This October, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported on the results of its annual analysis of educational achievement of students in every state in the nation. The NAEP performs this analysis based on the results of reading and math exams given to 4th and 8th grade students in public elementary schools across the country.
Its findings this year show disastrous drops in student performance, with Massachusetts students dropping nearly 10 points in 8th grade reading achievement and 4 points in mathematics achievement since 2019, which was the prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. For reference, a 10 point difference on the NAEP reading test translates to roughly a year of learning – a year of progress that has now been lost. Nationally, not a single state has improved in mathematics achievement since 2019, correlating with the impact of COVID-19 on the American education system, and leading to lost educational progress across the country.
The stakes could not be any higher. As the COVID-19 pandemic itself shows, the country needs to develop the next generation’s scholars and workers to be prepared to combat potential future global crises. Instead, today’s generation of children demonstrate how quickly decades of academic progress can be lost within the span of a couple years.
Beyond overall drops in academic achievement, recent academic struggles have served to highlight the racial and socioeconomic disparity that exists within the American education system. According to a report by the NWEA, another non-profit organization that serves to report on student achievement through its MAP tests, national 3rd grade reading achievement levels fell around 3-6 percentile points and math achievement levels fell 8-12 points between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 school years. Contrast this to the 17 points in reading and 15 points in math that black 3rd grade students lost within that same year, and it becomes clear how the pandemic has disproportionately affected students of color.
This outcome is unsurprising in the face of how COVID-19 has also disproportionately affected populations of color within this country. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), African Americans and Hispanic people are almost twice as likely to need hospitalization due to COVID-19 when compared to non-Hispanic white people. Additionally, disparities in job stability during the COVID-19 pandemic are also correlated with race. With 20% of the service industry being Black or Hispanic (compared to 13% being Asian American or white), families of color were harder hit by not only the economic impacts of COVID-19, but were also put into greater risk of COVID-19 contact. These issues undeniably are felt by students of color, who must now face these additional stressors on top of their academic work.
One of the driving factors of a drop in educational performance for students during the COVID-19 pandemic was the lack of engagement and access that students had through remote learning. In a report by the nonprofit educational advocacy organization All4Ed, nearly 17 million children in the United States are unable to find reliable internet access at home. This includes 4.7 million students of color and 40% of families earning less than $25,000.
In addition to a lack of access to technology, students during the pandemic have faced an unprecedented number of personal mental health challenges. In a study conducted by the CDC, more than one third of high school students experienced poor mental health during the pandemic, with more than 40% feeling persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. In a study conducted by Pew, adolescent suicide attempts increased by 31% from 2019 in 2020.
Lack of school engagement stems from these mental health challenges, which are further fueled by social isolation and personal trauma. Pew reports more than 140,000 losing a caregiver during the pandemic, with children of color being disproportionately impacted. With severely limited mental health resources available at public schools, and even less access as schools shifted to virtual learning, students were left without the proper resources to deal with the mental health strain placed on them.
The effect of lack of educational engagement is felt through nearly universal drops in attendance in school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Around 40% of Boston Public School students were “chronically absent” during the pandemic, meaning they had missed more than 10% of the school year. This statistic has increased by 60% since before the pandemic, showing lack of engagement in virtual learning. The effects of these absences are long-lasting, as research conducted by Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania correlate chronic absence with lower graduation rates and social engagement.
So how can schools aim to improve poor educational engagement and outcomes now that schools are mostly back to in person learning? It is imperative that investments must be made to this lost generation of students to mitigate the effects of the past couple of years. Due to the disproportionate effect on students of color and low-income students, strategies should be targeted to best help these students recover from the loss of education they faced during the pandemic.
According to the NWEA, one of the root issues of pandemic learning was the loss of structured learning time for students. By increasing instructional time through small-targeted group settings, disconnected students can be brought back into the educational fold. Additionally, more mental health service access needs to be readily available to students of color during the aftermath of COVID-19. In the same CDC study focusing on student mental health during the pandemic, researchers found that students who felt close to persons at school and remained virtually connected with others suffered less from the mental health struggles of the pandemic. Having counseling services and support from local community organizations can help not only support underserved students, but also increase the meaningful connections that students can form at school.
Sampan had the chance to speak with Richard Chang, Principal of the Josiah Quincy Upper School in Chinatown about the impact of COVID-19 on his students, many of which are from Chinese-American immigrant families. When speaking about students from socioeconomically disadvantaged families after the pandemic, Chang makes it clear that “they are not in the same position as more affluent families to receive services and experiences and outside of school opportunities…. What [the pandemic] does is that it exacerbates whatever performance gaps already exist among the different socioeconomic classes.”
Specifically with regards to his Chinese-American students, he has noticed significant disengagement from school and extracurricular activities, noting how many stick to strict masking guidelines. While “good from a public health standpoint”, Chang notes that it is a “physical representation that they are still living a life of… fear [resulting in] a reluctance to participate in outside of classroom activities”.
As for what can be done to remediate the effects of the pandemic, Chang mentions how an effort is made at his school to “avoid disciplining students for classroom misbehavior… [instead] expecting teachers to be able to address it at the relationship level as opposed to [handing out] suspensions”, allowing stronger interpersonal connections to form between students and teachers.
Regardless of its implementation, it is clear that something needs to be done to support students in their recovery from the impacts of COVID-19. Across the country, the newest generation of future leaders and innovators are sending out a cry for help, and it is imperative that they be supported.