The Center on Reinventing Public Education’s (CRPE) new report, The State of the American Student: Fall 2024, documents how pandemic disruptions impacted and continue to affect vulnerable student populations and offers an overview of overall recovery.
Efforts including offering tutoring, high-quality curricula and extended learning time have helped students rebound to varying extents, and promising practices to further academic and social-emotional progress have emerged.
“Education systems and stakeholders across the country are recognizing the value of relationships, joy, and flexibility. As a result, more new, agile, and future-oriented schooling models are appearing,” according to CRPE. “Further, there is a growing movement to help educators do their work more sustainably by collaborating in teams and using new technologies like generative [artificial intelligence] to reduce time on burdensome tasks.”
However, the report notes that recovery has been “slow and uneven” and resulted in the average U.S. student being less than halfway to “full academic recovery” in math and reading. “Too many students whose learning was most severely interrupted during the pandemic still aren’t getting the support they need to recover,” the report states.
The slow pace of recovery is significant for older students who are aging out of the K-12 system and lack time to catch up as well as their youngest counterparts who are entering school unprepared for grade-level work, which can have a lasting effect.
Students who were the furthest behind are trailing even more, widening preexisting gaps between the lowest and highest achieving students.
Research cited in the report concludes that students in lower-income school districts experienced larger academic losses initially and remain further behind baseline outcomes from 2019 compared to more affluent districts. Additionally, low-income students are recovering slower than their peers.
For all students, but especially the most vulnerable student groups, “the pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing issues within the education system,” according to CRPE.
“Students with disabilities and English learners were disproportionately affected, facing higher rates of absenteeism, disrupted services and academic and social-emotional setbacks,” CRPE states. “While some students adapted well, most faced significant challenges, revealing systemic issues that need urgent attention.”
Post-pandemic referrals to special education programming have surged, which has been attributed at least in part to the effects of the pandemic on young people, including academic and social struggles.
Recommendations
To most effectively serve students with disabilities and English learners, CRPE recommends that schools, prioritize relationships, partner with parents, be flexible, ensure that the best strategies reach the students who need them most and help students plan for life after graduation.
Policymakers and advocates can highlight the urgent needs of special populations, prioritize accountability, tap into new sources of talent, provide guidance for new technologies and “be willing to place power and opportunity directly in the hands of families.”
“It should not take a lawsuit for students to gain access to the education and support they deserve,” CRPE explains. “Ensure that students and their families know they may be entitled to compensatory education for instructional or therapeutic time missed during school closures and that students receive the support they need through interventions tailored to their needs.”
