COVID-19 Impact & Recovery
October 2022 Update
Damian Betebenner & Adam VanIwaarden — Center for Assessment
Hawaii DOE
November 30th, 2022
Background
Introductory Concepts and Terminology
COVID-19 Pandemic
• The COVID-19 Pandemic led to, arguably, the largest educational disruption in
the history of the United States.
• Two-and-a-half years into the pandemic and the impacts of the pandemic are
still being felt.
• The pandemic impacted students academically, emotionally, physically, and
financially.
• In this overview, we focus address three things:
• Academic Impact: What is it and what was happened to students in Hawaii?
• Academic Recovery: What is it and what is happening to students in Hawaii
currently?
• Now What?: How can impact and recovery data be leveraged to help
students going forward? Evidence-based investigations of what is working.
What is Academic Impact?
• The pandemic and all the ensuing disruptions functioned/
functions as an “academic headwind”, impeding (in general)
the academic progress of students.
• Headwinds impede progress in two ways:
▪ They slow one’s rate of progress (speedometer)
▪ And by slowing one’s rate of progress, less distance is traveled (odometer).
• In education, these two impediments manifest as:
▪ Decrease in student growth (i.e., decrease in velocity = deceleration).
▪ Decrease in student attainment.
Learning acceleration/deceleration
• Summarization of assessment data (either for diagnostic or
accountability purposes) emphasizes two types of data results: Status
(i.e., student attainment) and Growth (i.e., student academic progress)
• With the pandemic, the emphasis has changed to look at the
academic impact
• Impact is synonymous with declaration
• Recovery is synonymous with acceleration
▪ Deceleration, by definition, is the change in velocity (i.e., a decrease in growth)
▪ Acceleration, by definition, is the change in velocity (i.e., increase in growth
▪ To understand whether and the extent to which recovery is occurring,
one must understand the magnitude of impact.
Assessment Data
• We investigated the impacts of the pandemic across two time frames:
• Impact: Spring 2020 through Summer 2021
• Recovery: Fall 2021 through Summer 2022
• To investigate the impact, we utilized two primary sources of data
• State summative assessment data (Smarter Balanced)
• Impact: SBA Spring 2019 to Spring 2021 (Smarter Balanced
testing canceled in 2020)
• Recovery: Smarter Balanced Spring 2021 to Spring 2022
• State English Language Proficiency Data (ACCESS)
• Impact: ACCESS Winter 2020 to Winter 2021
• Recovery: ACCESS Winter 2021 to Winter 2022
Assessment Data
• We investigated academic impact by using two complementary
analyses:
• Change in attainment (odometer): Equi-percentile scale score
change (all grades)
• Change in growth (speedometer): Baseline referenced student
growth percentile change (grades for which growth is calculated)
Impact
From Spring 2020 to Summer 2021
Smarter Balanced: Spring 2019 and Spring 2021 Assessments
ACCESS: Winter 2020 and Winter 2021 Assessments
Status Impact
Black Line: 2019 (pre-covid) scaled-score
distribution.
Red line: 2021 scaled-score distribution.
The impact of the pandemic on student
achievement (decrease) is illustrated as the area
between the black line (top) and the red line
(bottom)
X-axis: Grade 7 percentile rank
The horizontal distance between the curves at
the proficiency cut level (horizontal dashed blue
line) illustrates the decrease in the percent
proficient.
A dotted red line indicates the distribution of
scores, including missing students derived
through multiple imputations.
Status Impact
Red line: 2021-2019 scaled-score distribution
difference.
The impact of the pandemic (difference in the
distributions) on student achievement
(decrease) is indicated by the red line.
X-axis: Grade 7 percentile rank
Average impact z = -0.18 standard units.
A dotted red line indicates the distribution of
scores, including missing students derived
through multiple imputations.
Larger impact for high-achieving students than
lower-achieving students.
