The researchers found that among students who were tested in the fall of 2018, 2019, and 2020, student growth between 2019 and 2020 slowed by 30-50% across all sections of the CTP—mathematics, quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension, writing concepts and skills, and verbal reasoning—when compared to growth between 2018 and 2019. Students in the bottom 25% of test performance, who saw the highest score gains in 2019, also saw the greatest reduction in growth.
Students’ rates of growth on the CTP between 2021 and 2022 looked much more like their rates of growth between 2018 and 2019. In mathematics, reading comprehension, and writing concepts and skills, students saw higher rates of growth than before the pandemic, though growth in their quantitative and verbal reasoning lagged behind pre-pandemic rates. Students in the bottom 25th percentile have not yet recovered the same rate of learning growth as before the pandemic, while those in the middle 50% had recovered and those the top 25% actually saw higher growth than before.
Ultimately, NAIS member schools were largely successful in moderating the initial impact of the pandemic on student learning in 2020 and were even more so in reestablishing learning growth after 2020, particularly in comparison to public schools, based on results of national studies focused on students in public school districts. However, schools still have work to do to help students recover their growth in reasoning skills, as well as continue to identify and serve students with the greatest learning needs. ERB also suggests capitalizing upon the increased student autonomy of spring 2020, institutionalizing independent learning habits to ensure that accelerated growth rates become a norm for high-achieving students.
- Read the full report from ERB (Educational Records Bureau): Learning Restoration in the COVID Era: A Study of NAIS Member Schools (PDF)