Notes from the Evidence Project | Apr 3
April 3, 2024
We’re back with more research and policy news than usual, so grab your favorite morning beverage and strap in for a packed newsletter.
This issue includes:
Updated data on students’ learning recovery and postsecondary plans
Perspectives on addressing absenteeism
The state of school staffing as the end of federal pandemic aid approaches
The Math Corner, where we outline critical developments in the world of math research and policy
LEARNING RECOVERY & POSTSECONDARY PLANS
A report from Amplify shows that our youngest students still have not reached pre-Covid levels of reading proficiency. Although the proportion of K-2 students on track in reading increased since last year (52% to 54%), the rate of improvement is slowing—this proportion increased by five percentage points between two years ago and last year.
A working paper from USC and Stanford researchers details school- and district-level facilitators and barriers to implementing high-quality tutoring programs. Experts continue to argue about pandemic-era relaxed grading policies. Advocates claim they promote equity, while opponents claim they lower expectations for students. Some advocate normalizing taking more than four years to graduate high school as a learning recovery tactic—if students are behind, why not give them more time to catch up?
New national survey data suggest that high schoolers’ interest in college as a postsecondary option continues to wane along with the slowing pace of learning recovery. 69% of current juniors and seniors agree that a good job requires certification as proof of skills, but just 58% agree that a good job requires a college degree. Survey data from Gallup and Lumina show that more significant shares of Black and Latine undergraduates considered “stopping out” compared to White undergraduates (40% and 42% vs. 31%), with students from all groups citing personal stress as the main reason they had considered it. Possibly related: less than half of schools reported that they are doing a “very good” job of preparing students for college in a survey from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Further reading:
President Biden’s budget specifically earmarks funds for increasing attendance, extending learning time, and implementing high-quality tutoring to support learning recovery. Experts argue that these areas merit focus even after the students directly affected by pandemic shutdowns have graduated.
Although high schoolers’ interest in college as a postsecondary option may be waning, dual enrollment programs continue to grow. In North Carolina, dual enrollment increased by 12% last year.
ADDRESSING ABSENTEEISM
Brookings: Parents are not fully aware of, or concerned about, their children’s school attendance
Student attendance dropped precipitously with the move to remote learning in 2020 and never fully recovered, a fact that experts (up to and including Secretary of Education Cardona) point to as a probable driver of sustained learning loss. UCLA experts in adolescent development suggest that efforts to increase attendance can leverage teens’ developmental drives to understand, impact, and feel belonging in their communities. A USC research team (including your steadfast newsletter writer) found evidence that the “parent-expert disconnect,” documented elsewhere in terms of different understandings of students’ academic achievement, extends to school attendance—caregivers report higher attendance than we would expect based on administrative data sources. Among caregivers who did report frequent absences, we found that many reported being absent due to mental health challenges, including being too tired to get out of bed in the morning or feeling too anxious to go to school. One CDC official offers tips for schools to support students better socially and emotionally.
SCHOOL STAFFING
This data vis tool from The 74 is super informative - you can see teacher-to-student ratio data from every school district in the US. Our newsletter editor zooms into her hometown school district above.
A report from the ADP Research Institute shows that the labor supply of teachers remained constant over the past few years as demand increased steeply, driving teacher shortages. An article at Education Next delves into one plausible reason: despite increases in per-pupil dollars over the last 20 years, teachers’ salaries have dropped somewhat over that period, adjusting for inflation. However, an analysis of data from medium-to-large districts from The 74 shows that, over the last six years, student-teacher ratios have fallen in about three-fourths of districts, calling into question whether increased demand for teachers is even warranted.
This pattern and the upcoming expiration of federal pandemic relief funding have already precipitated teacher layoffs nationwide. Experts caution against layoffs based on seniority or any factor outside teacher effectiveness and offer ideas for sustaining learning recovery programs after federal recovery funding ends.
Further reading:
Read how education leaders across six school systems strategically develop and scale innovative staffing models in the latest Center for Reinventing Public Education report.
A new working paper analyzes federal pandemic aid spending patterns for over 3,000 districts.
Just like teachers, superintendents’ inflation-adjusted salaries have dropped over the last decade.
FINANCIAL CHALLENGES
U Chicago Education Lab: Realizing the Promise of High Dosage Tutoring at Scale
The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics released a position statement on using AI in mathematics teaching, emphasizing its possibilities for personalization while cautioning that AI cannot replace traditional math teaching. A peer-reviewed study found that German students who used an AI-powered “intelligent tutoring system” during COVID-19 closures improved their math skills, and the lowest performers improved the most. However, the study does not include a comparison group, limiting our ability to attribute math performance gains to the tutoring system itself. A new report on high-dosage tutoring programs in Chicago and Fulton County, Georgia, found that participation increased students’ math performance by two-thirds of a year of learning, enough to erase pandemic learning loss for the typical student.
Further reading:
This podcast (recording and transcript on the linked page) gives an excellent overview of the current math education policy landscape and several innovative possibilities for math instruction.
Experts continue to disagree over whether algebra should be introduced in 8th or 9th grade.
A recent RAND article discusses the power of math teachers to promote critical thinking skills and close achievement and opportunity gaps.
THE MATH CORNER
Education Week explains that reading instruction and intervention can often be higher on the priority list than math when it comes to legislation. Thirty-seven states have passed bills requiring evidence-based reading instruction in the last decade compared to just seven that did the same for math.
An experimental evaluation of a mobile, AI-powered math tutoring system in Ghana found that the program significantly affected student learning, close to what one would expect from in-person, high-dosage tutoring (however, the students used the app during times when they would not have otherwise been working on math, so it is difficult to separate the effects of the tutoring system from the effects of simply spending extra time practicing math).
Further reading:
A blog post from the Center for Education Market Dynamics illustrates the rise of Open Educational Resources in math curriculum; many are outperforming top traditional curricula in district adoptions.
In honor of March Madness, the Collaborative for Student Success is running March Mathness. A Sweet 16 of math policies from around the country will compete against each other, with “winners” determined by a panel of expert judges. Get your brackets ready!
Thanks for reading! As always, if you have feedback or want to alert us to new research, please drop us a note.
Sincerely,
The Evidence Project Team and newsletter co-writers
Lisa Chu, Center on Reinventing Public Education
Dan Silver, University of Southern California Center for Applied Research in Education
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