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National Test Results Highlight Ongoing Challenges in Education Recovery
Recent national test results revealed that no state has achieved scores in math and reading that surpass pre-pandemic levels, even after receiving nearly $190 billion in federal pandemic relief funds for schools.
Aiyden Wiggins, an eighth grader at Kramer Middle School in Washington, D.C., expressed his difficulties with math upon returning to full-time in-person classes, having spent approximately 1.5 years engaged in remote learning during the pandemic.
Mohamed Koroma, an eighth-grade English Language Arts instructor, emphasized the challenges educators face, stating, “We’re still trying to fill in those gaps that they didn’t get at the lower levels. Because it’s hard to grapple with the eighth-grade text if you are on a lower reading level.”
A recent study published Tuesday by researchers from Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth highlights a significant increase in absenteeism, particularly in high-poverty districts.
“The biggest thing is to just get them inside the building,” Koroma stressed. “Once we get them in the building, learning is gonna happen.”
In the District of Columbia, chronic absenteeism stood at 37% for the 2023-2024 school year, a slight decrease from 41% in the previous year. Despite these figures, the study identified over 100 local school districts across the country that have shown improvements in math and reading compared to pre-pandemic performance.
Though public schools in Washington, D.C., have not yet reached these recovery milestones, the city has made notable progress over the past two years. D.C. ranked first nationally for recovery in both math and reading, a significant turnaround considering it was ranked 32nd in math recovery from 2019-2024 and fifth in reading during the same period.
Kramer Middle School Principal Katreena Shelby attributed the turnaround at her school to a new perspective on addressing educational challenges. She stated, “How can we make classroom sizes smaller, but give kids more opportunities to get remediation during the school day?”
One effective strategy implemented was high-impact tutoring, which involves bringing tutors into the classroom during the school day to provide additional support to students. This initiative has seen success in other areas as well. Additionally, Washington allocated some of its pandemic funding towards hiring more teachers and provided $1,000 stipends to those who completed literacy training programs.
“Giving kids that additional support in literacy and math didn’t just impact how we were able to grow literacy skills, we also were able to reduce truancy by 20% in one year,” Shelby reported, noting that witnessing their own improvement has positively encouraged students.
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Caitlin Huey-Burns is a political correspondent for CBS News and a fill-in anchor for the CBS News 24/7 politics show “America Decides.”
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