Learning Recovery Efforts Worked. New Data Show Why States Must Not Let Up

Student test scores are on a path to recovery nearly four years after the pandemic wreaked havoc on K-12 academics, extensive new data analyzed and released by a group of education researchers this week indicate.

Two years of uneven instruction, school closures, and online learning dragged math and reading levels down to their lowest levels in decades. Some after-effects, like chronic absenteeism, remain a persistent problem. But the last year of academic recovery efforts have partially reversed that trend, according to the data, released by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and The Education Opportunity Project at Stanford University. They reflect standardized test scores from 8,000 school districts in 30 states.

In a single school year—between spring 2022 and 2023—students on average gained back one-third of their original loss in math, and one-quarter of the original loss in reading. The improvements amount to more than what students would have learned in a regular, pre-pandemic academic year.

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