Georgia ranks 29th among U.S. states for post-pandemic academic recovery in math and seventh for recovery in reading between 2019 and 2024, according to the Education Recovery Scorecard’s report released on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, Georgia students have not fully recovered academically to pre-pandemic levels, and they lag behind, particularly in math. Georgia students are nearly a half grade level, or 0.49, behind in math and a little less than a third of a grade level, or 0.29, behind in reading.
This means students in Georgia have made, on average, half the progress in math they would have made each year before the pandemic, and 91% of students attend districts where math achievement levels lag behind those of 2019. This is worse than the national average: 85% of students on average across the U.S. attend districts that are below 2019 levels of math achievement.
Students are also not performing well in reading, with 79% of Georgia students attending districts where the average reading achievement levels are below those of 2019.
Researchers attribute this slow recovery to a rise in chronic absenteeism, the rate of students missing more than 10% of the academic year, from 13% in 2019 to 23% in 2023.
This report comes amid Georgia’s overhaul of its early reading curriculum with the passage of the Georgia Early Literacy Act in 2023 and the implementation of new state K-12 language arts standards, which is set to begin next school year.
The Education Recovery Scorecard compares academic losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic recovery using test scores.
Created as a collaboration between researchers at Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research and Stanford’s Education Opportunity Project, the project standardizes state test scores. It also measures academic achievement by relative “grade levels.” The research initiative releases reports on national, statewide and district-level data on academic recovery.
According to the Education Recovery Scorecard’s national report, no state across the U.S. has performed above 2019 levels on average in both math and reading yet. National trends indicate that socioeconomic and racial disparities in math scores have increased within and across districts.
In Georgia, Education Recovery Scorecard’s research shows a negative correlation between the percentage of students in a school district on free or reduced-price lunch and change in math achievement between 2019 and 2024, though that correlation was weaker between 2022 and 2024.
As for reading, the project’s data seemed to show that districts in Georgia with a greater percentage of students on free and reduced-price lunch saw, on average, a higher decrease in reading achievement levels between 2019 and 2022. However, that changed between 2022 and 2024, when districts with a more significant FRPL percentage generally saw less decline in reading achievement, with a few districts improving upon 2022 levels.
Eight school districts in Georgia — Columbia County, Floyd County, Harris County, City Schools of Decatur, Grady County, Haralson County, Pike County and Bacon County — have been recognized as “recovered,” or performing above pre-pandemic levels in math and reading.
Researchers with the Education Recovery Scorecard concluded that funding toward summer learning and tutoring helped the academic recovery process and are calling for continued investment in those interventions, as well as efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism.
“Lowering absenteeism generates tremendous bang-for-the-buck,” said project leader and Harvard education professor Tom Kane. “Regular attendance benefits the student as well as her classmates. And taxpayers are paying for the seat whether it’s occupied or not.”
