As schools across our country are now open for a somewhat ‘normal’ school year, educators are grappling with the incredible learning loss many of our children experienced during the last two school years. The most recent NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress)scores verify what we already knew. Our children have suffered greatly from the isolation of the pandemic and not having access to rich, in-person learning. The NAEP illustrates the loss our children have suffered academically. They have also suffered emotionally, but that is for a different post.
The Biden-Harris Administration is urging schools to “use the $122 billion in ARP funds to provide high-quality tutoring, summer learning and enrichment, and afterschool programs that are proven pathways to helping students make up for lost learning time…” These funds present to schools an incredible opportunity to provide for equity in our schools. The opportunity to provide students, who are not demonstrating mastery of rigorous grade level standards, the additional supports they need to master them whether the supports be academic, mental, emotional, or physical. Doing whatever it takes for each individual child to master rigorous grade level standards is providing equity which then results in equality as all students master and/or exceed grade level standards.
However, the opportunity, also provides the risk of falling back into old habits, a frequent and subtle trap in the world of education. For years we have provided students with remedial classes and after school or summer tutoring that, more often than not, has resulted in students still being below grade level. When No Child Left Behind was the new iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it contained a provision for “supplemental education services.” This support was for “tutoring or remedial help, that could be provided to students in subjects such as reading, language arts, and math. This extra help could be provided before or after school, on weekends, or in the summer.”
I must issue a caution as we access these new resources for helping our students close the learning gap either caused by or exasperated by the pandemic. Let’s remember the lessons of the previous supplemental learning programs. Engaging students in remedial or below level classes, tutoring, or summer programs does not work. We have tried this untold number of times and still have more than half of our students lacking proficiency in reading and math as illustrated by the NAEP. In addition, a meta-analysis conducted by Chappell, Nunnery, Pribesh, and Hager (2011) on the supplemental learning programs provided under No Child Left Behind found that the overall effect was very small. Munoz, Chang, and Ross (2012) also conducted a study on these after school tutoring programs and found they did not result in significant improvement of student outcomes.
This should not surprise us. Putting students in remedial programs says to students that we do not have high expectations for them. It says we don’t think you can master grade level standards so we are going to give you below level work. Low expectations have never been proven to be successful in improving student achievement. Rather high expectations are required for improving student outcomes (Ferguson, 2007; Gorski, 2018; Hattie 2009). Some of our students have significant gaps in their learning and mastering grade level standards will require more support and intense, scaffolded instruction, however, they can do it under the guidance of a master teacher.
The Education Trust issues a similar warning not to fall prey to using remedial education strategies to overcome the learning loss our children have experienced as a result of the pandemic. They encourage educators to use the strategy of acceleration, “where a student moves forward with grade-level content and learns key missing skills and concepts” so that they are working on grade level standards. High expectations include students working on grade level standards with whatever support they need to master them.
As Robert Slavin wrote, tutoring can be a “most effective strategy for accelerating the learning of students struggling in reading and math.” Please note that he referenced tutoring as effective for acceleration, not for remediation. Tutoring programs are often a part of programs with strong evidence of effectiveness for student outcomes in literacy and mathematics. Tutoring programs found to effective are highly structured programs that provide the support for students to access learning on grade level. They are tightly aligned with classroom instruction and support this instruction rather than replacing it and subjecting students to remedial work. (Neitzel, Lake, Pellegrini, & Slavin, 2021; Pellegrini, Neitzel, Lake, & Slavin, 2021).
As we move forward in helping our children overcome the learning loss from the pandemic, let us ensure we are expecting students to master grade level standards. Our instruction must be for grade level standards. This means that some students will need additional scaffolded instruction provided as a part of grade level instruction and maybe even additional support in tutoring that is in addition to and in support of grade level instruction. Whatever it takes for each student must be provided. The educational research illustrates the path forward and it is what master teachers do all the time.
References:
Chappell, S., Nunnery, J., Pribesh, S., and Hager, J. (2011). A meta-analysis of supplemental education services (SES) provider effects on student achievement, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 16(1), 1-23.
Ferguson, R. F. (2007). Toward excellence with equity: An emerging vision for closing the achievement gap. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Gorski, P. C. (2018). Reaching and teaching students in poverty: Strategies for erasing the opportunity gap, (2nd Edition). New York, NY: Teacher College Press.
Hattie J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: NY: Routledge.
Munoz, M. A., Chang, F., & Ross, S. M. (2012). No child left behind and tutoring in reading and mathematics: Impact of supplemental educational services on large scale assessment. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 17(3), 186-200.
Neitzel, A.J., Lake, C., Pellegrini, M., & Slavin, R.E. (2021). A synthesis of quantitative research on programs for struggling reading in elementary schools. Reading Research Quarterly 0(0), 1-31 doi: 10.1002/rrq.379.
Pellegrini, M., Neitzel, A., Lake, C. & Slavin, R.E. (2021). Effective programs in elementary mathematics: A best-evidence synthesis. AERA Open 7(1), 1-29
This blog is written by Dr. GwenCarol Holmes, a long-time educator and passionate advocate for all students mastering rigorous standards.