by James C. Sherlock
Congratulations are in order.
Some school divisions, spread around the state, did a terrific job in mitigating mathematics learning losses during COVID.
I picked math for its baseline importance in school and in life and the relative inability for students to advance in that subject without instruction, compared to reading and writing.
In trying to measure those losses with available data, I have compared division math SOL pass rates in 2021-22 to those in the last pre-pandemic year of 2018-19.
I believe it to be a good measure of successful teacher instruction, the learning environments at home, and in school and student effort.
That standard produced an eclectic and in some ways surprising list of divisions with the lowest learning losses.
I list below the divisions that realized single digit math learning losses during COVID.
You will note that it is not necessarily the divisions with the highest math SOL scores, or the usual list of high performers, that pulled this off.
These represent the top 17 of 132 (13%) school divisions in this category.
Well done.
Those with the biggest losses – the bottom 10%:
Again, an eclectic list relative to the 2018-19 starting point.
For the entire list, see here.
