Scathing new report says American schools are ‘failing the COVID generation’
A scathing new report suggests American schools are “failing the COVID generation,” and older students are still struggling to regain their academic footing after years of disruptions.
“Three years after the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 is continuing to derail learning, but in more insidious and hidden ways,” says the report, published Wednesday by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), a nonpartisan research organization based at Arizona State University. “Things are far from normal even though students are back in school.”
The research paints a dire picture of declining academic performance, chronic absenteeism and persistent mental health challenges among American students.
The average ACT score, for example, is at a 30-year low, said Morgan Polikoff, a University of Southern California professor and one of the authors of the report. He and other researchers cited data from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showing math performance for the average 13-year-old is just as depressed: it's as low as it was in 1990.
Nearly three-quarters of schools reported increases in chronic absenteeism in post-pandemic years, according to data released last summer by the National Center for Education Statistics and mentioned in the report. The researchers also pulled from a Gallup poll, that said a fifth of students in 2023 graded their schools poorly on mental health support.
Distracted students stressed teachers: What an American school day looks like post-COVID
Though high school graduation rates continue to climb, college professors say students are showing up unprepared, Polikoff said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
“It’s obviously a sober picture,” said Robin Lake, the director of CRPE, during the call. “We think many students have already graduated without what they need, and that trend will continue unless we do things differently.”
A big driver of the group’s concerns, according to Lake, is a dearth in tutoring services nationwide that has allowed such learning loss to persist. Only 2% of American parents say their students get high-quality tutoring at school, despite billions in federal funding earmarked for it, according to researchers at the University of Southern California. Lake called that shortfall a “massive missed opportunity.”
“We’re not doing enough of the things that we know work with the money that we have available right now,” she said.
Similar research released last week showed both college readiness and overall K-12 enrollment have been on the decline since the pandemic.
White House scrambles to address setbacks
The report was released the same day the White House rolled out and recapped a number of targeted reforms meant to address pandemic-related learning loss, including $50 million in new federal grant funding to help states improve reading and math outcomes.
On a call with reporters Tuesday, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona touted an effort launched last summer by President Joe Biden to bring a quarter-million new tutors into schools by 2025. He said that benchmark has nearly been reached.
Could this strategy be the solution to US students who have lost decades of progress in math, reading?
Yet, as the virus resurges in classrooms this fall, he acknowledged the achievement gaps that widened in the past few years have yet to slim down.
“As a country, we’ve normalized those gaps,” he said.
Zachary Schermele is a breaking news and education reporter for USA Today. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Schools still coming up short for 'the COVID generation,' report says
