Education Week - September 28, 2022 - 2

Academic Recovery
Is Slow and Uneven,
Data Show
By now, we know the terrible toll the pandemic
took on academics. But what about the pace of recovery?
New data show that it's happening-but not
in all grades, and not as quickly for the students who
are below grade level and need help on the most
basic skills.
It's a bit of cold water that reflects what many
school system leaders have warned about for
months: Merely getting children back into brickand-mortar
classrooms won't magically catch them
up.
Curriculum Associates, a curriculum and assessment
company, examined student progress in the
2021-22 school year. The analysis includes about 1.6
million students in grades 1-8 who took Curriculum
Associates' i-Ready diagnostic test in reading, and
about 1.8 million who took it in math.
" We're seeing that for students who are on grade
level, there is some degree of recovery, and in some
grades and subjects we're even approaching prepandemic
levels, " said Kristen Huff, the organization's
vice president of assessment and research.
" But when we look on the other end of the performance
distribution, students who are two or more
grade levels below, we see some backtracking from
2021 to 2022 data. "
Overall, the percentage of students at grade level
is holding steady in some grades, and increasing
slightly in others, edging closer to prepandemic
numbers, the analysis found. Student performance
in math trended up too, but because the drop in
scores in that subject was greater, there's more
ground to make up.
These broader, positive trends belie that many
students need help in foundational skills-the
building block skills that lay the groundwork for
more complex work later. In reading, the percentage
of K-3 students who were at grade level in phonics
skills is still well below prepandemic levels,
and the percentage of students who are below grade
level has expanded. In math, the researchers saw
similar trends across grades K-8 for numbers and
operations-students' ability to understand the relationships
between numbers and perform the basic
operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and division.
Is Federal Funding for Immigrant Students Falling Short?
The number of immigrant students has risen year after year,
thanks to events like civil wars in Africa, the United States' departure
from Afghanistan, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and
the migrant crisis in Latin America. Now, experts warn that
our nation's funding to support these students-whose needs
go far beyond instructional support-may not be up to the task.
A report from Next 100-a startup initiative out of The Century
Foundation, a progressive public policy think tank-looks
at the Title III program, an $800 million fund that broadly provides
funding for districts' English-learner programs. States set
aside up to 15 percent of their cut of this money for immigrant
student services.
The problem, the group says, lies in the mechanics of how
districts tap this set-aside. To do so, they must experience a
significant increase in immigrant enrollment compared to the
average of the previous two years. And that goes for every year
they want to draw down funds.
What it all boils down to is that districts often wind up starting
new programs and then can't sustain them when the extra
support disappears.
" Consistency is critical for students, for any student, but esBack
to Brass
The Nettleton High
School marching
band performs
during halftime at
a Sept. 9 game in
Jonesboro, Ark.
pecially students who are highly mobile, especially students
who are new to the country who have experienced any sort of
trauma in their past, " said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, the report's
author.
She recommends replacing the funding with a formula system
based on the number of immigrant students in each district,
and a separate emergency-use fund that the U.S. Department
of Education would use to address sudden influxes.
That idea has some critics of its own.
" I think the intention is to use the Title III immigrant money
to start or enhance programs, because there's always an extra
cost associated with that, but then the ongoing continuation of
the program should come out of local funds, " said Julie Sugarman,
a senior policy analyst for pre-K-12 education for the
Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that analyzes immigration
issues.
Sugarman worries about a different problem: The lag in the
U.S. Census data used to track increases in immigrant student
enrollment. It usually takes two or three years for it to catch up
to a rise in local communities' immigrant student population,
she noted.
Financial Supports Critical to Recruiting,
Retaining Teachers of Color
incentives-such as higher pay or benefits for historically hardto-staff
positions, or financial incentives for teachers who work
in high-needs schools.
After taking pay out of the equation, the educators preferred
Can it with the policy-wonk ideas! Teachers of color overwhelmingly
favor broad solutions that make the profession
more affordable, not fancier approaches, according to a new
survey.
School districts have long sought teachers of color, who make
up just 20 percent of the profession and provide valuable academic
and social-emotional benefits to all students, but particularly
to students of color.
Researchers from the RAND Corporation picked up the ball,
asking a nationally representative sample of Black and Hispanic
teachers, as well as other teachers of color, what would help recruit
and retain them. It compared their responses to what a
panel of policymakers had to say. Among the findings:
Teachers of color overwhelmingly chose financial incentives
and relief as a strategy to boost enrollment in teacher preparation.
Fifty-eight percent of teachers of color-and 67 percent
of Black teachers-said expanding student loan forgiveness or
service scholarships would help boost enrollment in teacher
preparation. Policymakers liked loan forgiveness, too, but twothirds
selected grow-your-own programs, which just 9 percent
of teachers of color selected.
On compensation options, 72 percent of teachers of color said
increasing teacher salaries throughout the pay scale would help
matters. But policymakers favored targeted forms of financial
cutting some of the red tape that complicates transferring
teacher licenses across states. Fifty-one percent named that as
a promising strategy, and 49 percent suggested partnering with
local teacher-preparation programs that have racially diverse
candidates. Nearly half of the policymakers-but just 28 percent
of the teachers of color surveyed-said they thought requiring
ongoing training for school hiring teams about anti-racist hiring
practices would be effective.
" There is a huge value in just asking teachers: Is this working?
Why or why not? " said José Vilson, the executive director of
EduColor and a former New York City math teacher. " If we improve
working conditions for teachers of color, we're more likely
to raise the bar for everybody-it's a tide that lifts all boats. "
BRIEFLY STATED CONTRIBUTORS: Ileana Najarro, Eesha Pendharkar, Sarah Schwartz, and Madeline Will. Edited by Stephen Sawchuk.
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Education Week - September 28, 2022

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