The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and describe the sample and methods used in the research included in Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency.

New NWEA research finds signs of academic rebounding in the 2021-22 school year while simultaneously underscoring the sustained need for urgency in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.

New research using data from over 2,300 rural schools across the US provides unique insight into math and reading achievement of students in rural schools so educators and policymakers can better understand and support the potential needs of rural schools.

This study reports achievement and growth from kindergarten to 4th grade for three groups of English Learners. The findings suggest summer support is required to help ELs maintain and develop academic skills.

This study reports achievement and growth from kindergarten to 4th grade for three groups of English Learners. The findings suggest summer support is required to help ELs maintain and develop academic skills.

The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with political and social unrest, has deeply disrupted the lives and learning experiences of most students. It has created an urgent need to address long-standing opportunity gaps and has highlighted the importance of providing resources that support student achievement, social-emotional learning, and physical and mental well-being. This urgency for action to address the impacts is valid, but it has also created a noisy environment of potential options of what might be best for students. It’s critical, now more than ever, for decisions to be grounded in solid research.

School officials regularly use school-aggregate test scores to monitor school performance and make policy decisions. In this report, RAND researchers investigate one specific issue that may contaminate utilization of COVID-19–era school-aggregate scores and result in faulty comparisons with historical and other proximal aggregate scores: changes in school composition over time. To investigate this issue, they examine data from NWEA’s MAP Growth assessments, interim assessments used by states and districts during the 2020–2021 school year.