From the brief: "The need is obvious: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted schools across the country, negatively impacting student learning, especially for students of color and students experiencing poverty. While there is some debate about the appropriateness of the term “learning loss,” what is clear from recently released reports about achievement on standardized tests is that students are behind their pre-pandemic peers in math and reading... the American Rescue Plan (ARP), provides $122 billion to states, $110 billion of which must go to districts.

From the paper: "Our findings highlight the challenges that recovery efforts faced during the 2021–22 school year. Although, on average, math and reading test score gains during the school year reached the pace of pre-pandemic school years, they were not accelerated beyond that pace. In the districts where we had detailed data on student participation in academic interventions, we found that recovery efforts often fell short of original expectations for program scale, intensity of treatment, and impact.

From the report: "With the rapid closures of schools following the COVID-19 pandemic, the dissemination of information was chaotic and, at times, unavailable. Additionally, as families began to understand the closures would continue through the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year, these same problems persisted. ...almost half of the districts did not provide information regarding grading procedures for assignments/tasks/assessments.