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Middle school students are still months behind pre-pandemic achievement standards in science, according to newly released test data. Unfortunately, their losses in this regard have actually increased since the bad days of the COVID crisis.
The figures, released Tuesday by the nonprofit testing group NWEA, serve as more evidence of a pattern that emerged in earlier data: Students who were still in elementary school when the pandemic began faced serious obstacles when schools try to plan the way. academic recovery. Meanwhile, today’s primary school pupils are almost back to the level of education last seen in 2019.
This summer, NWEA ran data from its widely used MAP Growth survey of math and literacy. The results, which included the achievement of nearly eight million American students from grades 3-8, revealed that today’s eighth graders were a full year behind in 2019 learning in both subjects . On the other hand, the learning delay for third graders was only about a quarter of that size.
In general, learning losses in science have been more significant than in core subjects such as math and reading because STEM courses are compared to the first grades. In a 2018 survey, elementary teachers said they spent just 18 minutes each day focusing on science, compared to about an hour on math and 1.5 hours on reading.
Susan Kowalski, a senior NWEA researcher who worked on the report, said the data showed that students who had their foundation years of STEM education in 2020 and 2021 were now struggling to keep up.
“If science is taught at all in elementary school, it’s in the fourth and fifth grades,” Kowalski thought. “So in 2021, these were the kids who were most affected by science, and now it’s the seventh and eighth graders who haven’t changed yet.”
The current data was drawn from 621 public schools that consistently administered the MAP Growth Science test at the same grade level between 2017 and 2024. This continuous sample allowed the research team to measure students this year not only in the pre-COVID era, but also during the early stages of this pandemic, when tens of millions of students were receiving virtual education.
Those results show that, by 2021, students in all grades tested were significantly behind in science, with the largest learning losses increasing in grades 4 and 5. before the last three years, with academic gaps reduced by 50% for students in the third grade, 82% for the fifth grade, and 33% for the sixth grade. Fourth graders, whose performance dropped dramatically at the start of the pandemic, are now fully back to their 2019 achievement levels in science.
But the gaps for older students — who, in fact, have seen big dips over the past three years — have grown over time. In 2021, NWEA estimated that seventh- and eighth-grade students will need 0.9 and 1.7 months of additional science instruction, respectively, compared to where the same students were in 2019; by 2024, the estimate for students in that group had grown to 1.7 and 3.2 months of additional education, respectively.
In other words, children whose early encounters with science were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic seem to be falling behind, even as federal and state leaders have given school districts billions of dollars to lead the way. first recovery efforts.
Heidi Schweingruber, director of the National Science Education Board of Schools of Science, Engineering and Medicine, said that stopping students from progressing in science can hinder their future life opportunities. Young people begin to have college and career aspirations just a few years after they receive their first degree.
“If they lack that foundation and can’t follow a strong high school science path, are we closing the door on them in terms of what they might think when they graduate?” Schweingruber asked. “Middle school is when kids start to figure out who they want to be.”
As other test data have previously shown, the epidemic has also widened achievement gaps that divide students by race. Although middle school students of all races and ethnicities fell behind in science in the spring of 2021, Hispanic students lost more ground than their white classmates. Among eighth graders, Hispanics needed 3.4 months of academic recovery in 2021 and 6.3 months in 2024; whites in the same age group needed 0.5 months of recovery in 2021 and 1.6 months now.
Black students, most of whom bounced back from academic losses in 2020 and 2021, are, on average, still 10 to 15 months behind the national average. access of children in their grades. Spanish students, whose progress has been declining since 2021, are somewhat worse.
Erika Shugart, CEO of the National Science Education Association, said in a statement that she was not surprised to see negative effects among middle school students, though she added that persistent gaps in STEM education could be harmful. economically and socially in the end.
“The US already faces significant challenges in producing a STEM-ready workforce,” Shugart wrote. “Literacy is important for making the right decisions about health, the environment and technology. Falling behind in science education can prevent a person from dealing with complex issues and understanding them, which affect personal and social well-being.”
To combat science dropout, NWEA authors recommended a variety of strategies to prevent chronic absenteeism, attract students to participate in summer learning opportunities, and weave science instruction into the curriculum. read in middle school, which research shows can improve performance in both subjects.
Kowalski said, more than any particular method, teachers must embrace a “mindset shift” away from remediation and accelerated learning. A former high school physics teacher, he argued that schools cannot get their children back on track by giving them what they missed four years ago.
“They can’t give in to low expectations and say, ‘These students are behind, so I have to slow down.’ It’s like saying, ‘These students are behind, so I need to speed it up.’
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