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  • Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic

    Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic


    Kindergarten teacher Carla Randazzo watches a student write alphabet letters on a white board at Golden Empire Elementary School in Sacramento.

    Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / AP Photo

    California’s students have struggled in the five years since the pandemic closed schools across the state. But kids in many schools are bouncing back, returning to pre-Covid achievement levels. What’s working? How have some districts innovated to turn kids’ learning curves upward once again?

    After analyzing student-level statewide data and visiting nine districts in each of the past three years, our team has made these discoveries:

    Mindful policies make a difference

    Nationwide, the pandemic erased nearly two decades of progress in math and reading. In California, average math proficiency decreased by 6.4 percentage points between 2019 and 2022, and reading proficiency dropped by 4 percentage points. Our work shows a modest positive effect of early reopening and federal recovery investments over this period. This highlights the importance of keeping schools open when it is safe to do so and prioritizing high-need students in reopening. Federal stimulus dollars also helped during this period.

    Our statewide work further shows that districts blended, braided and sequenced multiple funding sources to extend instructional learning time, strengthen staffing and provide learning supports.

    We also studied the impact of recovery investments and specific district recovery programs. We did not find that increased federal Covid funding to schools increased student test scores post-pandemic. However, districts that devoted funds to teacher retention efforts and extended learning time showed more improvement in student attendance, a key to improving academic outcomes.  

    Cross-sector partnerships advance whole-child development

    Prolonged school closure, social isolation, economic anxiety, housing and food insecurity, Covid-19 infection, and the loss of loved ones exacerbated a national mental health crisis already underway before the pandemic. In 2021, 42% of high school students nationwide experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 32% attempted or seriously considered attempting suicide. As schools reopened, educators found themselves dealing with not just academic learning, but also support for basic needs (such as food and health care), mental health, and life skills (such as relationship skills).

    Some districts pivoted to fostering whole-child development. For example, Compton Unified partnered with community health providers to offer health care services (such as vaccinations and check-ups), and Del Norte Unified leveraged Medi-Cal reimbursements to provide mental health counseling and therapy sessions. Educators will still need to deal with the academic, behavioral and life-skills needs for years to come. More cross-sector partnerships with public health, social services and housing would better equip schools to address these challenges.

    School innovations foster a rebound in learning

    Overall spending infusions have helped students rebound, but the impact has been relatively small. More important is how Covid relief funds were spent by districts. Our longitudinal case study of nine districts revealed some substantial organizational changes — reforms that may stick over time.

    One large structural reform was the investment in student well-being. Before the pandemic, student well-being was considered mostly secondary to instruction and academic achievement. However, the pandemic highlighted the need to integrate life skills into instruction. As a result, districts invested in new program materials and moved resources to hire counselors, social workers, psychologists, and increased student access to school-based supports. Some even built new community centers where students and families come together.

    A smaller scale, yet key, reform is districts’ investment in career pathways. Districts like Compton and Milpitas Unified offer a wide variety of pathways — from E-sports to computer science to early education — that are tied to on-the-job internships and certificates. These pathways have played an important role in engaging students and connecting them with employment opportunities.

    Districts also tried new approaches to the structure of schooling and classroom practices. For example, Glendale Unified shifted to a seven-period block schedule that allowed middle and high school students to add an elective course that sparked their interest. In Poway Unified, small groups of students meet with teachers and classroom aides to focus on specific skill areas.

    Digital innovations engage students, but gaps remain

    Many districts have turned to digital innovations to motivate kids. In Poway, coaches embedded in the classroom work with teachers to build learning stations, where stronger students work in teams, freeing teachers to provide more direct instruction to kids at risk of falling behind.

    Unfortunately, since the pandemic, the digital divide has narrowed, but it has not been eliminated. 

    In spring 2020, when schools abruptly shifted online, 40% of California households with school-age children did not have reliable internet or devices for distance learning. Over time, the state has made remarkable progress in device access, but not as much progress with internet access. The lack of progress could be attributed to multiple factors, including the absence of pre-existing infrastructure and affordability challenges. Federal and state governments provided unprecedented investments (such as the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program and California Senate Bill 356) to address barriers to universal broadband access; however, communities face significant challenges in building out infrastructure and improving affordability.

    The pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to rethink and restart public education. Given the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, learning disruptions will become the new norm for many communities throughout the U.S.

    By learning from the example of districts that have demonstrated resilience and success in pandemic recovery, we can better prepare for future disruptions and build a more resilient public education that supports all students.   

    •••

    Niu Gao is a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Julian Betts is a professor at UC San Diego. Jonathan Isler and Piper Stanger are administrators at the California Department of Education.

    Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, was part of the research team and contributed to this report.

    This collaboration research is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305X230002 to the American Institutes for Research (AIR). Any errors or misinterpretations belong to the authors and do not reflect the views of the institute, the U.S. Department of Education or the California Department of Education.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Five years after Covid shuttered schools, parent empowerment lives on

    Five years after Covid shuttered schools, parent empowerment lives on


    Five years ago, when Esti Iturralde’s daughter was in the first grade, the little girl struggled with learning to read. The teacher told her mother not to worry, Winnie just wasn’t ready yet, but Iturralde knew in her heart something was wrong. 

    She blamed herself, until the pandemic hit, the schools shuttered, and remote learning gave her a chance to peek inside the classroom. What she saw opened her eyes and shocked her into action. 

    “It really wasn’t until the school closures that I began to understand what she was missing,” said the Piedmont mom of two. “I got to see up close what was wrong with the lessons.”

    Five years after Covid shuttered schools, the parent empowerment it sparked is going strong. While the pandemic inexorably disrupted everyone’s lives, parents faced a double whammy. Amid heated debates over masks, vaccines and school shutdowns, many parents found themselves on the front lines of hot-button issues on an almost daily basis. In that time of crisis, some families lost trust in the ability of the schools to meet the needs of their students. 

