Scores highlight value of in-person learning

True or false?: It is important to keep Connecticut students in the classroom. Gov. Ned Lamont passed this test by cautiously maintaining a focus on getting students back in schools safely this September.

There are life-or-death reasons for this, but new state test results suggest what experienced educators have known for years — that children learn better in person.

This may, in fact, be the most reliable data to come from the latest Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) results, which tests students in grades 3-8 in math and English language arts.

The scores themselves, however, seem less trustworthy.

Education officials mandated that exams be conducted in person after some early remote test scores resulted in higher-than-anticipated results. In other words, they had to be wary of students getting a little extra help at home. In most cases, that’s something to celebrate, but not when it comes to exams.

That’s reasonable, but it pitted scores from in-person students with peers who were forced to be remote or hybrid learners.

There are flaws in the tests, given the X factor of

COVID-19, but they do suggest that years of trying to narrow the achievement gap has spiraled in the wrong direction.

These weren’t lessons in fractions, as the shifts were extreme. The percentage of Black students scoring at a proficient level in reading dropped from 37.4 percent in the 2018-19 academic year to 32.9 percent, while the category for students who were primarily in a remote setting dipped to 23.9 percent.

Similarly, Latino students who were mostly in-person fell from 45.4 percent to 42.1 percent, with children learning remotely dropping to 25.5 percent.

Math scores were even more alarming. Black students who learned math remotely last year tumbled to a grim 8.8 percent, about a percentage point below their Latino counterparts.

The slide was consistent across races and ethnicity. White students fell from 69.7 percent to 55.2 percent in the math exams and from 72.3 percent to 68.7 percent in reading.

The true results might be even worse. These are not apples to apples because some apples were not counted. Students with the highest needs tended to fall into the remote category, where fewer tests were administered.

In case you’re getting lost in all the numbers, consider one that’s missing. The results skip from 2018-19 to 2020-21 because COVID canceled the tests in the intervening academic year.

The COVID Era put a neon highlight marker over issues that have presented obstacles for decades, including access to technology as well as economic and housing challenges.

There are also fears that social isolation will spur setbacks in developing social skills for many children. Still, we hope this generation will be better positioned to pivot through life’s unpredictable circumstances because of what they have been forced to handle over the past 18 months.

These test scores may be unreliable, but they leave little doubt to the answer to another true or false question: Our educators will remain on the front lines for years to come.

The COVID Era put a neon highlight marker over issues that have presented obstacles for decades, including access to technology as well as economic and housing challenges.