Meeting the Needs of All Students When We Return to Learn-Part Two

Last week we discussed academics and the research of extending the school year. As a recap: the scholarly research suggests the effect of adding days to the school year is minimal. At the same time, we need to keep our options open, because there may in fact be some utility for extended instruction next year; at least for some of our students. All of this is of course in an effort to make up for lost learning. 

Very simply stated, some of that lost learning consists of concepts that weren't covered in the spring. For other [students] we are concerned with regression, or the idea that some skills might have been lost. If you have ever heard the term 'summer slide' that is precisely the concept we are grappling with during our extended closure, or in this case the so called 'COVID slide'. This is one of the many facets our instructors will be faced with when students return in August. The model below attempts to forecast that slowdown in learning by juxtaposing the scholarly research we have about summer slide, and then extending it to include this closure. 

The Forecast

This forecast and briefing has been published by NWEA. The NWEA is a reputable educational research organization, so when they publish papers they are informative. At a minimum they allow us the opportunity to generate conversation. Their briefing, published on April 20th uses statistical modeling to forecast the potential impact of school closures as a result of COVID-19. It uses modeling from known summer slide studies to make these predictions.

Collaborative for Student Growth: The COVID-19 slide: What summer learning loss can tell us

Dr. Megan Kuhfeld and Dr. Beth Tarasawa

First, it is important to understand exactly what this is we are looking at and what it isn't: It is a forecast model of what might happen. Sure, it's based on statistical analysis but it is important to remember that it is a forecast. Kind of like the weather, it is dependent on a number of variables. So, what does it tell us? Well, as an initial observation, it is based on a national projection that impacted 55.1 million students. Think about that for a moment. 55 million students were out of school this spring. Virtually every school in the country was shutdown and didn't return to school before summer. Remember the hashtag, #We'reAllInThisTogether? Indeed we are. It is important to keep that in mind when we start to worry that our students are behind. Behind whom? Our students are not behind. They are in the exact same position as every other student in the United States. The fact of the matter is, this wasn't just schools in the United States that were impacted either. This was essentially a worldwide shutdown of schools. 

In both charts, the two 'Y' axes are illustrative of the school closure due to COVID-19 (to the left), and the traditional last day of school (to the right). Each solid line shows typical student learning. You should note that the decline from the traditional last day of school accounts for what is known as the summer slide. The two dash lines that begin at the time of closure represent both a slowdown and a slide.

Mathematics appears to be forecast to have the greatest impact whereas reading suggest more stability. I could speculate about why I think that is, but won't do that here today. Another interesting observation is that students in upper grade levels appear to be impacted less. This would suggest to me that over time, this slide can be mitigated and corrected. That is good news.

So the question the becomes, what do we do with this? Check out Part Three of this series, which will be published next week.