Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio Are those education declining numbers available per State? It would be interesting to see how it matches with closure policies.
Bottom Line: This is a great question that came on the back of the recent, initial, results showing surprise, surprise – children suffered severe educational declines due to schools being shut down during the pandemic. As I cited last week, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress, aka, “the Nation’s Report Card”, we’ve failed. While the total average score decline was the worst in 32 years, the decline in mathematics was the worst on record. According to the National Center for Education Statistics: Our own data reveal the pandemic’s toll on education in other ways, including increases in students seeking mental health services, absenteeism, school violence and disruption, cyberbullying, and nationwide teacher and staff shortages. Right, so every existing concern and problem with students, independent of learning loss – is worse as well. And as the focus is currently on teacher shortages, there’s evidence the fallout from pandemic policy is also to blame. According to Columbia University, the loss of learning was so severe, that the average student will never catch up by the time they complete their education. Now, specific to your question we haven’t had the state specific information broken out by the assessment yet, however we do have a lot of supporting evidence which provides an answer to your question.
The most recent state specific information provided by the National Assessment of Education Progress is from 2019. It’s relevant because it provides a baseline as to where states were performing heading into the pandemic. Here’s the potential surprise for you. Where would you have thought Florida ranked educationally in the National Assessment in 2019? Here are the top states ranked by performance:
- Minnesota
- Massachusetts
- Virginia
- Florida
That’s right, Florida ranked 4th best in National Assessment Education outcomes prior to heading into the pandemic. Florida’s educational progress has largely focused on record graduation rates in recent years, however the improvement in performance generally has probably been understated. All told Florida’s performance was 2.5% better than the national average with 87% of students testing at or above basic with 48% testing proficient in the assessment at the 4th grade level which is deemed to be the biggest indicator of future educational outcomes. By way of comparison, over the previous twenty years Florida had advanced from one of the worst in the country in the national assessment, to above average in 2015, to 4th overall by 2019. It’s a great story. So about post pandemic performance. Here’s what we do know. Only 18% of students were shown to have performed at least as well with the remote learning model as they did with classroom education. That means states which kept schools closed longer would have had the greatest losses in performance. And with all three states ahead of Florida being states led by Democrat governors who allowed schools to be closed longer – you might imagine Florida could have advanced. And we did.
There’s a different annual report card comparing education across states, and it has been updated for this year. It’s the Report Card on American Education. According to the most recent results Florida’s now 2nd in overall K-12 education. Yes, second. That includes having the best performance derived from school choice, remote learning and a tie for first with teacher performance. Interestingly, Florida’s success with Florida’s Virtual School, the largest of its kind in the country, was something I mentioned even during the remote learning days as a potential positive to have an edge in fire drill that was the pandemic shift to remote learning. There’s evidence our students didn’t suffer even to the same degree as other states with that model as a result. And what state was the only state to beat us out most recently? Arizona. Another state led by a Republican governor who fought the teacher’s unions to keep schools open as much as possible. And how about Minnesota, with a blue governor who went along with the school lockdowns requested by the teachers’ unions? They’ve fallen to 15th. So yes, there’s ample evidence of a direct connection in the performance between states based on educational pandemic policy.
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Gettr, Parler & Twitter: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.