Data shows drop in math testing scores in wake of COVID-19 pandemic

Testing data shows a significant drop in math scores in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

The not-for-profit provider of the assessment tool used in many North Texas school districts says while students across the country are about where they should be in reading, there is a decline in math across the board and the gap between racial and ethnic groups is beginning to widen.

“This is a big pandemic and we’re not through the woods yet,” said Beth Tarasawa, PHD, Executive VP of Research at NWEA.

Tuesday was the first look at testing data from 12 million students across the United States and confirms what many educators feared when it comes to math.

“Putting my kids in front of a book through the summer is much easier than a structured math sequence. I think this resonates with a lot of educators and family members, that they’re not surprised that math is taking the bigger hit,” Tarasawa said.

On average kids are 5 to 10 percentile points behind where they would be in a normal year -- and this may be the best case scenario. That's because 25 percent of students who tested in 2019 have not yet retested in 2020.

“Quite dramatic difference in the amount of kids missing from our data … more importantly they could be missing from school. There’s a variety of factors – the digital divide. Do they have access to the internet? Do they access to devices?” Tarasawa said.

The students who did not test are the most vulnerable.

“Students of color are high poverty and lower performance to begin with. It should raise concern on where these kids are and if and when they return, how will we meet the needs of those children,” Tarasawa said.

Dallas ISD says 50 percent of its students are behind in math and 30 percent in reading.

“It is going to take time and we are ready,” said Shannon Trejo, DISD Chief Academic Officer.       

Trejo says it is expected to take two to three years to catch kids up.

“A lot of people are thinking we just need to go back and repeat those skills. Think about retention, think about just repeating second grade again,” she said.

But Trejo says that is not an option.

“Saying, ‘OK we’re just going to retain everyone.’ To me that is a systemic equity issue in my mind. We cannot stop and back up. It’s not fair to our students, it’s not fair to our community and it’s certainly not fair to our future,” Trego said. “We’ve got a long way to go, we recognize it’s going to be a lot of hard work. But we are willing to dig in and do what is best for our students.”

For many districts the deadline for parents to decide if they want their children to return to in-person learning is coming up.

Dallas ISD says it will work with families who want to return to in-person learning, even outside the window of a new grading period if remote learning is not working for them.