In May 2023, the RESTART Network hosted a two-day in-person forum to discuss accelerating student learning, fostering student connectedness and social and emotional learning, and emerging research related to pandemic recovery. The forum brought together researchers, policymakers, leaders, and practitioners from across the country to share their knowledge, perspectives, and experiences. 

From the paper: "Since the pandemic started in March 2020, multiple reports have highlighted large declines in students’ math and reading achievement as well as widening gaps by race and school poverty. If allowed to become permanent, such losses will have major impacts on future earnings and intergenerational mobility. We use student-level data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools from 49 states (plus D.C.) to compare students’ achievement growth during the pandemic (Fall 2019 to Fall 2021) to a pre-pandemic period (Fall 2017 to Fall 2019).

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.