Learning During COVID-19: Reading and Math Achievement

This resource is provided by ACSA Partner4Purpose NWEA. 

At the start of the 2020-21 school year, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to inflict massive disruptions on all aspects of daily life, presenting educators, students, and their families with enormous challenges, even as many schools began to reopen. Thus, a critical question is: to what extent did these disruptions affect students’ achievement?

In December of 2020, the NWEA research team released a report summarizing how students fared academically during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, as measured by the NWEA MAP Growth assessment. Initial findings showed that impacts of the pandemic were concentrated in math: reading achievement in fall of 2020 was consistent with the prior year, but average math achievement was 5 to 10 percentile points lower than the previous fall.

This brief continues NWEA’s ongoing research agenda examining the impacts of COVID-19 on education outcomes.