First off, the research focused mostly on elementary and middle school students rather than high school students. We know that when children get behind in elementary school, they struggle for the rest of their time in school and they are more likely to drop out. In addition, the data came from across the nation so it was not focused on just one state. The research compared the student achievement growth in the prepandemic period from 2017 to 2019 against the growth in the pandemic years of 2019 to 2021. The data came from the information collected by NWEA, the people who offer MAPS testing which is used in multiple districts across the nation.
Fortunately, it is known that the pandemic officially hit the United States in early 2020 and just about every school ended up going remote with methods ranging from the use of packets, television broadcasting, zoom, or what ever method the district could manage. Unfortunately, the results were quite discouraging. In low poverty schools, students lost the equivalent of about 13 weeks of of unperson instruction while students in high poverty areas lost the equivalent of around 22 weeks or a little over a half a year.
If you look at the results along racial lines, African American and Latino students lost four to five weeks more than caucasian students. They also discovered the districts that returned to in person instruction sooner only lost between seven to ten weeks of learning. In other words, the longer schools stayed closed the wider the gap.
So what can schools do about it. The following suggestions have been researched and shown they produce demonstrable results. These are the best solutions we have at the moment. It will require a bit extra spending and time but if any of them are implemented, students can make up their loses in one to three years.
One of the best recommendations is for students to implement is through high-dosage tutoring where a tutor meets three times a week with one to four students for the whole year. This can result in up to weeks of instruction. That is almost equal to the amount of time students have fallen behind in high poverty levels.
Another suggestion is to place students in summer school where they work on missing skills. This type of extra work can help students recover up to 5 weeks of instruction. If that is not an option, add one extra period to the instructional day so students receive one extra period of instruction in math every single day for the full school year. This can result in a gain of 10 weeks of instructional gain. The final suggestion is to lengthen the school year just like most do to make up for unscheduled school days for the next two to three years.
Unfortunately, all of these require spending funds that districts may have earmarked for other things. The last district I worked for had already earmarked all their COVID funds to help run the district for the next few years and none of it was earmarked for direct student instruction other than buying new books. It seems to me that we need to spend the monies on these suggestions, especially the first one so we can help students catchup rather than enduing up with a lost generation of learners.
The tutoring idea could be done by adding in an extra period, using peers, aids, janitors, kitchen staff, and parent volunteers to work with the students. Yes, they would have to be trained but that can be done. The other, adding in one extra period a day of math so they get a double dose is doable, especially if they turn a six period day into seven periods.
We have the research, we have solutions, lets see if we can talk our districts into implementing them so our students get the best chance to get the future they deserve. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear. Have a great day.
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