    Like Iturralde, some came to the conclusion that they had to fend for themselves. That’s one reason the pandemic became a watershed moment for a generation of parents. It shifted the dynamics between communities and schools, and, for some families, shook their faith in the school system in a lasting way.

    “When schools remained closed for far longer than any other institution or business,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers, “this broke the social compact that schools are compulsory for children because it is a critical function of civil society. It left parents in the lurch.”

    That rude awakening spurred some parents to question all aspects of their child’s education, from the length of school closures to how reading is taught and how parental notification policies should work. Parents from all over the ideological spectrum, from people of color fighting for equity to conservative parents upholding traditional values, began to push for change. That surge of parental empowerment may be one of the lasting impacts of the pandemic.

    “Parent empowerment and engagement certainly reached a peak during Covid school closures,” said Megan Bacigalupi, co-founder of CA Parent Power, an advocacy group. “The academic, social and mental health harms done to kids by those lengthy closures kept many parents engaged in their districts long after they reopened. One of the silver linings is that parents got a window into the classroom.”

    All sorts of school governance issues that had long been taken for granted came under intense scrutiny, sparking a shift in thinking about public education. Some families got fed up. Instead of waiting for the system to adapt to their needs, they took matters into their own hands. 

    The dawning realization that Winnie was being taught to read by looking primarily at pictures, instead of words, was a red flag for Iturralde, who has a doctorate in behavioral science. 

    Esti Iturralde and her daughter Winnie read “Harry Potter” together at home in the living room while their dog Roscoe hangs out in August 2022.
    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    She decided to teach her kiddo to read at home, to see if she would bloom with more phonics, which she did. Winnie was soon reading above grade level. That showed Iturralde that sometimes you have to take charge of your child’s learning. 

    “Before, I was content to just trust and trust, and now I’m less trusting,” said Iturralde, who shared some of her lessons on YouTube to help other parents. “It’s like the curtain gets pulled away, and you see, all of a sudden, there’s no wizard out there.” ​​

    To be sure, Lakisha Young had long walked the do-it-yourself path, but the Covid era gave her new fire. She believes the pandemic merely highlighted the ways public education has always failed to meet the needs of low-income children of color. Nearly 70% of Oakland students failed to meet the standard for reading on the state’s Smarter Balanced test in 2023.

    “Nobody is coming to save us,” said Young, the co-founder and CEO of Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy group. “The system is broken. Black and brown kids are typically already behind their white peers before they even get to kindergarten, and then those gaps just get bigger. The reality is, we keep seeing generation after generation failing. Somebody’s got to stop the bleeding.”

    Young has worked with families where illiteracy has been passed down from one generation to the next, like an heirloom. She has tried to empower parents, to put families in the driver’s seat.

    “We’re freeing our families from the system,” said Young. “We’re liberating them from the system. If a parent shows up, does her part or his part, their kid’s going to get what they need.”

    During lockdown, Young connected families to everything from laptops and cash assistance to a virtual academy. Now REACH is a hub for parent and caregiver tutors, which they call “liberators,” who go into classrooms, teaching reading and math in partnership with Oakland Unified.  

    “These babies have to learn how to read and do math,” she said. “We have to empower families to make sure their kids don’t get left behind.”

    Left to their own devices at the kitchen table, many in the dyslexia community also experienced the pandemic as a lightning rod. 

    “People were frustrated their children were not getting the services they deserved,” said Megan Potente, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, an advocacy group. “There was a lot of learning happening among parents, who may have left things up to school if it weren’t for the unprecedented times of the pandemic and heightened feelings of urgency associated with seeing your child struggle at home.”

    Many parents first organized out of frustration with extended school closures, she said, but then parlayed that momentum to push for education reforms, such as evidenced-based reading instruction, amid the state’s deepening literacy crisis.

    “California schools are failing at their core function: teaching,” said Moore. “How many decades of data — showing less than half of students achieving proficiency in language and math — are needed before big innovation occurs?”

    Lakisha Young
    Credit: Courtesy of Oakland Reach

    Emboldened by having to step up in a crisis, many parents began to demand a voice. Parents Supporting Teachers (PST) in Los Angeles began as a Facebook group during the LAUSD teachers strike in 2019 but gained momentum during the pandemic as parents began asking questions about how the district uses its funding.

    “It’s important that we parents have a seat at the table when it comes to our children’s education,” said Vicky Martinez, a mother of three Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) students and member of PST. “We know our kids best. You empower yourself with knowledge and ask questions and do some research and don’t be afraid. We need to be a part of the process so we can support our kids.”

    Many hope that parental empowerment will remain robust even as the Covid years recede into memory. They are optimistic that families will continue to push for more transparency about academic standards and practices in the wake of falling test scores and widening achievement gaps. 

    “People want a fair shake, for themselves and their children,” said Moore. “Education is seen as the main vehicle for upward economic and social mobility. Yet the reality is, California’s education system only does well for those born into privilege, and it fails most everyone else.”

    Many parents will continue to play a more active role in the education of their children. Iturralde, like most parents, has “bad memories” of the pandemic years and struggling to get her daughter what she needed, but all that effort has paid off. 

    She used what she learned about the science of reading, from the need for phonics to the importance of background knowledge, to tutor her younger daughter, Lorea, as well. She now also coaches Winnie on math, a subject in which she is poised to skip ahead a year. 

    “What I try to advise parents to do is to take care of your kid and advocate for your kid, but also try to think about the community,” she said. “When I make a fuss about something, I’m doing it because I think there are other kids whose parents are not going to be able to help them. You’ve got to zoom out and think about the big picture.”





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