The latest data shows that some students are almost a full year behind academically. Disaggregated data shows the achievement gap yet again: Black students, on average, are five months behind historical levels, whereas white students are on average two months behind. Most concerning to a math-focused organization like mine: on average, students are further behind in math than they are in reading.
The traditional approach to dealing with learning loss has been to focus on the deficits and address them, filling the gaps in a student’s learning as if they were holes in a block of Swiss cheese. After the last two years, however, some students may have more gaps than cheese. Furthermore, filling those gaps takes precious time students need to master their current grade’s content, which would mean they’ll never truly catch up.
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