Growth Impact
Black Line: (pre-covid) conditional scaled-score
distribution — Grade 7/2019 conditioned on Grade
Red line: conditional scaled-score distribution — Grade
7/2021 conditioned on Grade 5/2019
The impact of the pandemic on student achievement
(decrease) is illustrated as the area between the black
line (top) and red line (bottom)
X-axis: Grade 5 Scaled Score
Fixing a level on the x-axis, the vertical distance between
the curves is the average decrease in scale score
associated with the pandemic for a student at that 5th
grade level
A dotted red line indicates the distribution of scores
including missing students derived through multiple
imputation.
Growth Impact
Red line: SGP Difference Grade 7/2021 - Grade
5/2019 conditional scaled score distribution
X-axis: Grade 5 Scaled Score
Median SGP 2019 Grade 7: 50
Median SGP 2021 Grade 7: 30
Top quintile students median SGP dropped
from 50 to 19, whereas bottom quintile
students dropped from 51 to 46.
Summary
We summarize the academic impact both
overall and by achievement quintile
For Grade 7 mathematics, the overall
academic impact for students was large (z
decrease = -0.18 and median SGP decrease
Academic impact was not uniform across
students. For this grade/content area,
higher-achieving students were more
severely impacted than lower-achieving
students.
Overall Impact
• ELA
• Decreases in the percent proficient ranged from upper single digits in lower grades to
lower single digits in higher grades.
• Median (baseline) SGPs ranged from mid-30s (lower grades) to lower 40s (higher
grades)
• Impacts were categorized as moderate to large
• Mathematics
• Decreases in percent proficient were in the lower teens
• Median (baseline) SGPs ranged from the mid-teens to the upper 20s.
• Impacts were categorized as large to severe
• Moderate, large, and severe impacts likely require multiple years of above-average (pre-
pandemic) growth to recover to where students would have been had the pandemic not
occurred.
Recovery
From Fall 2021 to Summer 2022
Smarter Balanced: Spring 2021 and Spring 2022 Assessments
ACCESS: Winter 2021 and Winter 2022 Assessments
Recovery Phase
• During the 2021-2022 academic year, schooling returned to normal for most
students.
• The hope was that a return to normal would lead to recovery of the academic
losses incurred by students.
• Because learning slowed during the initial phase of the pandemic, to make up for
those losses, learning must accelerate to rates above normal in order to catch up
for those losses.
• Data from two sources was utilized to examine whether recovery is occurring:
• Smarter Balanced data from 2021 and 2022
• WIDA-ACCESS data from 2021 and 2022
Four Academic
Recovery
Scenarios with
SBA: V-, U-, L-, and
No-recovery
Baseline SGP: What is Recovery?
• Given the negative pandemic impacts, any recovery implies learning
acceleration.
• However, not all acceleration can be considered recovery
• Acceleration versus 2021 versus acceleration versus 2019
V-Shaped Recovery (> 60)
60 U-Shaped Recovery (50 to 60)
Median 2021 Baseline SGP 50 Median 2022 Baseline SGP
L-Shaped “Recovery” (40 to 50)
Note: Any median SGP above 30
Downward Spiral (< 40) in 2022 would be considered
20 acceleration. But only values
above 50 would be sufficient to
begin catching students up to
where they would have been
absent the pandemic.
Status Recovery
Black Line: 2021 (covid) scaled-score
distribution.
Red line: 2022 scaled-score distribution.
The recovery from the pandemic on
student achievement (increase) is
illustrated as the area between the black
line (bottom) and the red line (top)
X-axis: Grade 5 percentile rank
The horizontal distance between the curves
at the proficiency cut level (horizontal
dashed blue line) illustrates the increase in
percent proficient.
Status Recovery
Red line: 2022 - 2021 scaled-score
distribution difference.
The recovery from the pandemic
(difference in the distributions) on
student achievement (increase) is
indicated by the red line.
