At CRPE, we study how the Covid-19 pandemic reshaped public education and what it will take for schools to recover and adapt. As a driving force in tracking the pandemic’s impact, we analyzed how districts responded to closures, remote learning, enrollment shifts, and the urgent needs of students and families. Our research continues to examine the lasting effects on learning, equity, and engagement, as well as how schools are using recovery efforts—from ESSER investments to new instructional models—to address unfinished learning and reimagine support for students. Through this work, we aim to understand not only how schools can recover lost ground, but also how they can build more resilient and responsive systems for the future.
How easy would it be for a parent or advocate to compare student performance pre- and post-COVID? The short answer: in most states, it’s not easy at all.
Over the past four years, CRPE’s Evidence Project has tracked the pandemic’s impact on students and school systems’ recovery efforts. Earlier this year, we concluded that these collective efforts are far from complete—and face growing challenges.
Big city districts face a sea of troubles—from persistent pandemic-related learning loss to student and teacher absenteeism, to declining enrollment, to political pressures and fiscal cliffs.
In the face of financial, political, and capacity constraints, leaders within the Baltimore City Public School System and Chicago Public Schools are making progress toward closing post-pandemic gaps in student learning.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted nearly every aspect of economic and social life, affecting who went to college and where. This paper asks: How did patterns of enrollment and persistence in college and university change during the pandemic?
For everyone committed to educational equality, an ambitious new analysis from researchers at Stanford and Harvard today brings grim news. In most states studied, the gap in student achievement between low-income and high-income districts grew dramatically between 2019 and 2023, in many cases by a half-grade or more.
CRPE director Robin Lake and Travis Pillow, Director of Thought Leadership for Step Up for Students (formerly a senior innovation fellow with CRPE), contributed an essay to this year’s edition of NASBE’s State Education Standard, “Engaging All Students.” With billions of dollars in lost economic activity and untold squandered human potential, COVID-19 threatens to leave an enduring legacy.
Students are heading back to school this year under a cloud of discouraging test score declines in reading and math, an alarming widening of race- and income-based achievement gaps, and a sluggish pace of academic recovery.
