COVID-19-related school closures worldwide had an enormous impact on literacy instruction and learning. In this article, we share an overview of what research tells us about what happened to elementary learners' reading comprehension during these school closures and what reading comprehension instruction looked like in homes and schools during…

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person…

School systems started the 2021-22 school year with extra resources and plans for recovery, but repeated resurgences of the COVID-19 virus thwarted hopes of a strong comeback. Schools continued to face a myriad of challenges including severe staff shortages, high rates of absenteeism and sickness, and rolling school closures forced by the…

A survey targeting education researchers conducted in November 2020 provides forecasts of how much achievement gaps between low- and high-income students in U.S elementary schools will change as a result of COVID-related disruptions to in-class instruction and family life. Relative to a pre-COVID achievement gap of 1.00 SD, respondents' median…

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…

The Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i) Professional Support System has been shown to be effective in improving literacy proficiency among young readers by combining data-driven technology with professional development (PD) activities to help teachers provide personalized literacy instruction. To identify efficient ways to expand the reach of A2i,…

The pandemic has led to considerable disruption to the learning of all pupils in England. This report analyses the general trends in the data across several studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on educational attainment in England, from March 2020 onwards, and identifies where particular attention is needed. It is broken down into four…

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, causing one of the largest disruptions to schooling in history. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented challenges for education research and large-scale assessments of student populations. Both schools and researchers were forced to modify…

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic closes schools across the nation, education systems are scrambling to meet the needs of schools, families, and 55.1 million students. The economic impacts and trauma of recent events will also have far reaching effects that will likely exacerbate long-standing opportunity gaps. While it is difficult to…

Evidence suggests that the rate of academic achievement fell by as much as half during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as demonstrated in this report using third-grade math test score data from North Carolina public schools, the pandemic's educational consequences vary considerably from school to school and district to district. The pandemic…

There is no denying the impact that the coronravirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has had on many aspects of our lives. This article looks at the potential impact of COVID-19 on student learning as schools abruptly morphed into virtual learning environments using data from several instructional, practice, and assessment solutions offered by…

This report presents the Education Policy Institute and Renaissance Learning's first assessment of the learning loss experienced by pupils in England as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The analysis is based on the results achieved by pupils in the first half of the 2020/21 autumn term (up to and including 25 October 2020) in…

The Afterschool Centers on Education (ACE) is the program administered through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the federally funded 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) grants. The ACE Foundation Communities' Cycle 9 program provides intentional afterschool program experiences that are high quality, challenging, and inspiring. Across…

New research, using data from 7 million students in grades 3-8 in 25,000 schools who took MAP Growth reading and mathematics assessments between 2020-21 and fall 2022, continues NWEA's ongoing research agenda examining how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected student achievement in reading and math. At the start of the 2022-23 school year, we…

For the past three academic years, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted learning and the relationships between teachers, students, families, and communities that are at the heart of education. Even as school buildings reopened to in-person instruction, periodic quarantines, social distancing, and canceled events had a profound impact on students'…