Many public school students will be behind academically come the fall semester, due in large part to the online learning that was developed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
As the pandemic hit the United States during the spring of 2020, concerns over classrooms being prime virus spreaders led to school shutdowns. To keep the school year going, many schools turned to online learning, in which a teacher would use video software to instruct students and students could learn on their computer in the safety of their homes.
Although later studies found that schools were unlikely to transmit the virus, many schools remained either fully online or used a hybrid model of distance and in-person learning during the 2020-2021 school year. Federal data from January and February showed that 60% of fourth graders and 68% of eighth graders were still using online learning at least a few days a week.
Research found that school disruptions in the spring of 2020 caused more students to show up behind grade level in the fall. For example, a study from the research firm McKinsey & Company found that when students returned for the 2020-2021 school year, they had learned only 87% of the reading and 67% of the math that their peers in previous years would have learned by the fall.
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That trend will likely continue when the new school year begins in the fall.
“Based on the data, we can expect that when students show up for school in fall 2021, they will be behind compared to historical data pre-pandemic,” said Kristen Huff, vice president of assessment and research at Curriculum Associates, a firm specializing in educational instruction and research. “We know it is going to happen in math, and we know it is going to happen in the early grades in reading.”
Recent research from Curriculum Associates examining test scores for first through eighth graders shows that students falling behind has continued into the winter months. For example, historically, 20% of first graders read at grade level in the fall, but that had fallen to 15% in 2020. The gap had widened by winter. While 38% were reading at grade level, historically, 48% had been.
“We see the most significant drops in reading in grades one, two, and three,” said Huff. “This is especially problematic because this is when students are still learning to read … This is when they benefit the most from direct instruction in reading. We’ll see ripple effects from this for some time if there is not strong intervention.”
Also highly problematic are the results of fourth graders in math. Historically, 52% are performing at grade level by the winter, but this year, only 36% were.
“Fourth grade is where students should be mastering the basic foundational concepts such as fractions and proportional reasoning,” Huff said. “That prepares students for algebra later on.”
The results are related to the shortcomings in online learning. While some families may be well equipped to handle online instruction, others may have multiple children sharing a table, making concentration difficult. Huff noted that certain subjects, such as phonics and geometry, are harder to teach online. And some students fail to log in, whether it is due to poor internet connection or they are ditching class.
The learning loss will be greater for “Title I” schools, where at least 40% of students come from low-income families.
James Stephens International Academy, a Title I public school in Fort Myers, Florida, teaches kindergarten through fifth grade. While James Stephens offers full in-person instruction, parents have the option of letting their children learn online. Roughly 15% do.
“At our school, we are experiencing more gaps than normal due to the time spent out of the classroom setting for our students,” said Yvonne Caldwell, a resource teacher at James Stephens. “We are showing some growth but not our typical growth on any other given year.”
Florida grades its schools from A to F, depending on how well the students are performing. James Stephens had received many F grades over the years. In 2017, Caldwell was part of a team that came to the school and improved the grade to a B.
“This year, we cannot with confidence say that we will maintain our B status,” Caldwell said. “All we can be confident of is that we won’t get an F.”
According to the Curriculum Associates study, third graders from families at all income levels were behind in the winter of 2020-2021 compared to historical results. But lower-income students will have more catching up to do in the next school year. Less than half of third graders in schools where the average family income is below $50,000 were reading at grade level and only 25% were performing math at grade level. For third graders in schools where the average family income was above $75,000, 72% were reading at grade level and 43% were doing math at grade level.
Yet, schools in lower-income areas may not have the same resources to catch up as schools in higher-income areas.
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“Some school districts are looking at more intensive summer school,” said Megan Kuhfeld, senior research scientist at NWEA, an educational research and testing nonprofit group. “But I doubt that all school districts have those resources. So, without an intensive support system, students will still be behind in the fall.”
