Test Scores Continue to Decline

Test Scores Continue to Decline | (News and Research 349)

In the USA, Scores Continue to Decline for 13-year old Students in Reading and Mathematics | The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) administered the NAEP long-term trend reading and mathematics assessments to 13-year-old students from October to December of the 2022–23 school year. The average scores for 13-year-olds declined 4 points in reading and 9 points in mathematics compared to the previous assessment administered during the 2019–20 school year. Compared to a decade ago, the average scores declined 7 points in reading and 14 points in mathematics. These are large losses given the standard deviation of such tests.

Other highlights:

• Reading scores decline at all selected percentiles since 2020
• Larger declines since 2020 for lower-performing students in mathematics
• Scores decline for many student groups in reading, and for nearly all student groups in math

Loss-of-learning and the post-Covid recovery in low-income countries | Buffie, Adam, Zanna, Kpodar analyze the medium-term macroeconomic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lock-down measures on low-income countries. They focus on the impact of the degradation of health and human capital caused by the pandemic and its aftermath, exploring the trade-offs between rebuilding human capital and the recovery of livelihoods and macroeconomic sustainability. A dynamic general equilibrium model is calibrated to reflect the structural characteristics of vulnerable low-income countries and to replicate key dimensions of the Covid-19 shock. They show that absent significant and sustained external financing, the persistence of loss-of-learning effects on labor productivity is likely to make the post-Covid recovery more attenuated and more expensive than many contemporary analyses suggest.

Can Digital Personalized Learning for Mathematics Remediation Level the Playing Field in Higher Education? | Angel-Urdinola, Avitabile, Chinen | Many Ecuadorian students entering higher education have cognitive skills gaps in mathematics that undermine their ability to assimilate academic contents. This paper presents the results of a randomized controlled trial assessing the effects on academic outcomes of a Digital Personalized Learning Software for mathematics remediation (the ALEKS software) offered to first-year students entering technical and technological higher education programs in Ecuador amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The possibility to use the software led to a large and marginally significant decline in the probability of repeating a course, as well as a large positive impact on standardized test scores in math. The analysis finds no impact on the probability of enrolling in the third semester. When disaggregating the impacts, the findings show that the effects on repetition are particularly large for male students, possibly because of higher male enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. When assessing the potential mechanisms, the findings show evidence that the software led to a net increase in hours dedicated to studying mathematics. The results suggest that Digital Personalized Learning Software can be a cost-effective solution for math remediation with potential for large-scale application.

Trade-Offs of Attending Better Schools: Achievement, Self-Perceptions and Educational Trajectories | Fabregas | This paper estimates the impacts of attending better middle schools on the test scores, on-time graduation, self-reported socio-emotional skills, aspirations, and high school track choices of marginally admitted students. A regression discontinuity design comparing students just above and below the admission threshold to higher-achieving middle schools in Mexico shows modest gains on externally graded tests, but adverse effects on grade point average and on-time graduation. By the end of middle school, marginally admitted students feel academically inferior to their peers, obtain worse scores on measures of conscientiousness, and are more likely to shift their aspirations and subsequent schooling choices from academic to vocational programs. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that unfavorable peer comparisons, stemming from direct observation or subjective teacher assessments, can be sufficiently important to affect students’ educational trajectories.

Politicians and pundits say parents are furious with schools. Polls say otherwise | Barnum |The polling company Gallup has been asking American parents the same question since 1999: Are you satisfied with your oldest child’s education? Every year through January 2020, between two-thirds and 80% said yes.

‘How Do I Do That?’ The New Hires of 2023 Are Unprepared for Work | Belkin, Chapman, Kesling | Remote learning during the pandemic left students short of basic skills. Now companies are trying to teach them on the job.

Targeting high school scholarships to the poor: the impact of a program in Mexico  | de Hoyos, Attanasio, Meghir | Based on an RCT, we evaluate a scholarship program in Mexico (PROBEMS) aimed at improving graduation rates and test scores among upper secondary school students from poor backgrounds. On average, the program has no impact either on graduation rates or on Math and Spanish test scores. Two reasons for this failure: the pro-gram was badly targeted, with many of the recipients being from less disadvantaged families than intended; the prior academic achievement of those eligible was often insufficient for successfully completing the academic requirements of upper secondary school. This points to accumulated achievement deficits that could be addressed by interventions targeting learning at an earlier stage.

Benefits and Costs of Public Schooling in Ghana | Raju, Younger examines the monetary benefits and costs of the quantity of public schooling (that is, years of schooling completed) in Ghana. The paper also examines the monetary benefits and costs of some aspects of the quality of public schooling, measured by the gains in achievement produced by selected interventions in public schools. The analysis uses estimates of (i) labor-earnings returns to schooling and private spending on public schooling, based on the latest national household sample survey data; (ii) government spending on public schooling, based on administrative information; (iii) impacts on test scores, and costs, of education interventions in public schools, drawn from experimental studies; and (iv) conversions of impacts on test scores produced by education interventions to (future) labor earnings, all for Ghana. The results are a set of benefit-cost ratios in the style of the Copenhagen Consensus.

Revisiting COVID Scarring in Emerging Markets | Jackson, Lu | The Covid-19 pandemic is expected to result in large and persistent losses in economic output, known as scarring. These losses were expected to be more severe in Emerging Markets than in Advanced Economies. This paper examines the impact of Covid on output in Emerging Markets so far and its implications for projections of economic scarring. While Covid has had a material impact on activity, the recovery has been stronger than initially expected. These positive data surprises have over time been treated increasingly as transitory rather than a signal for the state of scarring. The composition of output losses has been qualitatively different from past last shocks. History suggests that the main driver of scarring is weak productivity. Covid losses, however, have so far been more skewed to employment with a smaller than usual impact on productivity. These findings suggest that scarring, while substantial, may be less severe than initially feared, at least over the medium term.

Cognitive and socioemotional skills in low-income countries: Measurement and associations with schooling and earnings  | Danon, Das, de Barros, Filmer assess the reliability and validity of cognitive and socioemotional skills measures and investigate the correlation between schooling, skills acquisition, and labor earnings. They document that: (a) more years of schooling are correlated with higher cognitive and socioemotional skills; (b) labor earnings are correlated with cognitive and socioemotional skills, conditional on years of schooling and; (c) the earnings-skills correlations depend on respondents’ migration status. The magnitude of the correlations between schooling and skills on the one hand and earnings and skills on the other is consistent with a widespread concern that such skills are underproduced in the schooling system.

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Returns to Education Turns 50 |

Submit a Manuscript to the Journal Education Economics for a Special Issue on the 50th Anniversary of the Returns to Education: An International Comparison | Manuscript deadline: 31 October 2023 | Special Issue Editor: Harry Patrinos, World Bank | Submit An Article | This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book, Returns to Education: An International Comparison, by George Psacharopoulos (assisted by Keith Hinchliffe). Education Economics is publishing a special issue to mark this occasion and the contributions of Professor Psacharopoulos. The focus of this special issue is research on the returns to education. Research on international comparisons and /or  returns to education in less developed economies are especially welcome.