strip away those federal dollars while schools are still trying to get kids caught up, it will delay the process even further.”
This story, from Bay City News Service, was originally published by EdSource.
Did this just cover academic learning loss or all types of learning?
School gives children the ability to learn many things other than academics. From social skills, motor skills, ability to follow directions both in the classroom and the playground, interaction with peers including peers that they do not know well or have little in common with or plain just don’t get on with. Playground games both ones with standardized rules as well as “our school” rules. Speaking to adults who are not strangers, but not known well is another important skill. In fact, all the skills learned by children in school are important to their development and even those who are being homeschooled in traditional settings still have plenty of interaction with peers and other adults.
As for masking, I have heard that there are many more children in speech therapy as a result as well as children who have more stranger fears and difficulty with facial expressions.
I fear we will not fully understand exactly what secondary social ailments until lockdown children are well into adulthood.
Looking at the pandemic as needing to “do school” but online, was always going to lead to inferior outcomes compared to in-person school.
If we want kids to not only catch up, but experience this disruption as the opportunity it could be, we must develop a growth mindset about learning; the fixed-mindset of “learning loss” creates a negative expectation bias.
Web Link
The pandemic was a terrible disruption, and yet a true opportunity for students to become lifelong learners, of using the time to acquire real independence and living skills. People who successfully homeschool (not pandemic school) have specific ways to transition from traditional school that help foster learning independence.
Web Link
[In the pandemic]“Families whose pods had no connection to schools’ remote learning were more than twice as likely as other families to report greater satisfaction…
“One of the key benefits teachers and parents discovered in pods — the flexibility to tailor learning to students’ needs and interests — was undermined when students spent long hours tethered to online schools.”
Learning loss is only relative to a specific system. We can choose to change it for our kids’ benefits.
e.g.,
“That range of abilities will make teachers’ jobs’ “exponentially harder””
That’s only because our system puts kids in groups of closely age-matched peers, in which they may not even relate to kids 2 years older or younger.
Online-only learning can be depressing for homeschoolers too. And yet, public school enrollment dropped after the pandemic with homeschooling enrollments remaining 2X higher.
The moment cries out for innovation, eg, new hybrid programs for those who want them—that leverage flexibility&customization to allow students to accelerate their learning, while accessing what is best about school, teachers, institutional supports, social opportunities like theater/music, after school activities, and chances to just socialize.
Don’t miss out on the discussion!
Sign up to be notified of new comments on this topic.
Home
News
TownSquare
Blogs
A&E
Community Calendar
Sports
Home & Real Estate
Visitor Info
Send News Tips
Become a Member
Print Edition/Archives
Express / Weekend Express
Promotions
Special Pubs
Obituaries
Circulation & Delivery
About Us
Contact Us
Advertising Info
Place a Legal Notice
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Mountain View Voice
The Almanac
TheSixFifty.com
Redwood City Pulse
© 2023 Palo Alto Online
All rights reserved.
Embarcadero Media
PR MediaRelease
Spotlight
Mobile site
© 2023 Palo Alto Online. All rights reserved.