Curriculum Associates released a report today unveiling new national data on the pandemic's impact on academic growth and recovery for elementary school students.

Student Growth in the Post-COVID Era offers a groundbreaking assessment of student performance, tracking growth year over year and comparing it to historical trends. The report—leveraging three years of longitudinal data—is the first of its kind to look at impacts on younger learners who were not yet in formal schooling at the start of the pandemic. This research is not an evaluation of specific instructional programs or interventions, but rather it provides a temperature check on students' academic growth, parsing aggregate data to determine where—and for whom—recovery may be occurring.

Key findings:

• Young students require more support to keep pace with historical growth trends.

• Older students (i.e., those in Grade 4 in 2021) demonstrate signs of recovery in both reading and mathematics that in some cases align with their pre-pandemic growth trajectories.

• Students who were well below grade level in both reading and mathematics at the beginning of the 2021–2022 school year are not keeping pace with pre-pandemic growth trends.

• Some students who were at or near grade level are exceeding historical growth trends.

• Students from schools in lower-income or minoritized communities demonstrate continued disparities in academic growth relative to pre-pandemic trends.

"We know the pandemic placed an enormous strain on our educators and school districts," said Dr. Kristen Huff, vice president of research and assessment at Curriculum Associates. "The varied data and analytic approaches make it more challenging to assess the post-COVID recovery landscape. This research offers new insights into varying patterns of recovery, identifying where recovery is happening and where more support is needed."

Uneven recovery trends indicate that in some instances, post-pandemic interventions were likely effective.

"While most young people who fall behind stay behind, there are diverse schools across the nation where students who started behind grade level are consistently catching up," said Dr. Tequilla Brownie, CEO of TNTP. "The first common factor is the intentional creation of environments where students feel a sense of belonging. The other two priorities that matter most are consistent access to grade-level instruction and the presence of a unified, coherent instructional program that gives both students and educators a clear path to success."

These data underscore the need for educators, district leaders, and other stakeholders to carefully assess which interventions are most effective and how we can work together to change the course of learning outcomes for students who need support now.

"Even before the pandemic, many students in our district were not performing at their highest level of potential," said Dr. Mark Sullivan, superintendent of Birmingham City Schools. "We were not pleased with the number of third graders reading on grade level, so we had to become intentional in everything we do. This included training our teachers on the Science of Reading, setting high expectations for educators and students, and actively involving families in their children's learning." This year, the district saw a 75- percent increase in the number of students reading at or above grade level.

The urgency of finding and implementing the right interventions is clear, especially when looking at this year's Grade 2 students, who were not yet in school during the pandemic. If applied nationally, these data suggest more than 1.3 million Grade 2 students (out of the nation's 3.5 million) are behind in reading compared to 1.1 million in 2019. More than half a million more Grade 2 students (up from 1.2 million to 1.7 million) are behind in mathematics. Gaps in learning may be compounding for this group of students over time as they work to catch up on foundational skills while learning new content.

For Grade 2 students and all whose learning is not keeping pace with historical trends, this report will shape the conversation on how educators can help every student succeed.