學區的疫情恢復並不像富人和窮人那麼簡單。
今年早些時候，研究人員與我們分享了第一個學區級別的數據，比較了大流行學校關閉之前和之後學生的考試成績。我們預期貧困地區的學生將進一步落後於富裕地區的學生，這通常是事實。但有些地區讓我們感到驚訝，例如這些電子表格中的地區。
一些通常被認為表現良好的地區——低貧困地區、郊區或以白人為主的地區——根本沒有從疫情中恢復過來。他們的學生表現仍然落後於 2019 年的水平。
我們探究了原因。在恢復強勁的貧困地區，具體策略正在幫助兒童康復。沒有復甦的富裕地區凸顯了美國教育的一個令人驚訝的事實：富裕地區的學校不一定比貧困地區的學校提供更高品質的教育。儘管這些學區擁有充足的資源和較高的考試成績，但它們仍無法彌補疫情造成的學習損失。
相反，其他數據顯示，富裕家庭和貧困家庭的學生之間的成績差距是由家庭資源決定的。它早在學生開學之前就開始了，學校本身並沒有採取太多措施來關閉它。 — 克萊爾·凱恩·米勒、莎拉·默沃什和弗朗西斯卡·帕里斯
School districts’ pandemic recoveries weren’t as simple as rich vs. poor.
Early this year, researchers shared with us the first school-district-level data comparing students’ test scores before and after pandemic school closures. We expected that students in poor districts would remain further behind students in rich districts, and that was generally true. But some districts surprised us, like those in these spreadsheets.
Some districts that are typically assumed to be high performing — low-poverty, suburban or mostly white — had not recovered from the pandemic at all. Their students were still performing behind where they were in 2019. On the other end, there were clusters of districts with high poverty where students had completely made up any ground lost during the pandemic.
We explored why. In poor districts with strong recoveries, specific strategies were helping children recover. And the rich districts with no recovery highlighted a surprising fact about American education: Schools in rich areas aren’t necessarily delivering higher-quality education than those in poorer areas. Despite these districts’ ample resources and high test scores, they have been unable to make up for pandemic learning losses.
Instead, other data shows, the achievement gap between students from rich and poor families is driven by family resources. It begins well before students start school, and schools themselves don’t do much to close it. — Claire Cain Miller, Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris
