Illuminations and Insights

The 2022-23 school year marked the first academic year when most students were back in school full time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst the challenge of educating the 49.5 million students in the public education system, educators, parents, families, and those who support them continue to learn about how the pandemic has changed the education landscape. We asked six leaders from across Education Analytics to reflect on the lessons they’ve learned from the past school year. In this blog, we share their thoughts about the ever-evolving landscape of digital tools, teaching methods, and innovations in the post-pandemic era of K-12 education.

Through the Wisconsin-Minnesota Comprehensive Center – Region 10, EA has partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to provide support to districts in developing plans to use COVID-19-related funding to implement evidence-based improvement strategies.

We have been using interim assessments across the state of South Carolina to monitor learning lag and recovery. Here, we present results from analyses using data from Fall 2021 and suggest data-driven approaches for targeting accelerated learning strategies to the students most in need.

EA’s Future Forward Literacy program is a highly effective evidence-based tutoring program. Such programs have become even more needed in the wake of COVID-19 school disruptions. In this blog, we describe Future Forward and discuss how dosage can be adjusted, including through the development of “graduation” criteria, so COVID-related funding can be used for interventions for as many students as needed.

Many local education agencies (LEAs) in California administered an interim assessment instead of the state’s summative assessment in 2020-21. Using data from 47 LEAs, we compare participation and proficiency rates in 2020-21 with pre-COVID rates, as well as highlight the work of one school that excelled in supporting their students’ learning during COVID-19.

When examining patterns of test opt-out and its impact on student achievement and growth in South Carolina, EA found that test participation in 2021 was higher than expected, but still lower than historical rates. We found some evidence of the negative impact of test non-participation on aggregated achievement.