NEW! February 2025! Education Recovery Scorecard
This is the third iteration of the Education Recovery Scorecard. It provides information about the academic recovery as of Spring 2024 for individual school districts across 43 states. State test scores for roughly 35 million students in 2019, 2022, and 2024 were analyzed to look more closely at district-level changes in achievement for communities across the country. In addition to comparing trends in recovery by district characteristics and by subgroup, they update their initial estimates of the impact of the federal pandemic relief aid (which they released last summer). They also describe the rise in chronic absenteeism and provide initial evidence of the effect of absenteeism in slowing the recovery.
Summary of findings:
1. As of Spring 2024, the average U.S. student remained nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in both math and reading. Students are now further behind in reading than they were in 2022.
2. Although no state improved in both math and reading on the NAEP relative to 2019, a number
of districts are scoring above 2019 levels in both subjects. 17 percent of students in grades 3 to 8 are in districts with mean math achievement above 2019, 11 percent are in districts that have recovered in reading, and 6 percent are in districts which have recovered in both subjects.
3. District-level data reveal pockets of success and continued struggle in most states. For instance, the NAEP reported that only one state, Alabama, had average achievement above 2019 levels in 4th grade math. Yet, even in Alabama, about one third of students (38 percent) are enrolled in districts where math achievement remains below 2019 levels.
4. The highest income decile districts are nearly 4 times more likely to have recovered in both
math and reading than the lowest income decile districts: 14.1 percent vs. 3.9 percent.
5. Socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in math achievement have grown since the start of
the pandemic both within districts and across districts. The disparity in math scores between students in affluent and low-income districts has grown by 11 percent since the start of the pandemic, and the disparity in scores between students in predominantly non-minority and predominantly minority districts has grown by 15 percent.
6. The federal relief dollars aided the recovery in higher poverty districts (where achievement in
both math and reading was boosted by 10 percent of a grade equivalent.) Each dollar of federal relief improved student achievement by about as much as a general revenue increase. But it mattered how districts spent the money.
7. A widespread rise in absenteeism is slowing the recovery, especially in high poverty districts.
Most districts—high- and low-income—have seen a rise in student absenteeism, with larger
increases in low-income districts.
