Student Assessment

Today's early elementary schoolchildren, who were ages 1-4 in spring 2020 when COVID-19 shut down schools and early learning programs, are continuing to show a lack of school readiness in math and reading skills, according to fall 2023 results from Curriculum Associates, an assessment company behind the i-Ready Diagnostic tool.

More kindergartners in fall 2023 — who were 1-2 years old in March 2020 — began the school year below grade level in reading compared to kindergartners from fall 2019, for example.

The data aligns with other research showing post-pandemic concerns about academic and social-emotional school preparedness among young students. Lower levels of kindergarten readiness are linked to poorer outcomes in elementary through high school academics, according to research.

The Curriculum Associates data includes a nationally representative sampling across fall 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023 of 7.8 million K-2 students for math and 5.9 million K-2 students for reading.

"Though in some subgroups there were only small declines from pre- to post pandemic, the percentage of students beginning the year well below grade level has grown substantially in some grades, with no sign of recovery or return to pre-pandemic levels," the report said.

For students now in 1st grade, and who were 2-3 years old in spring 2020, the analysis shows 12.5% of students performed two grades below in math in fall 2023 compared to 10.5% in fall 2019.

Students in 2nd grade, who were ages 3 and 4 in March 2020, made small increases in average scale scores, but their performances remained behind pre-pandemic levels. About 36.1% are testing two grades below in math compared to 27% in 2019. 

Performance gaps are also evident when broken down by race. In schools where more than 50% of students are either Black or Hispanic, fewer students are entering the school year on grade level. Comparatively, majority White schools show greater proportions of students performing on grade level at school entry. This pattern was seen for both reading and math performances.

The findings are one of the first glimpses into the impact of the pandemic on students in K-2, according to Kristen Huff, Curriculum Associates' vice president for assessment and research. 

"Nationwide, we are seeing that students who were ages one to four at the start of the pandemic are coming to school less prepared, lagging behind expectations, and showing limited signs of recovery, particularly in math," Huff told K-12 Dive in an email.

She added that the data highlights the challenges early childhood educators face. It also underscores that early intervention is critical. 

"We are hopeful that this data can help encourage additional research while also leading to solutions that will help students achieve success in the future,” Huff said.

A bright spot in the report was the increase in phonics performance for reading across all grade levels, with fall 2023 performances making a climb toward pre-pandemic levels. 

However, when looking at number and operations achievement in math, all grade levels show stagnant grade placement results between fall 2022 and fall 2023. In 1st grade, for example, 87.6% of students tested one or two grade levels behind in number and operation skills in fall 2023, compared to 87.5% in fall 2022. In grade 2, 82.8% tested one or two grades behind, which was the same percentage from fall 2022 testing.

The federal process for approving state waiver requests to exceed a 1% cap on the number of students with significant cognitive disabilities who take alternate assessments is generally appropriate, according to an Office of Inspector General report released Dec. 6. 

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, however, has room for improvement. OIG recommends that OESE develop and implement written guidance and review procedures for staff involved in reviewing and approving waiver and waiver extension requests. Those efforts could bring "greater consistency and less subjectivity" to the process, OIG said.

OIG's recent inspection examined the waiver process for the 2021-22 school year and only focused on the waiver review process. It did not review OESE’s responses to states seeking waivers.

The Every Student Succeeds Act requires that all students participate in statewide testing. States can allow students with significant cognitive disabilities to participate in alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards. The alternate academic achievement standards are reduced in complexity and depth compared to general achievement standards. 

States must limit the number of students participating in alternate assessments to no more than 1% of the total number of students in the state who are assessed in each subject tested. Students' individualized education program teams, however, are the decision-makers when it comes to what tests students with disabilities will take.

By design, the cap aims to prevent the over-assignment of students with disabilities to the alternate assessment. Students who take alternate assessments may be limited in post-school activities. 

ESSA regulations state that students who take the alternate assessment may not be prohibited from attempting to complete the requirements for a regular high school diploma. Parents must also be informed of how participation may delay or otherwise affect the student from completing the requirements for a regular high school diploma.

States that exceed the cap can have conditions placed on their Title I, Part A grant for educational programs for students from low-income families.

According to a Sept. 20 letter sent to states by OESE and the Office of Special Education Programs, the national alternate assessment participation rate has been decreasing since the 2016-17 school year. That year the reading and math participation rates were both 1.18%. By 2021-22, the alternate assessment participation rate declined to 1.07% for reading and dipped to 1.06% for math.

Plans for compliance

During the 2022-23 school year, the Education Department approved nine states for waivers or waiver extensions and denied 14 states' requests, according to a tally from The Advocacy Institute, a nonprofit that works to support people with disabilities. Reasons for waiver denials included failure to reduce participation rates in previous years and a state's inability to test at least 95% of all students and 95% of students with disabilities, as required.

