Achievement Gaps

Transitioning from preschool to kindergarten can be a fraught time for students who face a new learning environment — and for parents who might fret about how their children will fare and how to best help them make the shift.

Research shows kindergarten is a crucial time in a child’s development. Kindergartners who score high in social and emotional skills were more likely to graduate from high school, earn college degrees and have full-time jobs, according to a 2015 study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Full-day kindergarten boosts academic achievement and strengthen their social-emotional skills, helping to close achievement gaps, according to the National Education Association.

There are many ways schools can ensure a smooth transition for kindergartners and their families, experts say. That’s especially important for families whose children did not attend preschool or who are hesitant about enrolling their youngsters in kindergarten, perhaps due to fears over COVID-19, said Patricia Lozano, executive director of Early Edge California, which aims to expand high-quality early learning programs.

The following six strategies can help smooth those transitions and set up kindergartners for the best results.

Cultivate relationships with other schools

Elementary schools and preschools should build relationships with each other so kindergarten teachers visit preschools and preschool teachers visit kindergarten classes, said Rosa Floyd, a kindergarten teacher at Nellie Muir Elementary School in Oregon who was named Oregon’s 2023 Teacher of the Year. 

That way, teachers learn what students experience in both classrooms and ideally they'll align their goals for reading and math, Floyd said. Additionally, preschool teachers can help prepare children for what's to come in kindergarten, where, for example, they are expected to serve themselves food and use bathrooms shared by many classes, she said.

Toward the end of the school year, preschoolers should visit kindergarten classrooms themselves, Floyd said. “They visit the school, they see the routine, and we create an activity to do with them,” she said. “Just an hour or two is enough, and it really helps.”

Help students who haven’t attended preschool

Floyd's Woodburn School District offers a “jump start” program for kids who haven’t attended preschool, which typically happens when families don’t qualify for free preschool and can’t afford private preschool, she said. 

The program invites parents to bring their children to kindergarten a week before school starts so they can gradually experience the new routines. “Otherwise, it’s like you’re asking the kids to run before they walk. They need that transition,” she said. 

Woodburn also offers a staggered start for kindergartners: A third of the class comes on the first day of school, another third on the second day, and the rest on the third day. On the fourth day, everyone starts coming to class regularly. This allows kindergarten teachers to start the school year by working with children in small groups, which makes it easier to get to know each child and their needs, Floyd said.

Spread the word

Organizing open houses and offering school tours the year before kindergarten is a great tool that allows parents to get comfortable, Floyd said. Woodburn School District also offers four kindergarten readiness classes for parents each year, during which teachers discuss topics like the stages of brain development and age-appropriate learning milestones, Floyd said. 

School districts can also use traditional methods to publicize kindergarten enrollment, like posting fliers in high-traffic areas and community centers or pitching media stories — particularly to media serving communities that don’t speak English — about the importance of kindergarten, Lozano said.

Students’ parents are another great resource to help new parents navigate and adapt to a new school, Lozano said, so school districts should encourage them to make those connections — even via simple word-of-mouth among relatives and friends. 

Create an inclusive environment

Families and children must feel welcome in their new school, particularly if they speak a language other than English at home, Lozano said. Schools should ensure all information is available to parents in their native language, have interpreters available — whether a staff member or bilingual parent willing to help — and intentionally embrace different cultures within the classroom, she said. 

For example, kindergarten classrooms should have books and words on the wall in different languages, toys representative of various cultures, and even special days during which parents can bring traditional food to share in the classroom, Lozano said. “The more welcoming and inclusive, the better — especially for kids’ social and emotional learning and development,” she said. 

Floyd said she always invites parents to an open classroom day at the beginning of the school year. “I explain to them the routine and the curriculum, and I set expectations,” she said. “Parents have a lot of rights, but also responsibilities, and what I reinforce is that we are a team.”

Encourage learning at home

Early childhood teachers can help parents understand how they can foster their children’s learning with simple daily activities, thus helping ease their transition into kindergarten, Lozano said. “Things like having kids count peas or blueberries at dinner, reading out loud to them, or even going for a walk and pointing out what’s in the environment — all of it leads to learning in little kids,” she said.

