COVID Effects on Schools Unclear in Most States

A majority of states grade out at a C or worse in their transparency of detailing the performance of their schools after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study released Thursday.

The 14-page report by Arizona State's Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) found that 35 states make it difficult for parents to find data to compare how far behind students are compared to the years before the pandemic.

At issue, CRPE wrote, is that "most states are failing to provide accessible, transparent longitudinal performance data — at a time when parents, advocates, and the general public need it most to address continued pandemic learning loss."

According to CRPE's report card:

• 7 states received As
• 9 states received Bs
• 13 states (plus Washington, D.C.) received Cs
• 8 states received Ds
• 13 states received Fs

Among the F grades, Maine, New Mexico and North Dakota earned 0 points of the 21 possible, according to CRPE.

"This rating is not necessarily because these states have terrible report cards. Indeed, New Mexico's report card is easy to navigate and visually appealing. Simply put, these states' report cards do not make longitudinal comparisons back to pre-COVID possible for the average user," CRPE wrote.

The lack of transparency impacts parents who are looking for new schools for their children or trying to improve the schools their kids attend, CRPE wrote.

"We have lots of suggestive evidence that parents don't understand the magnitude of the COVID-19 downturns in achievement or attendance, or at least aren't as concerned as experts think they should be. Is that because school report cards aren't leveling with parents about how these outcomes have changed since before the pandemic?" CRPE wrote.

"We've been doing testing and accountability for like two decades, and the fact that you still have so much data that's just missing, or even if it's there, you have to have a PhD in education policy, is problematic," Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at USC Rossier who led the CRPE research, told Axios.

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