Blue state students suffered significant inflation during the pandemic, study shows

K-12 students in Washington state suffered significant grade inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study, raising concerns that learning loss may have had a greater effect in the classroom than previously thought.

The parents have stayed rolling up of student learning loss since the COVID-19 pandemic com research has found that many students perform significantly below average in subjects such as reading, math and science. Washington state students earning As and Bs increased by at least 20 percent in 2020, but many scored low on state tests, indicating a larger learning loss problem. seconds to a report from the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research of the American Institutes for Research.

The report found that A grades in maths and English rose from 32.9% to 56.3% and from 35.5% to 60.6% respectively between the spring and autumn semesters of 2020 , while science increased from 32.5% to 59.0%. GPAs also increased by large margins in math, science and English, and while the latter two saw a return to pre-pandemic levels in 2021-2022, math grades continued to rise.

“There is widespread speculation and some evidence that grading standards have changed over the course of the pandemic, making higher grades relatively easier to achieve and less reflective of objective measures of learning,” they wrote the investigators. “It is possible, even likely, that changing grading standards will give parents, guardians and students a confusing or inaccurate picture of what students know and can do, especially given the learning losses related to the pandemic” .

According to the report, students in 2020 did not reach the projected test score levels of previous students with similar grades, showing a significant discrepancy between students’ grades and what they actually learned.

“For example, a student who earned an ‘A’ in Algebra 1 was projected to be in the 73rd percentile of the test distribution in 2015-16, the 68th percentile in 2018-19, and the 58th percentile in 2021 -22”. says the report. “In Algebra 2, a student receiving an ‘A’ was projected to be in the 64th percentile in 2015-16, the 58th percentile in 2018-19, and the 54th percentile in 2021-22.”

The researchers also noted that part of the reason for the grade inflation is likely due to the state’s education policy in 2020 that would not give students in grades 9-12 any negative grades for “doing no harm.” seconds to KHC, a local media outlet. chronicle absenteeism It’s also a likely factor with research finding that some districts in the state saw four times as many students marked absent even though 40 percent still earned a B or better in core subjects, Week of l ‘Education. reported.

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