Bilingual parents have added anxieties about whether they can help their children when they attend English-language schools, Floyd said.

“I explain to them that whatever they are able to do in their own language is going to be really beneficial for learning" in English,” Floyd said. “If they read to them every night, or even talk about the pictures in a book [in their native language], all that is transferable to another language.”

Do home visits if possible

Over the course of the school year, Floyd visits the homes of all her kindergartners, starting with the children struggling the most. She lets the parents know the visit is informal and can take place at their convenience, and she brings a book to read with the child, she said.

The overarching goal of home visits — which she does on her own time — is to figure out what home challenges might affect her students’ learning, she said. For example, families might struggle with basic needs such as housing or lack necessities like clothing. Floyd said she tries to help however possible by gathering resources or putting families in touch with community organizations.

“More than anything, I want them [parents] to feel comfortable when they have questions, or come to me when they need help,” she said.

Students in grades 3-8 are closing reading and math achievement gaps caused by pandemic disruptions to learning. But for some students — particularly those in the lower and upper end of these grades — full progress could take five or more years. 

Black and Hispanic students, as well as students from high-poverty schools also have the most ground to cover on the road to recovery, according to an analysis of testing data by the nonprofit NWEA, which administers the MAP Growth assessments.

“This is a great moment for school leaders to look for opportunities to give classroom teachers the flexibility they need to serve students with varying degrees of proficiency, like flexible schedules and adding staff that can support dynamic student grouping,” said Chase Nordengren, principal research lead for Effective Instructional Strategies at NWEA, in a statement dated Tuesday.

NWEA researchers looked at testing data from nearly 7 million students in grades 3-8. While the most recent data studied is from fall 2022 test takers, researchers incorporated previous assessment results for comparison to pre-COVID-19 trends as well as the 2021-22 school year.

Youngest and oldest students show widest gaps

While collectively, students are showing strong signs of academic rebound, not all student groups are pacing at the same rates. The youngest students in 3rd grade and the oldest students in 8th grade showed slower improvement rates in reading and math from spring 2021 to fall 2022 compared to students in other grades. 

The youngest and oldest students, for example, shrunk achievement gaps in reading and math by 10-15%. In other grade cohorts, gaps decreased by 23-43%. 

For many students, test scores bottomed out in spring 2021, the report said. That was when achievement gaps were at the widest relative to historical trends. 

But with more opportunities for in-person learning in summer 2021 and the 2021-22 school year, achievement gaps began narrowing. That's when students began to grow again at rates consistent with pre-pandemic trends, said Karyn Lewis, a co-author of the report and director of the Center for School and Student Progress at NWEA.

"We continue to see that in the fall of ‘22, and those gaps have shrunk even further in this most recent testing," Lewis said.

Full recovery likely to extend beyond ARP obligation deadline

Even with evidence of continued rebounding, researchers estimate a full recovery is years away. Math and reading recovery for 3rd- and 8th-grade students is expected to take five or more years. 

For all but one grade cohort, that recovery would likely be beyond the September 2024 deadline for districts to finalize spending plans for American Rescue Plan dollars. Only grade 6 students' math achievement is expected to be fully recovered by September 2024 among the groups studied.

To estimate the timelines for full recovery, researchers looked at the rate achievement gaps have been shrinking over the last several testing cycles and estimated when the gaps would close completely at current rates.

For 8th graders, the 5+-year estimate for full recovery goes beyond their high school years. For the youngest students — who were in kindergarten when the pandemic began — the sluggish pace of reading progress is alarming, Lewis said.

"It suggests it was particularly harmful to be in Zoom school and kindergarten when you were picking up essential reading skills," she said. "That group is one that I think we really need to keep a close eye on."

The NWEA analysis found areas where academic rebound is happening unequally across student groups. For example, 4th grade White students taking math assessments had an average -0.12 standard difference between pre-pandemic testing and fall 2022 testing, compared to -0.25 for Black students, -0.20 for Hispanic students, and -0.25 for students attending high-poverty schools.

