(NewsNation) — Students who began their formal education during the COVID-19 pandemic are consistently behind historic trends and require more help to keep pace than their older counterparts did, new data reveals.
A Curriculum Associates study compared three years of reading and math results from the same subjects — the youngest being 3 years old at the beginning of collection in 2021 and the oldest roughly 9 — to historical education trends.
The data show that different age groups are wading through post-pandemic education in divergent ways, with older kids rebounding and sometimes excelling, while younger students were concerningly behind historical data in both subjects.
Older students, who were in fourth grade during the pandemic’s beginning, showcased only .1 standard deviation from historic trends as they recovered from 2021’s low…
