Kelly Coker, COO of Brightlane Learning, an Indianapolis nonprofit that tutors students experiencing homelessness. Photo provided by Brightlane Learning
Fighting learning loss
The state is investing up to $111 million that will support early literacy development by aligning teaching techniques with the science of reading.
• Instructional coaches will continue to provide targeted support for educators across the state, helping students build reading skills.
• The state has launched Indiana Learns, a statewide grant program that provides qualifying families with up to $1,000 for math and English/language arts high-dosage tutoring and approved out-of-school academic programs.
• Schools can partner with Schoolhouse.world to remove financial barriers to tutoring opportunities.
• Educators can receive instructional coaching through an initiative to provide extra support to schools in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) instruction.
• Teachers have access to a first-of-its-kind partnership with Get Your Teach On, which provides educators with interactive professional development and support.
• The Indiana Learning Lab will offer educators and families expanded online resources in literacy, STEM, digital, special education and English learner instruction.
INDIANAPOLIS — Kelly Coker could see the writing on the wall in March 2020, when schools across the state closed their doors and implemented virtual learning to combat the COVID pandemic.
She knew students would suffer, particularly the homeless children she worked with at Brightlane Learning, formerly known as School on Wheels.
Coker, who heads the Indianapolis nonprofit that tutors hundreds of students dealing with home instability, said every educator in Indiana predicted the same scenario after shifting to online classes. “We knew this is going to be challenging for students, and more so for our most vulnerable students,” she said. “And I think the challenge was the fact we could see it happening while it was happening.”
The learning loss that educators watched unfold for two years has been formally detailed in The Nation's Report Card released last month by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The results come from tests administered to hundreds of thousands of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country for the first time since 2019. It’s seen as the first nationally representative study of the pandemic’s impact on learning. In Indiana, nearly 7,000 students took the test.
Across the country, math scores had their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth-graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in average test scores.
For state educators, the numbers are alarming but not surprising.
In fact, the biggest shock is that Indiana students actually fared better than those in most states, said Dave Driggs, superintendent at Tri-Central Community Schools in Tipton County.
“Quite honestly, maybe it’s a little better than what we thought it might be,” he said.
BY THE NUMBERS
The most positive highlight from the report came from Indiana’s fourth- and eighth-grade math scores, which were some of the best in the nation. Only Wyoming, Massachusetts and the Department of Defense’s school system scored statistically higher. Twenty-one states scored statistically lower than Indiana.
On the flip side, Indiana eighth-graders dropped 7 points in math from 2019 and over 9 points from 2017. Fourth-grade math scores slumped nearly 5.75 points from 2019 and about 7.25 points from 2017.
Usually, researchers think of a 10-point gain or drop as equivalent to roughly a year of learning.
Hoosier reading scores in both grades were around the national average. Thirty-six states were also near that average, with only four statistically higher and 12 lower than Indiana.
Still, the tests revealed Indiana’s fourth-grade reading scores have been declining since 2015, dropping almost 10 points in that time. The largest decline actually happened before the pandemic from 2017 to 2019, when scores fell 4.6 points.
It’s the same story for Hoosier eighth-graders, who saw an 11.5-point drop in reading scores since 2017. That loss was split nearly evenly between testing years in 2019 and this year.
A concerted effort by many districts to return kids to the classroom during the pandemic helped Indiana students do better in math and average in reading, according to Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner. Other states had stricter rules about when students could return to in-person learning.
“I think Indiana did a really nice job keeping students in-person in comparison to other states,” Jenner explained. “We know from data that anytime we can keep our students in person, we’re absolutely going to see the benefits of that.”
RACIAL/WEALTH GAP
Learning loss could have been worse, but Indiana schools still face the huge task of getting students — especially minority, low-income and English-learner groups — back up to speed.
The gap between white and Black eighth-grade students in math hit a historic high this year.
Black students scored 38 points below white students, marking what researchers would consider roughly a 3-4 year education gap. Indiana tied for fifth worst in the nation for the learning gap between the two groups.
The divide between Black and white Indiana fourth-graders in reading also reached its biggest gap since 1994, with a 26-point spread between the two this year.
In Indiana, white, middle-class students also outscored Hispanic and school-lunch eligible students this year, but those differences are on par with most other states.
Early research shows home-insecure students, such as those tutored at Brightlane Learning, suffer two times the pandemic learning loss of their peers who are housed, making them the most vulnerable student group in the state, according to Coker.
“We saw that virtual learning was extremely challenging for those families,” she said. “Even with the offerings we provided, our families couldn’t even access them because there’s just so many hurdles when you look at a family that’s experiencing homelessness.”
Those learning gaps are very much on the Indiana Department of Education’s radar, Jenner noted.
“Gaps like that are very concerning, and we have to do everything we can to understand what we can do to improve the learning for these students,” she said.
HELP’S ON THE WAY
Driggs, the Tri-Central superintendent, said teacher turnover is high in his rural school district, which relies heavily on emergency-permitted instructors to fill vacant positions. That means fewer experienced teachers are available to combat pandemic learning loss.
But that changed last year when the district used American Rescue Plan money earmarked for schools to hire three new educators to help students who experienced the biggest learning impacts from the pandemic.
That student-specific approach is a major part of the state’s plan to provide reading remediation for kids who need it most, Jenner noted.
The state this month launched a program called Indiana Learns, which provides a $500 grant to qualifying families to spend on “high-dosage” tutoring in math, English and language arts. Schools can also contribute $250, which the state would match, to families, providing up to $1,000 for tutoring.
“In order to maximize learning for students, the best-case scenario is when the school and our educators link arms with parents and families to help support that child,” Jenner said. “This program is specifically targeting our students who need it the most, not only academically, but also financially.”
Coker said the demand for student tutoring is abundantly clear. Her 21-year-old nonprofit has doubled in size since the pandemic, requiring a host of new volunteers to meet the need. This year, Brightlane is partnering with more schools than ever to provide learning services.
Beyond grants for tutoring, Jenner also highlighted the state’s move to invest $111 million in schools to support early literacy development and deploy instructional coaches providing targeted support for educators. It’s the largest state investment ever in literacy, the education secretary said. Work is underway across Indiana schools to rebuild from the historic learning loss, but it will likely be years before students regain the skills they lost during the pandemic, Coker explained.
She’s confident they will eventually catch up.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Coker said. “I think sometimes it’s hard to take a step back and see that when you’re in the day-to-day working with kids who are behind. But I’m constantly in awe of what teachers are doing with students and how much they’re investing to make up as much learning as we possibly can.”
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