"Despite signs of rebounding, students in high-poverty schools and Black and Hispanic students have been disproportionately impacted, especially in the youngest grades," the report said. "As a result, these students still have the most ground to regain."

Students lost less ground over summer 2022

Students' test score averages typically tend to decline from spring to fall testing seasons. That decline is known as the summer slide. What happened during the summer of 2022 falls in the category of good news, as students lost less ground than what typically happened pre-pandemic. 

"That's still true in this most recent summer. Students were still on average losing some ground over the summer months, but it wasn't as extreme as in a typical year," Lewis said.

For example the grade 4-6 cohort in summer 2019 averaged a -0.32 standard deviation for math progress, but in summer 2022 averaged -0.26.

The NWEA study did not investigate causes of certain trends, though other analyses point to significant investments of federal emergency funding for summer learning and after-school programs as having helped. 

Research of district ARP spending plans released in June by FutureEd at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy shows summer learning was the top approach in addressing academic recovery. ARP requires local districts and charter schools to use at least 20% of the funding on evidence-based practices for addressing learning loss.

In addition to anticipating how long it will take for students to make a full academic recovery, educators are also eager to know what interventions are having the most impact. 

The Road to COVID Recovery project led by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University is hoping to provide some answers by giving districts evidence of what's working and what's not.

Math recovery moving at quicker pace than reading

Previous research showed that math scores overall fell at a larger rate than reading. Now, however, math rebounds are happening more quickly than reading ones. While the NWEA research doesn't dig into causality, this trend may reflect the strides educators took to provide math supports to students who were behind — but it's difficult to say for certain, Lewis said.

Others have theorized that during remote learning, parents were more confident in supporting their children's reading instruction over math, and also that math instruction was harder to deliver online. 

Learning recovery as measured by assessment data since spring 2021 hasn't been a steady uphill climb, but rather has happened in "fits and spurts," Lewis said. For instance, reading progress typically has occurred between spring and fall. For math, progress has occurred over the school year and summer months.

But even though reading gaps stayed flat over the 2021-22 school year, that was consistent with pre-pandemic trends, Lewis said.

"It was when growth was more sluggish compared to pre-pandemic trends — that's where those gaps widened," Lewis said.

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By Turnitin

Educators everywhere understand that making mistakes is part of the learning process. Moreover, learning to cope with setbacks is a core component of student success.

Providing the foundation for such academic buoyancy, as stated by Martin LaMonica in his article, "To Help Students Overcome Setbacks, They Need to Develop 'Academic Buoyancy'" at The Conversation, is important. Additionally, academic buoyancy is directly linked to workplace buoyancy. And buoyancy—another word for resilience—is core to not just education or work but to life in general, which means that the development of academic buoyancy affects all aspects of student lives.

LaMonica refers to an article by Martin, Colmar, Davey, and Marsh titled "Longitudinal modelling of academic buoyancy and motivation: Do the 5Cs hold up over time?" which addresses the 5Cs of academic buoyancy: 1) Composure; 2) Confidence; 3) Commitment; 4) Control; and 5) Coordination. The article stresses that addressing these 5Cs helps build academic buoyancy.

Educators help students pivot from setbacks to learning daily. When students make an error on a problem, educators provide feedback and scaffolding so that students can be redirected to new insights. When students struggle with forming thesis sentences, educators are there to help students condense analysis and provide argumental structure.

But how can educators help students when it comes to plagiarism? If plagiarism is a symptom of a student's lack of interest in learning or lack of understanding of academic misconduct, why not promote buoyancy so that students pivot towards learning?

Turnitin Feedback Studio allows students to submit drafts multiple times ahead of the final deadline and access automated grammar feedback and their Similarity Report. This report clearly identifies matches in their work to sources in Turnitin's comprehensive database of internet, student papers, and academic journal content, allowing students to self-correct any issues before the due date.

Let's take a look at the 5Cs as they pertain to cases of academic misconduct and/or plagiarism and examine how unlimited submissions can nurture buoyancy:

1. Composure

Anxiety causes students to make fear-based decisions. But having visibility into student learning and where its students need further support, helps educators mitigate anxiety for students.

