Louisiana gets more good news about school achievement

Less than two weeks after Louisiana students achieved their highest rankings on The Nation’s Report Card, a prominent national study from Harvard and Stanford shows Louisiana is leading the nation for academic recovery after the pandemic, the Louisiana Department of Education said.
The Education Recovery Scorecard ranks Louisiana first in the nation for reading and second for math. Louisiana is the only state where the average student has completed their recovery.
In its third year of reporting on the pace of academic recovery measures in districts nationwide, the Education Recovery Scorecard is an annual report on school system-level student growth in reading and math. Some items of note for Louisiana:
—Louisiana ranked first among the states in terms of recovery in reading and second in math between 2019 and 2024.
—Between 2019 and 2024, students in Louisiana earned gains in reading and math at a time when many states continued to fall further behind.
Louisiana is the only state where the average student has completed their recovery.
—An analysis suggests Louisiana’s investment in pandemic funding did contribute to the academic recovery, especially when targeted at academic efforts such as summer learning and tutoring.
—Growth in chronic absenteeism (students missing more than 10% of a school year) is slowing the recovery in many school systems in Louisiana.
“Louisiana’s academic progress reflects a focus on fundamental skills and strong educator support,” said Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley. “There is a lot to be proud of in this latest report, and our work continues. There are still too many Louisiana students who can’t read on grade level, can’t do basic math, and who don’t attend school on a regular basis.”
The Education Recovery Scorecard is a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. The latest report provides the first high resolution picture of where Louisiana students’ academic recovery stood in spring 2024.
While The Nation’s Report Card described changes in average achievement by state, the Education Recovery Scorecard combines those scores with school system scores on state assessments to describe the change in local communities throughout Louisiana.
Louisiana also earned positive marks on the 2023 Education Recovery Scorecard. That report found that Louisiana was one of three states where average reading achievement in 2023 was above 2019 levels. Louisiana students recovered nearly half of their original loss in math, which was referred to in the study as “a remarkable achievement” given that students nationally had only made up one third of the original loss.