Schools are approaching four years since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. The third, full academic year since initial shutdown wrapped up this spring, and now the fourth is just around the corner. Students have been back in buildings, teachers back in their classrooms.
But pandemic interruption remains ever relevant. The data has not stopped saying so.
State assessment results released this week continue to illustrate a struggle for students to regain pre-pandemic ground. Figures from Delaware Department of Education on Tuesday showed average proficiency across all subjects trailing that of 2019, while straining to boost past last year.
If 2021-22 provided the first “baseline” for pandemic recovery, as described this time last year, it now allows Delaware to see a long road ahead for new progress.
The average English language arts proficiency across public and charter schools was 40% for 2023, just a 2% drop from 2022 and still over a dozen points behind pre-pandemic. Math earned 32% proficiency across Delaware students, up 2% from last year. This trudges behind 44% in 2019 for these third- through eighth-graders.
As scores rose slightly above last year’s in math, science and social studies tell varied stories.
Delaware looks at scores for fifth grade, eighth grade and high school biology when measuring performance in science. About one in five of these students were proficient on average, nearly steady with last year though high schoolers dropped by 4%. And in social studies, 26% of 11th-graders were proficient this year, up 2 points, with additional eighth-grade results to come.
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Turning to high school, Delaware uses the SATs for a statewide assessment.
Generally administered when students are in 11th grade, this test moved online for Delaware students just last year. Overall, 44% of students scored proficient or higher in the reading test, 23% in math and 42% on the essay portion. That’s a drop of 3% and 1% for reading and math, with a 4% bump for the essay test.
State assessments are just one measure of student progress, having been rattled during pandemic shutdown with low participation rates. However, these results offer some of the only consistent measurements of statewide performance down to the school level.
“We know recovery will take time, and we will not be deterred,” Secretary of Education Mark Holodick said in a statement with Tuesday’s results.
“We will continue to invest in the academic and non-academic supports students need so they can succeed in the classroom. To no one’s surprise, this effort will also require the work of everyone committed to Delaware students, including families, educators, community partners and beyond.”
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More takeaways from Delaware test results
Learning loss is still not felt equally in the First State.
These scores capture struggle and gains across Delaware students, but they also capture varied success among demographic groups. Though students are all individuals, such data can inform decision-making to come, as DDOE has noted.
In 2023, Black and Latino students continued to trail behind their white and Asian peers — a pattern, as previously reported by Delaware Online, that predates COVID-19. Even in 2015, the earliest year of assessment results online, these students weren’t led to perform above state average on these standardized tests. The same has rung true of students with disabilities or those still learning English.
This year showed similarly stark disparities.
In math, proficiency among Black students was less than half of their white counterparts. Those figures were 16% to 45%, while Latino students posted 23%. A similar disparity persists in English, with Black and Latino students trailing by 25% and 22% to white students. Asian students in Delaware performed above state average and fellow peers in both of these content areas — leaving a disparity in math as high as 55 percentage points ahead of Black students.
“A statewide assessment definitely can be difficult,” Deputy Secretary Cora Scott noted post-results. “But when you’re looking big-picture, what we’re trying to really push is that our schools and our districts are really digging into the data. I’m really looking at, where are you seeing promising practices and positive outcomes? And where are there areas of weakness that you might need to target support?”
Scott noted supports may take shape as more resources and interventions for lower-income learners, multilingual learners and more, as systems investigate their own results.
Delaware also administers an alternative assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities. The full data set for each assessment is available on the state’s data website, and families should have received their students’ reports last month by mail.
Not all negative news in Delaware results
The Department of Education did shout out some successes in the state, when digging into school and district performance data.
“We’re really taking a look at what’s happening at our school level and our district level because if we see the movement starting there, then we hope to see that momentum happening across the state,” said Theresa Bennett, Office of Assessment director, after the data release. “And we’ll see it eventually in the state-level scores as well.”
Lake Forest School District saw gains in both ELA and math — with one elementary school posting a 15-percentage-point growth in students scoring proficient or higher in English language arts and 13 in math. The department also nodded to Smyrna School District seeing double-digit “average scale score growth” from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic levels, when looking at performance level data in its grades three to eight assessments.
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“When we look at performance level changes statewide, we can see our students are growing,” Holodick’s statement noted.
But overall, Bennett cautioned perspective, no matter how removed pandemic shutdown may feel.
“When I was putting the data together, it dawned on me: This was our first full year without any disruptions,” she said. “It almost surprised me because it feels like it’s been a few years, but it really hasn’t been — so not making excuses but just trying to keep perspective so that our expectations are realistic.”
Look out for more coverage to come on Delaware’s 2022-23 statewide assessment results. Have a question you want us to look into? Let me know: kepowers@gannett.com.
Kelly Powers covers race, culture and equity for the USA TODAY Network’s Northeast Region and Delaware Online, with a focus on education. Contact her at kepowers@gannett.com or (231) 622-2191, and follow her on Twitter @kpowers01.
