Why Kids Are Still Struggling 4 Years After the Pandemic

Four years after the pandemic shuttered schools, we all want to be done with COVID, but the latest analyses from three assessment companies paint a grim picture of where U.S. children are academically. While there are isolated bright spots, the general trend is stagnation. One report documented that U.S. students did not make progress in catching up in the most recent 2023-24 school year and slid even further behind in math and reading, exacerbating pandemic learning losses. Plenty of kids are still struggling in school even 4 years after the pandemic began.

“At the end of 2021-22, we optimistically concluded that the worst was behind us and that recovery had begun,” wrote Karyn Lewis, a researcher at NWEA, one of the assessment companies. “Unfortunately, data from the past two school years no longer support this conclusion. Growth has slowed to lag pre-pandemic rates, resulting in achievement gaps that continue to widen, and in some cases, now surpass what we had previously deemed as the low point.” The starkest example is struggling eighth grade students, who were in fourth grade when the pandemic first erupted in March of 2020. They now need nine months of additional school to catch up, according to NWEA’s analysis, released in July 2024. “This is a crisis moment with middle schoolers,” said Lewis. “Where are we going to find an additional year to make up for these kiddos before they leave the education system?”

All three analyses were produced by for-profit companies that sell assessments to schools. Teachers or parents may be familiar with them by the names of their tests: MAP, i-Ready and Star. Unlike annual state tests, these interim assessments are administered at least twice a year to millions of students around the nation to help track progress, or learning, during the year. These companies may have a business motive in sounding an alarm to sell more of their products, but the reports are produced by well-regarded education statisticians.

Curriculum Associates did not detect as much deterioration as NWEA, but did find widespread stagnation in 2023-24, according to a report released on August 19, 2024. Their researcher Kristen Huff described the numerical differences as tiny ones that have to do with the fact that these are different tests, taken by different students and use different methods for crunching the numbers. The main takeaway from all the reports, she said, is the same. “As a nation, we are still seeing the lasting impact of the disruption to schooling and learning,” said Huff, vice president of assessment and research at Curriculum Associates.

In short, children are still struggling–they remain behind and haven’t yet recovered. That matters for these children’s future employment prospects and standard of living. Ultimately, a less productive labor force could hamper the U.S. economy, according to projections from economists and consulting firms. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the $190 billion that the federal government gave to schools for pandemic recovery didn’t work, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Most of the spending was targeted at reopening schools and upgrading heating, cooling and air ventilation systems. A much smaller amount went to academic recovery, such as tutoring or summer school. Earlier this summer two separate groups of academic researchers concluded that this money led to modest academic gains for students. The problem is that so much more is still needed.

Allison Green
Boston Tutoring Services