Education leaders are already bracing for a worse “summer slide” this year for students whose schools were shut down to curb the spread of coronavirus. But new research suggests the “COVID slide” is going to be significantly worse. In one study out today, Beth Tarasawa and Megan Kuhfeld, reasearchers for NWEA, analyzed student achievement and growth data from more than 5 million students in grades 3-8 who participated in NWEA’s widely used MAP-Growth test in 2017-18 to project growth trajectories for the students under two scenarios for COVID school disruptions.

New research by NWEA, a nonprofit assessment provider, predicts that because of school closures, some students could be as much as a year behind in math when they start school in the fall.

New research findings provide a call to action: now  is the time to plan for how school must be different next year to address learning gaps widened by the pandemic.

“Given NWEA’s depth of research and our partnerships with other mission-driven organizations, we’re in a unique position to offer valuable insights to the education community as we navigate through this crisis”, says CEO Chris Minnich. “Together, we can mitigate the impact on kids—especially for those most vulnerable in our population—and continue our efforts to narrow opportunity gaps.”

As COVID-19 pushes us toward distance learning, we can make small adjustments to online instruction to better meet the specific learning needs of students with disabilities.

Explore this interactive map to learn more about some NWEA research partnerships.

Important educational policy decisions, like whether to shorten or extend the school year, often assume that growth in achievement is linear through the school year.  This research examines this untested assumption using data from seven million students in kindergarten through 8th grade across the fall, winter, and spring of the 2016-17 school year.