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Some School Divisions Successfully Mitigated COVID Learning Losses in Math

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sherlockj
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by James C. Sherlock

Congratulations are in order.

Some school divisions, spread around the state, did a terrific job in mitigating mathematics learning losses during COVID.

I picked math for its baseline importance in school and in life and the relative inability for students to advance in that subject without instruction, compared to reading and writing.

In trying to measure those losses with available data, I have compared division math SOL pass rates in 2021-22 to those in the last pre-pandemic year of 2018-19.

I believe it to be a good measure of successful teacher instruction, the learning environments at home, and in school and student effort.

That standard produced an eclectic and in some ways surprising list of divisions with the lowest learning losses.

I list below the divisions that realized single digit math learning losses during COVID.

You will note that it is not necessarily the divisions with the highest math SOL scores, or the usual list of high performers, that pulled this off.

These represent the top 17 of 132 (13%) school divisions in this category.

Well done.

Those with the biggest losses – the bottom 10%:

Again, an eclectic list relative to the 2018-19 starting point.

For the entire list, see here.

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21 responses to “Some School Divisions Successfully Mitigated COVID Learning Losses in Math”

  1. Lefty665 Avatar
    Lefty665

    I picked math for its baseline importance in school and in life and the
    relative inability for students to advance in that subject without
    instruction compared to reading and writing.

    What??? How does one advance without instruction in how to read and write? Do you consider it an “advance” for an illiterate product of our education system to fall into a subsistence living peddling drugs on a street corner?

    Math is terribly important, but focusing on it over reading and writing because you think it is more important than reading and writing? WTF?

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      You seem pretty worked up.

      Reading, once learned – and by syllabus every student is supposed to be able to read at the completion of the third grade – can be practiced at leisure for the rest of one’s life. Most people learn to read better by reading. School books not required.

      To make that point, I will share the reading learning loss chart that I developed for the same years. You will see that the losses across the board were much less severe than in reading. https://www.baconsrebellion.com/app/uploads/2022/09/Reading-Master-SOL-division-by-subject-2016-2022-copy.xlsx

      What reading learning losses there were should at least by syllabus have surfaced in K-3 kids, and they do not take SOLs until the spring of 3rd grade.

      The reason we have invested in all of the reading coaches (to teach teachers how to teach reading) and specialists (for the students) is because (1) so many kids don’t meet the standard; and (2) being unable to read at the end of the 3rd grade makes learning past that point very difficult. The rest of the syllabus assumes kids read to learn.

      A key to reading and math problems is that kids continued to be promoted during COVID without learning as much as they should have. So some of it was learning loss, some of it failure to acquire new learning.

      In math, kids are supposed to learn how to multiply by the end of the third grade. But just because a student learns how to multiply does not mean he can learn to do geometry, or trig, or calculus at home.

      Math, you must admit, is not generally taught, learned and practiced at home. That is why the math learning losses were so much more pronounced.

      I had chosen reading SOL differentials to illustrate school-related learning loss (or lack of it), it would have been a legitimate critique that students can maintain reading skills without ever seeing the inside of a classroom or taking virtual instruction.

      So I chose math as the example. Long answer to a short question, or rather a short WTF.

      Maybe I’ll take some time and make this an article.

      1. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        Worked up? NO, gobsmacked that after all the discussions at BR you chose to use math instead of reading as the measure of education.

        “by syllabus every student is supposed to be able to read at the completion of the third grade…I picked math for its baseline importance in school and in life and the
        relative inability for students to advance in that subject without instruction compared to reading and writing.”

        That’s nice, but by all the measures we have of actual performance many schools are not teaching all kids to read and write, much less to read and write proficiently. Those measures, that you have cited several times, include SOLs and other data that demonstrate profound reading deficits.

        “By syllabus” what a hoot. How jesuit of you. A production supervisor who worked for me for many years often observed, “It’s not what you expect, it’s what you inspect that gets done”.Syllabus=Expect SOLs/other data=Inspect.

        People who cannot read have no good future. Period. Many of our school systems do not teach scary proportions of their students how to read, and most do not teach most of their kids to read proficiently. That is the “baseline”.

        On a functional level people who can read can learn the basic math needed for daily living, but people cannot use math to learn how to read.

        1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
          James C. Sherlock

          Seriously? Did you bother to read my response.

          I went into detail about why I chose math over reading as a more definitive measure of school-related learning loss, and gave you the data on reading learning losses.

          You have chosen to pretend that I don’t consider reading important. You are nuts.

          1. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            No, I do not pretend anything. What I am sure of is that you chose the wrong subject to use as your example. Your response to me was just more blather and rationalization.

            Reading is unquestionably the most important skill our schools need to teach to all students. It is the fundamental skill kids must have to be able to learn other subjects including math.

            The ad hominem attack on me you close with demonstrates that in addition to being no Holmes, you are no gentleman either. Congress erred with your appointment Admiral.