Candace Cortiella, director and founder of The Advocacy Institute, said in an email she's disappointed that OIG's report had a narrow scope and relied on outdated information. The Advocacy Institute has been tracking waiver activity by state for seven years.

Cortiella would like to draw attention to OESE's practice of calling on states that do not have waivers and have exceeded the 1% cap to create plans to become compliant. The plans, Cortiella said, have no requirements attached to them unlike the formal waiver and waiver extension process, such as soliciting public comment and addressing disproportionality.

"I don't know where OESE finds the authority to do this instead of informing these states that they need to submit waiver requests," Cortiella said in an email. 

On Oct. 27, OESE sent separate letters to 15 states affirming each state's over-the-cap participation rate during the 2021-22 school year, while noting certain states’ progress on reducing alternate assessment participation. 

Some states barely pushed past the 1% cap, such as Vermont's 1.01% participation rate for reading/language arts alternate assessments. 

"If the State continues to have an AA-AAAS [alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards] participation rate over 1.0 percent in future years, the Department may take additional action," said OESE's letter to the Vermont Agency of Education.

Pennsylvania's letter shows the state exceeded the participation cap for reading/language arts (1.97%), math (2.06%) and science (2.19%). Because the participation rates for all three subject areas are "substantially higher" than 1%, the state's Title I, Part A grant was placed on "high-risk" status, the letter said.

OESE's letters added that the office recognizes the 1% participation cap was a new requirement starting in the 2017-18 school year, and that most states previously exceeded 1% of students tested using an alternate assessment. 

The office also said that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted state efforts to reduce participation rates in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years. All states were allowed assessment waivers for the 2019-20 school year due to pandemic hardships.

To further support state assessment efforts, OESE hosted a conference session on the topic in September and has posted materials from that session, including federal guidance on the 1% cap and other resources.

Declines in student math performance amid the COVID-19 pandemic are a global phenomenon, according to 2022 Program for International Assessment results.

A first look at the results from the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment show that U.S. students’ average math scores declined by 13 points compared to prior to the pandemic, and by 18 points from when the PISA math assessment was first administered in 2003. 

While other industrialized nations like Iceland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia generally score higher than the U.S., declines in some of those countries were steep enough that many of their scores were not significantly different from those of the United States this time around.

"Everyone had some struggles with this pandemic. What we're seeing here is that we had less struggles," said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers both PISA and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. She added that while there was a small relationship between school closures and how countries performed, most of the score changes were not due to how long schools remained closed.

PISA is an international test of reading, math and science administered last year in 81 countries and education systems to track how 15-year-old students apply their knowledge as they near the end of K-12 and enter postsecondary education or the workforce. The results also show how their academic performance compares to their peers globally. 

The test is administered every three years, other than when it was postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the pandemic. It rotates between reading, math and science for every test administration.

"It is an important leading indicator of whether students will have skills that they need to succeed as adults as they reach the end of their high school career," said Carr.

The latest results show patterns similar to those seen in last year's NAEP scores, which also found significant declines in math. While both assessments test for math, PISA has more contextual questions and emphasizes real-world applications. 

"Declines in student achievement, especially in mathematics, have become a familiar theme over the past year as we've gotten a look at a series of results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress," said Carr. "The findings of this international assessment tell a similar story."

Despite this, the United States' ranking in all PISA subjects — including math — improved because of steeper declines in other countries. For example, the United States came in 26th place for math in 2022, an improvement compared to when the U.S. ranked 29th for the same subject in 2018. 

"But those rankings are due to others suffering more in the face of this pandemic than the United States," added Carr.

Still, about a third of U.S. students are at or below the basic skill level in math, per the latest PISA results. "That's a lot," said Carr. 

Basic, or baseline level proficiency, is defined as students being able to "devise and use simple strategies including ratios and one-variable simulations to solve problems; extract information from somewhat complex representations," according to NCES.

Cardona calls for ‘math revolution’

However, results in reading and science were more encouraging. 

Scores in those two subject areas remained steady compared to 2018 and to 2000, which is when the earliest PISA data is available for those subjects. The nation's students scored 6th in reading and 10th in science.

But despite the glimmer of hope, those two subjects also saw widening achievement gaps between the lowest and highest performers in last year's NAEP results. 

"And we see a similar pattern in these PISA data," said Carr. "We're not seeing that with math." 

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said "the bottom line" gathered from PISA 2022 results is that "the United States moved up in the world rankings…while unfortunately many other countries saw declines."