X-axis: Grade 5 percentile rank
Average impact z = +0.23 standard
units.
Larger recovery for high achieving
students than lower achieving students.
Growth Recovery
Black Line: (pre-covid) conditional scaled-score
distribution — Grade 5/2019 conditioned on
Grade 4/2018
Red line: conditional scaled-score distribution
— Grade 5/2022 conditioned on Grade 4/2021
The recovery from the pandemic on student
achievement (increase) is illustrated as the area
between the black line (bottom) and the red
line (top)
X-axis: Grade 4 Scaled Score
Fixing a level on the x-axis, the vertical distance
between the curves is the average increase in
scale score associated with the recovery for a
student at that 5th-grade level.
Growth Recovery
Red line: SGP Difference Grade
5/2022 - Grade 4/2021
conditional scaled score
distribution
X-axis: Grade 4 Scaled Score
Median SGP 2019 Grade 5: 50
Median SGP 2022 Grade 5: 65
The largest acceleration in
growth was seen for quintiles 1
to 4, with median SGPs ranging
from 65 to 69.
Summary
We summarize the academic impact both
overall and by achievement quintile
For Grade 7 mathematics, the overall
academic impact for students was large (z
decrease = -0.18 and median SGP decrease =
Academic impact was not uniform across
students. For this grade/content area,
higher-achieving students were more
severely impacted than lower-achieving
students.
Overall Recovery
• Analysis of 2022 Smarter Balanced and ACCESS data indicates many
trends in Hawaii to be happy about.
• In both ELA and mathematics, learning acceleration was at least at the
level of stabilization and, in many cases, could be considered genuine
recovery.
• Compared to a dozen other states where the Center conducted these
analyses, Hawaii comes out as the best in terms of pandemic recovery.
• Results from the 2023 data will be critical to assess whether these
exemplary rates of learning (beyond what the state experience pre-
COVID) are being maintained.
Academic Impact/Recovery Across 6 States
Impact & Recovery
Mathematics
HI4 ELA
15 HI6
HI5
Hawaii showed large impacts 10
HI8
HI7
Recovery
HI4
and large recovery 5
HI3
HI5
HI6
HI8
HI7
Hawaii’s academic recovery 0 HI3
Academic Recovery
results are the best I have seen −5
nationally −10
A critical “test” of this recovery −20
will be the 2023 results. If rates −25
Deterioration
of learning in 2023 extend those −30
of 2022, then Hawaii will have −35
come out of the pandemic −40
better than before it started
Large Impact Academic Impact Improvement
Now What
Leveraging Assessment Data to Help Students Overcome COVID-19 Academic Impacts
Exemplar Schools: Impact & Recovery
• Original discussions about examining ROI were redirected to examine Return on
Activities:
• Identify outlier schools in terms of impact/recovery.
• Investigate whether activities (or lack thereof) could potentially be responsible
for the school’s outlier status.
• For schools with plausible activities leading to exemplary recovery, investigate
links to relevant investment/funding.
• Step 1 is to find these outlier schools.
• We investigated schools along two dimensions:
• Academic Impact (2019 to 2021 decrease in student learning)
• Academic Recovery (2021 to 2022 increase in student learning relative to pre-
pandemic 2018-2019 learning)
Exemplar Schools: Impact & Recovery
• As can be seen, Hawaii and its schools experienced a largely positive 2021-2022
• We’ve created Excel spreadsheets with the identified schools to help to sort
through the many potential criteria to use to select exemplar schools
• As we discussed in Portsmouth, there was some concern that of low motivation
leading to poor results. To examine we filtered on students with very low to very
high and very high to very low growth.
• Filtering out these students led to non-appreciable changes to the impact-
recovery examinations of schools.
About this copy
COVID-19 Impact & Recovery — Idaho Technical Advisory Committee, November 1, 2022.
This is an image-based copy of the original Keynote slides; builds and animations are flattened.