Equity
It remains a critical challenge to ensure all children—regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, and/or ability—have access to a high-quality education. We are at a pivotal time where communities and schools are navigating issues of equity, poverty, and opportunity gaps against a backdrop of shifting education policy. With access to exceptional data and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and research partners, we are able to provide unique insight into these important issues.
The widening achievement divide during COVID-19
New research provides additional evidence of the uneven impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic showing that students’ math and reading test scores are more variable in spring 2022 than before the pandemic in part because the divide between high and low achievers has widened.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity
COVID-19 in the early elementary years: A comparison of achievement in spring 2019 and spring 2022
New NWEA research provides further evidence of the challenges that young learners are currently facing from the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Early learning, Equity
Longitudinal models of reading and mathematics achievement in deaf and hard of hearing students
New research using longitudinal data provides evidence that deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students continue to build skills in math and reading throughout grades 2 to 8, challenging assumptions that DHH students’ skills plataeu in elementary grades.
Topics: Equity, Measurement & scaling
Technical appendix for: Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency
The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and describe the sample and methods used in the research included in Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity
Test score patterns across three COVID-19-impacted school years
This study uses test scores from 5.4 million U.S. students in Grades 3–8 to track changes in math and reading achievement across the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Topics: Equity, COVID-19 & schools
The pandemic’s toll on academic growth wasn’t uniform. Recovery efforts can’t be either
In this Education Week blog, AIR and NWEA researchers share insights from their collaborative research on academic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what their work suggests about how much academic recovery students need .
Topics: Equity, COVID-19 & schools
The COVID-19 school year: Learning and recovery across 2020-2021
This study uses test scores from 4.9 million U.S. students in Grades 3 through 8 to examine the academic disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic by modeling student achievement trends prior to and during the pandemic, with particular focus on growth in 2020-2021.
Topics: Equity, COVID-19 & schools
