San Antonio students struggle to recover from COVID
Students in Texas K–12 public schools are on average about half a grade behind pre-pandemic achievement levels in math and nearly one third of a grade level below in reading, data shows.
Why it matters: The Education Recovery Scorecard provides an in-depth look, at the district level, of where Texas students' academic recovery from COVID stood last spring, before federal relief funding expired.
How it works: The data, released last month, marks the third year of reports from researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities.
The big picture: Texas ranked 31st among states for its recovery in math, but it did much better — ranking No. 8 — for its reading recovery.
Elizabeth Rodriguez, a fourth-grade teacher at Agnes Cotton Academy in San Antonio ISD, told the SA Report that students may be scoring better in reading because it's an "easier subject to teach."
"We all kind of know how to read, and we can support our kids in that," she said. But parents may be less familiar with math material, she added.
Between the lines: Across Texas, more students are chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of classes in a school year.
In 2019, 11% of Texas students were chronically absent. That figure stood at 21% in 2023.
Zoom in: Recovery is not equal across local districts.
Students at San Antonio ISD are more than one grade behind 2019 math achievement levels.
Those at Northside ISD, the city's largest district, are about three-fourths of a grade level behind in math.
The bottom line: "The rescue phase is over," Tom Kane, director of Harvard's Center for Education Policy Research, said in a statement.
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