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Covid-19 Education Research for Recovery

Displaying 1 - 10 of 96

U.S. public schools are engaged in an unprecedented effort to expand tutoring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Broad-based support for scaling tutoring emerged, in part, because of the large effects on student achievement found in prior meta-analyses. We conduct an expanded meta-analysis of 265 randomized control trials and explore how estimates change when we better align our sample with a policy-relevant target of inference: large-scale tutoring programs in the U.S. aiming to improve standardized test performance. Pooled effect sizes from studies with stronger target-equivalence remain meaningful but are only a third to a half as large as those from our full sample. This result is driven by stark declines in pooled effect sizes as program scale increases. We explore four hypotheses for this pattern and document how a bundled package of recommended design features serves to partially inoculate programs from these attenuated effects at scale. 

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We use data from the applications North Carolina public school districts and charter schools submitted for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) to investigate the sense that educational leaders made of the pandemic as it unfolded. LEAs understood the pandemic as a multifaceted problem. Nearly all applications addressed four problems: (1) public health, (2) academics and learning loss, (3) student and community well-being, and (4) instructional access. However, we document considerable variation in problem emphasis over time, across LEAs, and across organizational sector. The pandemic was not a single organizational problem, but many simultaneous problems posed in varying and shifting combinations. We argue this multi-faceted organizational view should be a starting point for assessments of LEAs’ pandemic response.

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This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on academic "redshirting" in kindergarten, the practice of holding a child back for a year and enrolling them in kindergarten at age 6, using student-level data on all Delaware kindergarten students from fall 2014 through fall 2022. The rate of redshirting declined by 40% in fall 2020, then increased by 44% (relative to pre-pandemic baseline) in fall 2021, and more for some subgroups of children traditionally less likely to redshirt. Further, redshirting was not restricted to children with summer birthdays, as in previous years, with growth seen across the age distribution. Redshirting had not returned to pre-pandemic baseline by fall 2022. These findings point to changes in the motivations for redshirting kindergarten students since the pandemic.

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Public school systems across the U.S. have made major investments in tutoring to support students’ academic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate a large urban district’s efforts to design, implement, and scale a district-operated, standards-based tutoring program across three years. We draw on extensive interviews and survey data to document the dynamic changes in the program as Metro Nashville Public Schools integrated core operations into its leadership and school structures, expanded tutor supply by pivoting from a volunteer to a teacher-based staffing model, and addressed scheduling constraints by offering tutoring immediately before and after school in addition to during the school day. The district steadily scaled the program across two years, delivering over 125,000 total hours of tutoring to more than 6,800 students while also increasing dosage each semester. Using a collection of experimental and quasi-experimental designs, we find consistent evidence of a small to medium average positive effect on students’ reading test scores (0.04 to 0.09 standard deviations), but no average effects on math test scores or course grades in either subject. We discuss four possible explanations for these results, including a limited treatment-control contrast, modest program duration, heterogeneous effects, and miscalibrated expectations of tutoring effects at scale.

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Brian A. Jacob.

This paper reports findings from a nationally representative survey of K-12 teachers in May 2023 that examines the potential long-term impacts of COVID-19 on public schooling. The findings suggest fundamental ways in which school operations, instructional practice and parent-teacher interaction have changed since the pandemic. Some changes seem promising; others suggest caution. While policymakers may not be able to directly influence some of the reported changes in the short run, monitoring the evolution of school practices (and their consequences for children) will position educational leaders to help teachers and students address the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic going forward.

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The immediate impacts of COVID-19 on K12 schooling are well known. Over nearly 18 months, students’ academic performance and mental health deteriorated dramatically. This study aims to identify if and how the pandemic led to longer-term changes in core aspects of schooling. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 31 teachers and administrators across 12 districts in two states, we find that schools today look quite different in several areas including the availability and use of instructional technology, instructional practice, parent-teacher communication, and the balance between academics and social-emotional well-being. We interpret these findings through the lens of institutional theory, and discuss implications of the changes for practitioners and policymakers.

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We study changes to teacher working conditions from 2016-17 to 2022-23, covering school years before, during, and after the COVID pandemic. We show working conditions were improving leading into the pandemic but declined when the pandemic arrived. Perhaps more surprisingly, the pandemic was not a low point: teacher working conditions have continued to decline during the post-pandemic period. Teachers report worsening working conditions along many dimensions including the level of classroom disruptions, student responsibility, and safety, among others. They also report declines in trust between themselves and principals, parents, and other teachers. Trends in working conditions since the pandemic are similar in schools serving more and less socioeconomically advantaged students. However, schools in districts where online learning was the predominant mode of instruction during the 2020-21 school year have experienced larger declines than other schools.

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Scaling up evidence-based educational interventions to improve student outcomes presents challenges, particularly in adapting to new contexts while maintaining fidelity. Structured teacher adaptations that integrate the strengths of experimental science (high fidelity) and improvement science (high adaptation) offer a viable solution to bridge the research-practice divide. This preregistered randomized controlled trial study examines the effectiveness of structured teacher adaptations in a Tier 1 content literacy intervention delivered through asynchronous and synchronous methods during COVID-19 on Grade 3 students’ (N = 1,914) engagement in digital app and print-based reading activities, student-teacher interactions, and learning outcomes. Our structured teacher adaptations achieved higher average outcomes and minimal treatment heterogeneity across schools, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the intervention rather than undermining it.

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Budget constraints and limited supplies of local tutors have caused many K-12 school districts to pivot from individual tutoring in-person toward small-group tutoring online to expand access to personalized instruction. We conduct a field experiment to explore the effect of increasing student-tutor ratios on middle school students’ math achievement and growth during an online tutoring program. We leverage a novel feature of the program where tutors often taught individual and small-group tutoring sessions, allowing them to directly compare their experiences across these settings. Both experimental estimates and tutor survey responses suggest 1:1 tutoring is more effective than 3:1 tutoring online. Tutoring small groups in an online format presents additional challenges for personalizing instruction, developing relationships, fostering participation, and managing student behavior.

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In-person tutoring has been shown to improve academic achievement. Though less well-researched, virtual tutoring has also shown a positive effect on achievement but has only been studied in grade five or above. We present findings from the first randomized controlled trial of virtual tutoring for young children (grades K-2). Students were assigned to 1:1 tutoring, 2:1 tutoring, or a control group. Assignment to any virtual tutoring increased early literacy skills by 0.05-0.08 SD with the largest effects for 1:1 tutoring (0.07-0.12 SD). Students initially scoring well below benchmark and first graders experienced the largest gains from 1:1 tutoring (0.15 and 0.20 SD, respectively). Effects are smaller than typically seen from in-person early literacy tutoring programs but still positive and statistically significant, suggesting promise particularly in communities with in-person staffing challenges.

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