Renaissance, a global leader in pre-K–12 education technology, today released the full-year edition of How Kids Are Performing, a new report detailing the academic impacts associated with COVID-19 school disruptions.
The new report summarizes performance and growth data across the entire 2020–2021 school year to document the extent to which the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted students’ achievement in 1st- through 8th-grade reading and mathematics. The authors tracked the progress of more than 3.3 million US students who completed adaptive Star Assessments in the 2019–2020 school year (prior to school shutdowns) and throughout the 2020–2021 school year.
To estimate the effect of the pandemic on academic performance, Renaissance used historical data to establish reasonable estimates for how each student would have been expected to perform during the 2020–2021 school year had COVID-19 not disrupted teaching and learning.
A key finding of the report is that, over the course of the year, reading and math performance have fallen farther behind pre-pandemic expectations.
The report also found that the negative impacts of the pandemic have varied widely by student group, widening equity gaps.
“The pandemic had a disproportionate impact on students from different groups and communities,” said Dr. Katie McClarty, vice president of research and design at Renaissance, “and the results shown in How Kids Are Performing reflect that. As an education community, we need to have a disproportionate response and target students most in need. Our findings aim to give educators context at the national, state, and student group levels, and to offer them resources and support to interpret and act on their own data as we work toward accelerating learning.”
To help empower teachers this fall, Renaissance is providing the following resources:
“Schools around the country will soon welcome students back this fall, and we should be prepared to accelerate learning with every tool at our disposal,” said Dr. Gene Kerns, vice president, and chief academic officer at Renaissance. “How Kids Are Performing not only raises urgency for action by showing educators where their students are but also provides guidance and tools that empower teachers to focus on where they’re going and how best to get there.”
The full How Kid Are Performing report is available at Renaissance.com/How-Kids-Are-Performing.