A new report indicates that test scores are rising among kids returning to school; at the same time, however, the growth is in contrast to low student performance overall.
According to The Hill, the report, released Wednesday by Renaissance Learning, an educational software company, found that the growth for the fall to winter 2021-2022 school year was more significant than in the previous year.
While the growth ''remains below typical growth in most grade levels'' seen in years before the pandemic, the numbers still reflect significance. At the start of the 2021-2022 academic year, the report showed students had fallen further behind than they did in the 2020-2021 school year.
''What we consistently found across all grade levels was that this year students typically began school somewhat lower in terms of their overall performance,'' said Gene Kerns, the company's chief academic officer. ''That was the bad news — performance down a bit more year over year.''
Renaissance Learning stated that the results are ''suggesting that the pandemic continues to have a compounding effect on student achievement'' in light of students falling further behind with virtual learning.
Kerns added that for students to enter an academic year with solid overall performance, growth within the school year will need to be constant and even higher than current rates.
The report examined 4.4 million students on early literacy or reading assessments at 19,046 schools, as well as 2.9 million students on math assessments at 12,754 schools from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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