This study examined how COVID-19 impacted elementary schools' reading achievement in rural school districts in South Carolina. The study employed the comparative research design to investigate differences between reading achievement before and after COVID-19 of rural elementary schools regarding gender and racial ethnicity. The methodology of this…

In education, among the most anticipated consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are that student performance will stagnate or decline and that existing inequities will increase. Although some studies suggest a decline in student performance and widening learning gaps, the picture is less clear than expected. In this study, we add to the existing…

This study aimed to explore if there was a significant difference in student performance in ELA and Math in middle school grades six through eight, pre- and post-COVID-19. This study aimed to identify student performance deficiencies in grades six through eight relating to gender, socioeconomic status, and race. The significance of this study is…

The events that came to pass within the past few years have created quite a stir within the educational community. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, there was a shift from brick & mortar to virtual learning, which many academic experts and stakeholders needed to prepare for. Due to the major shutdowns, there have been many concerns about…

"Excellence gaps" are the disparities in advanced academic performance that exist between student groups. These gaps have important implications for both academic equity and American economic competitiveness, as the most lucrative jobs often go to those who perform at the highest levels. Although considerable work has evaluated how and…

Racial discrimination and the COVID-19 pandemic are important risk factors for negative mental health outcomes in children and adolescents, but few studies have examined the relation between these exposures and posttraumatic stress (PTS) in middle school students. The current study evaluated the association between pandemic exposure and perceived…

In response to COVID-19, U.S. students learned remotely from mid-March to June 2020. At the start of academic year 2020--21, many schools remained remote but others--primarily Catholic and other private schools--reopened. We consider Catholic schooling as a proxy for in-person instruction and use national data from Renaissance Star and MAP Growth…

The schooling disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic continue to reverberate across the K-12 educational system more than a year after schools closed for in-person instruction. In this study, we examined the aftermath of these disruptions by modeling student achievement trends prior to and during the pandemic, with particular focus on growth in…

While the ongoing academic impacts of the COVID pandemic in grades 3-8 has been well documented, far less is known about its effects on students who were in pre-K or kindergarten when the pandemic started in March 2020. In this brief, we focus on students who were in first and second grade in the 2021-22 school year, and for whom the majority of…

COVID-19 significantly impacted the educational and home environments for students throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia in ways that may have impacted student learning, as measured by standardized exams. We analyze statewide, student-level administrative and assessment data on the Standards of Learning (SOL) reading and math tests for the…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand how principals who lead community schools in New York City make sense of their work and their lived experiences in advancing social justice for their students and school communities particularly during this COVID-19 pandemic. Community schools, by virtue of their design and…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted face-to-face instruction in schools across the United States and the world. Using the Online Student Connectedness Survey (OSCS), we analyzed data from three middle schools in a suburban school district in the southeastern United States in order to determine if there were any statistically significant interaction…

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on K-12 education. Most schools transitioned to remote instruction, and some used remote testing to assess student learning. Remote testing, however, is less controlled than in-school testing, leading to concerns regarding test-taking engagement. This study compared the disengagement of…

The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and to describe more fully the sample and methods used in the research included in the brief, "Student achievement in 2021-22: Cause for hope and continued urgency." The authors investigated two main research questions in this brief: (1) How do achievement gains…

Ms. Lewis, a Native American parent has a son named Ashkii who receives special education services in a rural elementary school located on a reservation. She has not received support from the individual education program team regarding Ashkii's academic progress due to COVID-19. The challenges in accessing special education services for Ms. Lewis…