Vermont standardized test scores tank compared to pre-COVID results, expert blames school closures
Math scores fell double digits for some students
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Scores from standardized tests that students in Vermont took this spring have revealed declines compared to pre-pandemic results – including a double-digit drop in math proficiency, a report says.
When comparing 2019 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium testing scores to the 2021 numbers released by the Vermont Agency of Education, math proficiency fell from 52% to 41%, for third graders, 42% to 30% for fifth graders and 40% to 31% for eighth graders, according to WCAX.
Meanwhile, English scores slumped from 50% to 42% for third graders, 56% to 49% for fifth graders and 53% to 51% for eighth graders, the station adds.
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"The learning environment was just not conducive to high performance in any way," Ellen Baker, the educator licensure program director at the University of Vermont, told WCAX. "People cannot be available to learn if they are traumatized."
Baker believes remote learning, a lack of interaction with peers and students’ situations at home influenced the scores, according to the station.
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"It does align and help us to understand the scores based on the fact that students have not been in school -- for some of them -- a year," she said, adding that "if families were unable to get their kids to sit in front of the computer to do their work, they were just missing out and there was nothing we could do as an educational system."
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But Wendy Geller, the data management and analysis division director at the Vermont Agency of Education, told WCAX that the tests are designed for regular instruction – not the type of learning students have received during the coronavirus pandemic.
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"The context for last year was anything but typical," she said.