Bottom line: Students who know their learning is supported through feedback, multiple drafts, and multiple submissions, are more assured and less anxious. And as a result, less vulnerable to plagiarism.

2. Confidence

Confident students react to feedback in positive ways. A student who believes they're capable of learning will find a way to improve. On the other hand, students who believe themselves incompetent will see feedback as a reinforcement of that self-perception. Students who lack confidence are most likely to plagiarize. When it comes to plagiarism, feedback is a critical component of instilling confidence—whether through providing feedback on citations and attribution in a lower-stakes setting or by providing students with tools to learn how to cite before assessment.

Bottom line: Students who have access to unlimited submissions and thus, lower-stakes learning, have the opportunity to build their confidence, avoid plagiarism, and turn in work that is original.

3. Commitment

Commitment centers around student persistence and the knowledge that learning takes both time and effort.

Bottom line: Unlimited submissions make clear that learning doesn't occur through one draft or one submission, but rather multiple steps, however incremental.

4. Control

Students who feel they have control over their own learning are empowered to face challenges and new concepts. On the other hand, students who feel control is in the hands of an external force may feel victimized. When students have the ability to monitor their growth and have transparency into their own learning, they can improve outcomes.

Bottom line: Unlimited submissions provide students with the ability to learn at their own pace, monitor their own growth, and avoid plagiarism.

6. Coordination

Buoyant students manage deadlines and can break down assignments into smaller tasks. Procrastination is one of the most common situations under which academic misconduct, in the form of plagiarism or contract cheating, can occur. So providing students with scaffolding, with many interim steps, steers students away from misconduct and towards resilience.

Bottom line: Unlimited submissions prevent plagiarism and uphold student coordination by making accessible multiple feedback rounds, helping students to avoid procrastination, and supporting incremental steps towards the completion of original work.

The Nation's Report Card is in, and it's one that the U.S. Department of Education begrudgingly signed off on — but not without a warning to do better. 

The scores show declines in both reading and math at grades 4 and 8 for the majority of states in 2022, according to results released Monday for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Average national reading scores in 2022 reverted back to levels last seen in the 1990s, and math scores saw the largest declines ever recorded in that subject. 

"Results in today's Nation's Report Card are appalling and unacceptable," U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told reporters. "This is a moment of truth for education." 

The average math score for 4th graders fell 5 points since 2019 (from 241 to 236), while the score for 8th graders dipped 8 points (from 282 to 274), according to the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP. 

In reading, average score declines were not as steep, but still decreased by 3 points in both grades compared to 2019. 

NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr described the results, which are based on tests administered in early 2022, as "massive comprehensive declines everywhere." 

Was this expected? 

Prior to the NAEP release, many assessment experts anticipated a decline in overall scores. So while the results are not unexpected, they are still concerning, said Carr in a press briefing on Friday. 

Historically, drops have only been by a couple of points. So declines in the 8-point range, such as in math, are especially troubling, Carr added. 

Carr said she had expected a steeper decline in math than in reading, considering parents are more comfortable teaching their children reading than math at home. 

The results tell much of the same story already shown by research and in prior tests, such as NAEP long-term trend assessments released over the summer.  "Everything is pointing in the same direction," said Michael Petrilli, president of the Fordham Institute. "The pandemic and the resulting disruptions to learning were really bad for student achievement." 

Nonetheless, Carr said, there are some "reasons to be hopeful." 

In 26 selected big city districts — which represent about 9% of the nation's public school children and have worked to close gaps for historically marginalized students — the majority showed reading scores that were steady compared to 2019 in both grades. 

"This is somewhat of a remarkable contrast to the nation and most states," Carr said. 

Was there a link between remote learning and declines? 

Students who performed higher and reported learning remotely last year were much more likely than lower-performing students to say they had access to a learning device all the time.

