New report suggests students still need more academic support after COVID-19

A new report from the education research organization NWEA suggests that K-12 academic performance is still lagging behind pre-pandemic trends, despite efforts in school districts across the country to combat “learning loss” that came as a result of the pandemic.

According to an NWEA news release, the new report features data from the 2023-24 academic year and “underscores that unfinished learning continues to be a challenge due to lower achievement gains compared to pre-pandemic trends.” The report analyzed test scores from approximately 7.7 million U.S. students currently in grades 3 – 8 in 22,400 public schools who took the MAP Growth assessment in 2023-24. The sample compared scores to a similar group of 10 million students who tested in grades 3-8 in the pre-COVID school years between 2016 and 2019.

“Achievement disparities that predate the pandemic have been starkly exacerbated over the last four years, and marginalized students are still the furthest from recovery,” said Karyn Lewis, director of research and policy partnerships at NWEA and one of the authors of the report. “Pandemic fatigue is real, but accepting a new normal of lower achievement and widened inequities is not an option. We must remain committed to using data-driven strategies, providing our schools with the right scale of support, and integrating sustained recovery efforts into our educational framework so we can make lasting change.”

According to the report, achievement gains during 2023-24 fell short of pre-pandemic trends in nearly all grades and demographics, indicating that pandemic recovery “remains elusive.” It added that this continues the trend of stalled progress observed in the previous school year. The report also found that the gap between pre-COVID and COVID test score averages widened in 2023-24 in nearly all grades, by an average of 36 percent in reading and 18 percent in math. In addition, the average student will need the equivalent of 4.8 additional months of schooling to catch up in reading and 4.4 months in math.

The report placed much of its focus on the continued challenges of current middle schoolers who were in their early years of schooling when the pandemic hit. It noted that this group shows the most significant achievement gaps and needs “an estimated six to nine months of additional schooling to catch up to pre-pandemic levels.”

The report noted that these findings highlight the continued need to provide academic interventions and recovery support to students “who need it most and may need it for years to come.”

“As millions of students continue to fall behind academically, schools across the country are grappling with an impending ESSER financial cliff as federal COVID relief funds run out this September,” Lindsay Dworkin, SVP of Policy & Government Affairs at NWEA, said in a statement. “Even as resources dwindle, districts must try to continue investing in evidence-based strategies that have been proven to improve student outcomes: keeping kids in school, providing high-dosage tutoring, and offering expanded instructional time over the summer or after school. State and federal policymakers also need to recognize the continued urgency and step up with more funding. We must collectively rise to the challenge of supporting this generation of students to reach their full potential.”