Examining the facts behind the US international student boom

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia

On one side of the classroom, students surrounded teacher Maria Fletcher and practiced vowel sounds. In another corner, children read together from a book. Scattered elsewhere, students sat at laptop computers and received reading help from online tutors.

For third graders at Mount Vernon Community School in Virginia, it was a typical school day. But educators were racing to get students to learn more, faster and overcome obstacles that have persisted since schools closed for the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago.

America's schools are beginning to make progress toward getting students back on track. But improvement has been slow and uneven across geography and economic status, with millions of students often from marginalized groups making up little or no ground.

Nationally, students accounted for a third of their pandemic losses in math last school year and a quarter of their losses in reading, according to the Education Recovery Scorecard, an analysis of state and national test scores by researchers at Harvard and Stanford. .

But in nine states, including Virginia, reading scores continued to fall during the 2022-23 school year after earlier declines during the pandemic.

Capping the recovery is a looming financial crisis. States have used some of the historic $190 billion in federal pandemic relief to help students catch up, but that money runs out later this year.

“The recovery is not over and won't be over without government action,” said Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist behind the scorecard. “States need to start planning for what they're going to do when the federal money runs out in September. And I think few states have started that discussion.”

Virginia lawmakers approved an additional $418 million last year to speed the recovery. Massachusetts officials set aside $3.2 million to provide math tutoring to fourth- and eighth-graders who are behind grade level, along with $8 million for literacy instruction.

But among other lagging states, few said they were changing their strategies or spending more to accelerate improvement.

Virginia hired online tutoring companies and gave schools a “playbook” showing how to build effective tutoring programs. Lisa Coons, Virginia's superintendent of public education, said last year's state test results were a wake-up call.

“We weren't recovering as fast as we should have,” Coons said in an interview.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has called on states to continue funding extra academic aid for students after federal money expires.

“We just can't stop now,” he said at a May 30 briefing for education reporters. “States need to recognize the function of these interventions. Public education funding makes a difference.”

In Virginia, the Alexandria district received $2.3 million in additional state money to expand instruction.

At Mount Vernon, where classes are held in English and Spanish, students are divided into groups and rotated through stations tailored to their skill level. Those who need more help take online lessons. In Fletcher's classroom, a handful of students wore headsets and worked with tutors through Ignite Learning, one of the companies hired by the state.

With tutors in high demand, the online option has been a big help, said Jennifer Hamilton, Mount Vernon's principal.

“That's something we just couldn't provide here,” she said.

Ana Marisela Ventura Moreno said her 9-year-old daughter, Sabrina, benefited significantly from extra reading help last year during second grade, but she's still catching up.

“She needs to get better. She's not at the level she should be,” the mother said in Spanish. She noted that the school did not offer tutoring this year, but she did not know why.

Alexandria education officials say students who score below proficiency or near that limit receive high-intensity instructional assistance, and they must prioritize students with the greatest needs. Alexandria dropped the state average on math and reading tests in 2023, but is slowly improving.

More troubling to officials are the gaps: Among Mount Vernon's poorest students, only 24% scored proficient in math and 28% scored proficient in reading. This is much lower than rates among wealthier students, and the divide is widening.

Failure to get students back on track can have serious consequences. Researchers at Harvard and Stanford found that communities with higher test scores have higher incomes and lower rates of arrest and incarceration. If pandemic setbacks become permanent, it could follow students for life.

The Education Recovery Scorecard tracks about 30 states, all of which made at least some improvement in math from 2022 to 2023. States whose reading scores fell over that period, besides Virginia, were Nevada, California, South Dakota, Wyoming, Indiana, Oklahoma, Connecticut and Washington.

Only a few states have returned to pre-pandemic testing levels. Alabama was the only state where math achievement rose from 2019 levels, while Illinois, Mississippi and Louisiana did so in reading.

In Chicago Public Schools, the average reading score rose by the equivalent of 70% of grade level from 2022 to 2023. Math gains were less dramatic, with students still nearly half a grade level behind compared to 2019. Chicago officials credit the improvement to changes made possible by nearly $3 billion in federal aid.

The district trained hundreds of Chicagoans to work as tutors. Each school building had an interventionist, an educator who focuses on helping struggling students.

The district also used federal money for home visits and expanded arts education in an effort to reengage students.

“Academic recovery in isolation, only through 'drill and kill', whether teaching or intervention, is not effective,” said Bogdana Çkumbova, the county's chief education officer. “Students should feel engaged.”

At Wells Preparatory Elementary on the city's south side, just 3% of students met state reading standards in 2021. Last year, 30% made the mark. Federal relief allowed the school to hire an interventionist for the first time, and teachers are being paid to join the recovery overtime.

In the classroom, the school placed a sharper focus on collaboration. Along with academic setbacks, students returned from school closures with lower maturity levels, Principal Vincent Izuegbu said. By building lessons around discussion, officials found that students were more interested in learning.

“We don't let 10 minutes go by without a teacher giving students an opportunity to engage with the topic,” Izuegbu said. “That's very, very significant in terms of the growth we've seen.”

Olorunkemi Atoyebi was an A student before the pandemic, but after spending fifth grade being homeschooled, she fell behind. During distance learning, she was anxious to stop the class to ask questions. Before long, math lessons made no sense.

When she returned to school, she struggled with multiplication, and terms like “dividend” and “quotient” confused her.

While other students worked in groups, her math teacher took her aside for individual help. Atoyebi learned a rhyming song to help memorize the multiplication tables. Over time, it started to click.

“They made me feel more confident about everything,” said Atoyebi, now 14. “My grades started going up. My scores started going up. I just seemed to understand everything better.”