While 82% of higher-performing 4th graders said they consistently had a desktop computer or laptop, only 49% of lower-performing students said the same. For 8th graders who reported learning remotely, 71% of lower-performing students said they had consistent access to a learning device, while 92% of higher-performing students said the same. 

The grade 4 math score gap also widened by 5 points between public schools and Catholic schools, since public school scores dipped and private Catholic school scores remained the same. Many Catholic schools reverted to in-person instruction sooner than other schools during the pandemic. 

Education researchers and assessment experts have theorized the longer schools were closed, the larger the learning lags. 

However, Carr warned there is no such direct link in the latest NAEP results.

"We cannot find anything in this data that says that the results we are looking at can be solely primarily attributable to differences in how long students stayed in remote learning," she said. 

While it could be a factor, she said, there are many other things that could be contributing to the declines and need to be studied more extensively. Among those factors are mental health and behavioral challenges, according to Carr. 

Did gaps widen? 

Gaps widened in many areas. "We knew we had gaps before for struggling students," said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. "And now that picture is even starker." The NAGB oversees the NAEP assessment. 

Scores diverged in 4th grade math for Black and Hispanic students compared to White students, for female and male students, and for those eligible for free and reduced-price lunch compared to those not eligible. 

No race — including White students, who have historically been at an advantage compared to their Black and Hispanic counterparts — experienced a statistically significant improvement in average scores. That means some gaps narrowed due to scores for White children declining, while scores for Black and Hispanic students stayed steady or declined at a slower rate. This happened in grade 8 reading, for example. 

The gap widened between higher- and lower-performing students. "Now what we're seeing is students at the bottom of the distribution dropping even faster," Carr said. And where students at the top previously showed improvement or held steady, they are now instead dropping as well — just not as steeply as their lower-performing peers. 

Are students starting to rebound? 

The answer to whether things are turning around is a mixed bag.

While many states and even districts reported academic gains in the past school year, Petrilli says those were premature, especially considering the new NAEP scores.

"These results indicate that several states were much too cheerful about their own state assessment trends," Petrilli said. "We should be very skeptical about any claims that students are 'bouncing back' or that learning loss is 'behind us.'"

He added, however, that the NAEP scores also can't translate into how bad the learning loss was, or how much progress students may have made in catching up last school year, given that scores are only available from 2019 and 2022 and not any years in between. The 2021 NAEP was postponed to 2022 due to the impact of COVID-19 on school operations.

Research has shown students took the biggest hit during the initial phase of the pandemic, or the 2020-21 school year, according to Karyn Lewis, director of the NWEA Center for School and Student Progress. NWEA administers the MAP Growth Assessment, which is widely used by states. In 2021-22, Lewis said, students were starting to show initial signs of rebounding academically. 

"Since NAEP only captures one mid-pandemic timepoint, it simply isn’t possible for those data to help us understand the temporal accumulation of achievement declines and/or when and by how much students are starting to rebound," Lewis said in an email. "This means states shouldn’t look to their NAEP results to understand whether they are making progress on the road to recovery. That simply can’t be reflected in the NAEP data." 

How long will learning lags take to reverse? 

Across the board, assessment experts say public education will be experiencing the impacts of the pandemic on student achievement for years to come.

Petrilli called it "a generational challenge" and said "we still have a long way to go until this cohort of students is back to where they should have been."

While some 2022 state assessments have shown "promising signs of growth," the NAEP scores suggest "more is needed for students, particularly those most directly impacted by the pandemic and who are historically marginalized," said Carissa Moffat Miller, CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers, in a statement. 

Interventions, however, need to be immediate and ongoing — meaning district leaders should have been making decisions prior to this release on how to catch students up and should continue to do so, said NAGB member Julia Rafal-Baer.

"We're running out of time to ensure that our kids can recover from this level of unfinished learning," Rafal-Baer said.

What does this mean for districts? 

The results should not come as a shock to districts or educators, who have been warning of declines since the start of the pandemic. 

"I think for educators, hopefully, this actually provides some sense of cover that you're not the only one saying this," Rafal-Baer said.

But even though the declines were expected, she said, "it means that we've got to see an incredible shift in how we're accelerating progress." 