Despite that takeaway, he maintained that there's still a long road ahead for academic recovery, considering that math scores continue to decline and remain stubbornly low. He also raised concerns over the persistence of long-standing achievement gaps.

"So we cannot be complacent at home," said Cardona, especially considering that math factors into global competitiveness and leadership, and that many high-paying jobs benefit from math skills. 

He called on local education leaders for "a math revolution," including tapping into strategies that are proven to accelerate outcomes, alongside other initiatives like building state and local partnerships, focusing on core instruction and supporting the educator workforce.

"Our nation's academic recovery is well underway, as evidenced by the scores that we saw today," said a department spokesperson. "We are not satisfied with that standing. We want to be first in the world."

In an effort to improve student assessments, the U.S. Department of Education has updated guidance for a federal program that encourages innovative and high-quality assessment design practices, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced in a letter sent Nov. 20 to state education leaders, state assessment directors and state Title I directors. 

Specifically, the Education Department is eliminating the cap on the number of states that can participate in the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority, which is a program that allows states to pilot new assessment approaches. The letter also clarifies that student assessment results may differ between existing state assessments and assessments developed under the IADA.

The guidance, the department said, is intended to "provide every State with running room to pilot" assessment innovation. The Education Department said it hopes testing changes will inform instruction, interventions, professional development and resource planning, in addition to bolstering grade-level mastery three years after the pandemic began impacting learning.

"Strong assessment practices allow us to maximize the quality of and returns on instructional time," Cardona said. He added parents deserve better information about their children's academic progress and students deserve instruction better tailored to their needs. Educators also need assessment data that informs interventions and curricular modifications.

The Education Department said it is open to hearing approaches from all states.

In March, the Education Department sought input from states, school districts, experts and others about the IADA, which is authorized under the Every Student Succeeds Act. In his letter, Cardona called the federal-state partnerships "crucial to lifting best practices and guiding our policy direction." 

Since 2016, the Education Department has approved five states — Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and North Carolina — to participate in the IADA. Some approaches taken so far under this program include through-year and curriculum-embedded assessments, technology-enhanced science performance tasks and competency-based assessments. Through-year assessments are multiple assessments throughout the school year. 

In August, the Education Department also permitted Montana to administer through-year assessments starting in the 2024-25 school year, replacing statewide, federally mandated annual assessments. The state plans to offer the redesigned assessment in reading/language arts and math for grades 3-8 and allow participating field test schools to also waive some accountability requirements. 

Several organizations have called for reforms to the typical once-a-year state assessments required for federal accountability purposes. 

The National Center for Learning Disabilities, in a February report, called for assessment approaches that allow for more student accessibility and test-taking measures that are less time-consuming and more useful to students and educators. That report highlighted the IADA and the Competitive Grants for State Assessments as programs helping to improve assessment systems.

Parents continue to believe their child is performing at or above grade level despite standardized test results suggesting their performance still lags compared to previous years. That could be because parents rely heavily on report cards to determine their child's overall achievement, according to a recent Gallup poll. 

Parents most commonly said they relied on report cards to assess their child's achievement, so parents may be equating good grades on report cards with grade-level performance, per the report. However, report cards don't reflect other benchmarks of achievement parents should take in account, like standardized test performance, it said.

"Relying on report cards in isolation could prevent parents from initiating crucial interventions on behalf of their child's academic progress," researchers warned, whereas providing a wider variety of measures, like standardized test performance, "could help more parents see the full picture."

The findings are based on a nationally representative survey of 2,000 public school parents and were released by Learning Heroes, a nonprofit that advocates for family and educator relationships.

Similar to past findings, 9 in 10 parents said their child is performing at or above grade level in reading and math, and nearly 8 in 10 said their child is earning mostly Bs or better, according to the latest report.

These findings mirror conclusions reached last year in another report from Learning Heroes, which tracks the issue.

And this tendency for parents to say their children are performing well in school predates the pandemic. In 2016, 90% of parents said their children were performing at or above grade level in both reading and math, according to Learning Heroes.

In some cases, the pandemic led to increased parental involvement and concern over academics.

But declines in standardized and formative assessment scores following the pandemic, combined with surveys repeatedly finding that parents think their children are performing at least at grade level, have led testing experts to see a mismatch.

Standardized tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress "often paint a significantly different picture of student performance," according to the Learning Heroes report.

Last year, NAEP results showed historic declines in both math and reading for grade 4 and 8 in a majority of states, for example.

In 2021, even after a year of remote and hybrid learning, Learning Heroes found more than 9 in 10 parents said their child was at or above grade level, while only 44% of teachers considered their students prepared for grade-level work.

In the same 2021 survey, parents were more likely to say they worried a lot about politicians' involvement in student learning (40%), rather than worrying about their children being on track with academic expectations (27%).