US Students Slowly Recover from Pandemic Setbacks

01It is a usual school day for third graders at Mount Vernon Community School in Alexandria, Virginia.

02On one side of the classroom, students surround teacher Maria Fletcher and work on making vowel sounds.

03On the other side, children read together from a book.

04In another part of the room, students sit at computers and get reading help from online tutors.

05Such activities have become normal for the students.

06Teachers at Mount Vernon and around the country are racing to get students to learn more faster.

07The hope is to get past learning problems that have continued to affect students since schools closed for the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago.

08America's schools have started getting back on track, but improvement has been slow and uneven.

09Millions of students, often poor or from minority groups, are making up little or no progress.

10Nationally, students made up one-third of their pandemic losses in math during the past school year and one-quarter of the losses in reading.

11Those findings come from the Education Recovery Scorecard.

12That is an examination of state and national test scores by researchers at Harvard University and Stanford University.

13But in nine states, including Virginia, reading scores continued to fall during the 2022-2023 school year.

14And the $190 billion in federal pandemic relief money for schools runs out later this year.

15Thomas Kane is a Harvard economist who helped create the scorecard.

16The recovery is not finished, and it won't be finished without state action, he said.

17States need to start planning for what they're going to do when the federal money runs out in September.

18Virginia lawmakers approved an extra $418 million last year to quicken the recovery.

19Officials in the state of Massachusetts set aside $3.2 million to provide math tutoring for fourth and eighth grade students who are behind grade level, along with $8 million for reading help.

20But among other states with slow progress, few said they were spending more to speed up improvement.

21In Virginia, the Alexandria School District received $2.3 million in additional state money to expand tutoring.

22Ana Maricela Ventura Moreno said her nine-year-old daughter, Sabrina, greatly benefited from extra reading help last year during second grade.

23But she is still catching up, her mother said.

24She needs to get better.

25She's not at the level she should be, the mother said in Spanish.

26She noted the school did not offer the tutoring help this year, but she did not know why.

27Alexandria education officials say students scoring below proficient receive high-intensity tutoring help.

28They also said they help students with the greatest needs.

29Among poorer students at Mount Vernon, just 24% scored proficient in math.

30Just 28% of them scored proficient in reading.

31That is far lower than the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates of the rates In Chicago public schools, the average reading score went up by the equivalent of 70% of a grade level from 2022 to 2023.

32Math gains increased less, with students still behind almost half a grade level compared with 2019.

33Chicago officials say the improvements were made possible because of the nearly $3 billion in federal relief money.

34With the funds, the district trained hundreds of people in Chicago to work as tutors.

35Every school building got an interventionist, an educator who centers on helping struggling students.

36The district also used federal money for home visits and expanded arts education.

37At Wells Preparatory Elementary, on the city's south side, just 3% of students met state reading standards in 2021.

38Last year, 30% met state standards.

39Federal relief funds permitted the school to hire an interventionist for the first time.

40Teachers get paid to work on student academic recovery outside working hours.

41Vincent Izwegbu is the principal at Wells.

42He said, We do not let 10 minutes go by without a teacher giving students the opportunity to engage with the subject.

43That's very, very important in terms of the growth that we've seen, Izwegbu added.

44I'm Dan Novak.

45And I'm Katie Weaver.