Although districts have tried to cope with the pandemic's fallout on students' academics, Lewis said she worries "about the distance we’re seeing between the magnitude of the crisis and the scale of the response." 

The NAEP data, she said, can be used by district leaders to target resources to the groups of students and subject areas that need improvement. 

Across the board, assessment and education experts have suggested increased instructional time and tutoring support. 

Leaders should also be asking policymakers for investments to bolster these resources, said Miah Daughtery, literacy director of content advocacy and design at NWEA. 

"We have most children for 13 years, K-12, and that is a relatively short time to get it right," Daughtery said. 

A review of decades of data on exclusionary discipline shows that racial disparities in out-of-school suspensions have persisted over the years and that students with disabilities are suspended at much higher rates than students without disabilities, according to a paper from the Learning Policy Institute. 

The analysis also highlights that while overall suspension rates increased from a low of 4% in 1973 to peak at 7% in the early 2010s, they trended down to 5% in the 2017-18 school year, the last year for which data was examined. The decline in suspension rates came during the Obama administration, which issued guidance to reduce punitive discipline policies in favor of research-based restorative practices, the report pointed out. 

"Evidence shows that although educators suspend students with the intent to keep schools safer, improve school climate for learning, and promote positive behavior, exclusionary punishment is ineffective for achieving these goals," said the report, which also made recommendations for discipline reforms.

To analyze suspension data, researchers looked at national and state out-of-school suspension data. Suspension rates data for the 2011-12 through the 2017-18 school years comes from the Civil Rights Data Collection, while earlier data is based on research and estimates from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

Here we highlight trends in suspension data over the years:

Earlier school start times do not have the same negative impacts for elementary school students as they do for high school students, according to research published by the American Educational Research Association on Thursday.

Researchers found earlier start times led to slightly higher math test scores, especially for economically disadvantaged students, students of color, and students in rural communities, but also added that overall "estimates are small in magnitude and suggest that earlier elementary start times have near-zero effects."

The researchers advise that districts needing to stagger start times to begin the school day earlier for elementary schools should allow later secondary school start times. Evidence supports later start times for middle and high schools based on teen sleep patterns, the report said.

Research on school start times at the elementary level is sparse, according to the study's authors. In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools not start before 8:30 a.m. so teens can get sufficient sleep. But the group did not issue a recommendation for elementary start times. There are some concerns that as high schools begin later, elementary students could see adverse effects from earlier first bells, according to a paper from the University of Minnesota.

For the AERA report, researchers conducted two studies. The first looked at all public, noncharter elementary schools in North Carolina from school years 2011-12 through 2016-17. The other study focused on an unnamed urban district in the state that delayed the high school start time and scheduled earlier elementary start times beginning in 2016-17. 

In each study, the authors examined the relationship between start times and student absences and suspensions, as well as achievement on standardized exams.

In the statewide analysis, researchers looked at the impacts for elementary students whose school day started at 7:10 a.m. to 7:59 a.m., 8:00 a.m. to 8:44 a.m., or 8:45 a.m. and later. Regarding student achievement, the results showed positive but modest associations between earlier start times and math test scores, particularly for students starting school earlier than 8 a.m. and for economically disadvantaged students, students of color, and students in rural communities. The research for the impact on reading achievement, however, was statistically insignificant, the report said.

For the district studied, the school system had moved high school start times from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. beginning in the 2016-17 school year. As a result, elementary schools set varying school start times, including 7:25 a.m., 7:45 a.m., 8:30 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. The findings on elementary student engagement and achievement were mostly statistically insignificant. However, researchers did see increased absences among economically disadvantaged students after the earlier start times.

“To the extent that districts can change start times to bring middle and high school start times in line with the science on adolescent sleep, this may help close achievement gaps,” said co-author Sarah Crittenden Fuller, research associate professor in the Department of Public Policy and at the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina at the University of North Carolina, in a statement. 

“In addition, traditionally disadvantaged groups may benefit most from supports that schools and districts can provide to address disruptions in childcare and transportation created by a change in start times," Fuller said.