Research report
Understanding the initial educational impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color
June 2021
Description
This report examines the academic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) students, with the goal of documenting achievement trends to provide leaders and policymakers with evidence to guide action to address educational inequities for BIPOC students. Using math and reading test data from 2.1 million BIPOC students in grades 3 to 8, we found that students’ math achievement was significantly impacted in fall 2020, while reading achievement was mostly parallel to prior years, and that the rate of learning during the pandemic was lower from fall 2019 to fall 2020 than during the pre-pandemic period.
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Topics: COVID-19 and schools, Equity
Related Topics
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Technical appendix for: Learning during COVID-19: Reading and math achievement in the 2020-2021 school year
The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and to describe more fully the sample and methods used in the research included in the brief, Learning during COVID-19: Reading and math achievement in the 2020-21 school year.
Two research questions were investigated in this brief:
1. How do gains across the 2020-21 school year compare to pre-pandemic trends?
2. How does student achievement in spring of 2021 compare to pre-pandemic levels?
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