This article was originally published in The Texas Tribune.
Students who returned to school during or after the COVID-19 pandemic may find it harder to say goodbye to their parents when they drop them off, said Robert McClain, principal at Plains Independent School District.
Teacher Heather Harris says third-graders are behind in reading, so the school district hired a reading expert to work with their youngest students.
They also struggle with math, says San Antonio ISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino.
“When I walk into classes with students who are currently in fourth or fifth grade, who were in kindergarten or first grade, [during the pandemic]“You see there is a lack of mathematical fluency around basic facts,” he said.
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School administrators, educators and education policy experts in Texas say they’re seeing troubling signs that students in the earliest grades aren’t doing as well academically as children who attended school before the pandemic. State and federal officials have dedicated significant resources to helping students hurt by the pandemic, but they’ve focused primarily on older children whose education has been disrupted. Experts worry that the state’s youngest students will have a harder time catching up without intervention.
A recent study from Curriculum Associates Research looked at national academic growth trends over the past four years and compared them to pre-pandemic data. It found that younger students, such as those entering kindergarten or first grade in 2021, were the furthest behind in both reading and math compared to their pre-pandemic peers.
The report says these students may be struggling because of disruptions in their early childhood experiences, problems developing foundational skills like phonics or number recognition, challenges participating in virtual learning during the pandemic, or insufficient resources to serve children in the earliest grades.
Aquino, San Antonio ISD superintendent, said attendance in the lower grades is lower than before the pandemic, which is affecting fundamental learning.
“We told families to stay home during the pandemic. Now we are sending the message: You have to go to school,” Aquino said.
Low pre-K enrollment during the pandemic could be another factor. Children who attend pre-K are nearly twice as likely to be ready for kindergarten, said Miguel Solis, president of the nonprofit education research organization Commit Partnership.
In the 2019-2020 school year, there were 249,226 students enrolled in preschool in Texas, according to state data. That number dropped by nearly 50,000 the following year.
Low academic achievement can worsen in ways that are increasingly difficult to fix. Harris, the Plains ISD teacher, said it’s hard for third-graders who fall behind to catch up because their teachers likely can’t spend much time helping them develop foundational skills they should already have learned.
“From kindergarten through second grade you learn to read, and then from third grade on you read to learn. So there’s this huge shift in what you’re teaching,” she said.
Mary Lynn Pruneda, an education analyst at the public policy think tank Texas 2036, said the Curriculum Associates Research study raises concerns about young students, but a lack of data makes it difficult to gauge the impact in Texas.
“We have very limited data on how younger students do that is consistent across grade levels,” Pruneda said.
Without data to diagnose the problem, she says, students continue to suffer poor results on the state standardized test.
There are some clues as to how the problem might play out in Texas. In Dallas County, for example, the declines in math and reading scores between 2023 and 2024 were most acute among third-graders, who would have been in kindergarten during the pandemic, Solis said.
Solis said the state needs to start collecting literacy data for early grades to identify students who are off track and intervene. He’s hopeful because some lawmakers in both the Texas House and Senate have already expressed interest in taking a closer look at how young students learn foundational skills, he said.
“We can’t wait until STAAR’s third grade to see how the younger students progress,” he said.
Pruneda said one step Texas can take to reverse the trend is to increase spending in public education — something educators are desperate for — to help school districts hire and retain the best possible teachers. The principals of both Plains and San Antonio ISDs said it’s critical that the Texas Legislature approve a significant funding boost next year after lawmakers failed to do so last year amid the fight over school vouchers.
High-impact tutoring, such as that required by law for grades 3 through 8, can also help students in the lower grades, she said.
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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/09/texas-early-childhood-education-pandemic/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom that informs and engages Texans in the state’s politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