            If you do another post using reading as the focus I’d give you some thumbs up and atta boys. Presuming, of course, that you don’t screw it up as you’re so fond of doing with foolishness like the “By syllabus” stuff.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I’ve noticed the same thing in some of your prior posts. Curious and looks like some divisions and schools actually had a “plan” and others not? And correlation with in-person or virtual?

    Finally, any correlation with respect to reading/writing? i.e. the schools that did good with math – did they also do well with reading/writing?

    oh please note, I’m not the first “breathless” commenter and the questions are purely technical and un-“leftist”.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      2020-21 was hard for everyone.

      The schools were not ready for remote instruction and some did it better than others. Some had school populations more zoom-ready than others.

      Nearly every school district executed different return to in-person policies. Some of them brought back to in-person only kids with IEPs. Some only brought back kids with other kinds of special needs. Some returned to in-person half a week, etc. Some brought everybody back in school months ahead of others.

      So, seeking an artifact that tries to show how with all that some prevented learning loss better than others.

      As I told Lefty, some of what we are calling learning loss was never learned. That is because grade promotions continued apace throughout COVID. Graduation rates actually increased because of the suspension of SOL requirements for graduation.

      It is a generational disaster. In some school divisions less than others.

      Read my explanation to Lefty of why I picked math and check out the reading learning loss numbers that I shared with him.

      1. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        and please read my posts on why Sherlock’s choice was nonsense.

      2. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        and please read my posts on why Sherlock’s choice was nonsense.

  3. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    Falls Church must have something good going on. The high performance cannot be all socio economics. My bet is the teachers figured it out. I would love to know what was done.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      You are right. Nothing is all socio-economics, or all of those poor urban Black and Hispanic kids in Success Academies would not be the most accomplished students in New York State.

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I grew up in Falls Church, but I have no idea what is going on there now except by statistical evidence.

      What was then named George Mason H.S. took the Authoritative School Climate Survey in 2020. The results were pretty much off the charts positive.

      https://www.baconsrebellion.com/app/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-22-at-3.28.38-PM.png

      It is now Meridian H.S.

      1. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        “It is now Meridian H.S.”

        They renamed it because George Mason owned slaves.

        Falls Church is woke. We’ll see how long it takes for that to erode their educational performance.

        1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
          James Wyatt Whitehead

          Mason was ultra-woke for his times. One of my favorite Virginians. Meridian High? I wonder where that name came from?

          1. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            Yeah, Mason was the old guy who kept all the young hot heads on the same page against the British and not squabbling among themselves. That and the Virginia Declaration of Rights were his major contributions to the Revolution and Country. He was a pretty special fellow. I was pleased to go to a school named after him.

            Grade school I went to was Madison. It’s long since closed so they likely won’t rename that.

            Don’t think I care to know why they chose what must be a wonderfully woke moniker to replace GM.

    3. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I grew up in Falls Church, but I have no idea what is going on there now except by statistical evidence.

      What was then named George Mason H.S. took the Authoritative School Climate Survey in 2020. The results were pretty much off the charts positive.

      https://www.baconsrebellion.com/app/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-22-at-3.28.38-PM.png

      It is now Meridian H.S.

    4. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Could it be that the Northam administration worked with Secretary DeVos to put enhanced accreditation standards in place and that those teachers are following the resulting procedures?

    5. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Could it be that the Northam administration worked with Secretary DeVos to put enhanced accreditation standards in place and that those teachers are following the resulting procedures?

    6. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Falls Church has cared about and invested in schools since its founding in the late ’40s. Schools were the primary reason it separated from Fairfax County. At the time Fairfax had bad schools. Falls Church has been working at education consistently for almost 75 years, and it shows.

      Although Sherlock “grew up in Falls Church” according to his past statements he did not attend Falls Church schools. He has no first hand experience in them. His claim is meaningless to the discussion. I lived in Falls Church and was in Falls Church schools from grades 1-12. While I did not much appreciate them at the time, the schools did a pretty good job educating me and preparing me to grow up and move on (or not depending on what you think of my posts on BR).

      I know nothing of them in the 50+ years since I graduated beyond seeing that they have maintained their ranking as the best, or very close to the best, school system in the state.

      That Falls Church cares about education and has backed that with committing the resources to achieve educational excellence is a pretty straightforward path to getting results. That may not be available to all school systems. Having a mostly educated, and in many cases highly educated, populace certainly helps with many kids getting a good head start, measuring outcomes and willingness to make the long term investment in schools.

      There are a few less urban/rural and less resourced systems that have achieved surprisingly good results. They may be a better model to study to figure out what they have done right and to replicate around the state.

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    “It was the American Revolution that caused people to question slavery. No one had questioned it before we decided as Americans that we are endowed by our creator with unalienable rights.”

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Amazing that we’re depersoning the folks who had that revolutionary vision, as in Falls Church renaming it’s HS from George Mason to Meridian.

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