Who suffered most from COVID learning loss in Fort Worth? Here’s what new report says
The COVID-19 pandemic caused students in all parts of Fort Worth, from the wealthiest communities to the poorest, to lose ground academically last year, according to a new report by a Fort Worth education advocacy group.
Across every Fort Worth City Council district, schools saw declines in the number of students performing on grade level in this year’s state tests, according to the report. Nearly every council district saw declines in the number of students approaching grade level.
The report, released this week by the nonprofit Fort Worth Education Partnership, sheds light on how the pandemic affected academic outcomes not just in a single school district, but in schools in the 24 school districts and charter networks that operate in Fort Worth. Students in schools across Fort Worth performed on grade level just 28% of the time on this year’s State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. That’s an 11-point decline from the spring of 2019, the last time the test was administered.
COVID losses affected all parts of Fort Worth
The report looks at all students in grades 3-8 and all tested subject areas — math, reading, science, social studies and writing — in the aggregate, documenting the percentage of time students met and approached grade level thresholds across those subjects. It includes all traditional public schools and public charter schools in the Fort Worth city limits, breaking STAAR results out by council district.
Declines in performance in more affluent council districts roughly mirrored those in schools in poorer areas, according to the report. But because schools in wealthier areas performed better on state testing before the pandemic began, those students still fared better on state tests this year than their counterparts in other parts of the city.
District 7, in far northwestern Fort Worth, covers some of the most affluent areas of the city. Only 34% of students in that district are economically disadvantaged. In that district, students met grade level 42% of the time this year, a 12-point decline from 2019. But students in the district approached grade level 30% of the time, a two-point uptick from 2019.
In District 5, which spans southeastern and eastern Fort Worth, 87% of students are economically disadvantaged. In that district, students performed on grade level just 16% of the time this year, an 11-point decline from 2019. Students approached grade level 25%, a six-point decline from 2019.
In District 8, which primarily covers southeastern Fort Worth, 90% of students are economically disadvantaged. Students in the district met grade level just 17% of the time, a 10-point decline from 2019. Students approached grade level 25% of the time, down six points from 2019.
Education group wants council members to show leadership
Brent Beasley, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Education Partnership, said the foundation isn’t pushing council members to take any specific action based on the report. But as officials make decisions about the city’s future, they need to understand how Fort Worth’s educational system serves students and their families, said Beasley, who presented the report Tuesday evening to the Fort Worth City Council.
School boards, not city councils, serve as the governing bodies for school districts in Texas. But even if council members don’t control school districts directly, they have a great deal of influence over city services and programs that can affect the educational well-being of Fort Worth’s students, Beasley said. It’s important that city leaders take a certain amount of responsibility for how the city’s schools are doing, he said.
“You can’t have a healthy city or a healthy council district without effective schools and kids who are learning at grade level,” Beasley said.
Michael Faggella-Luby, a professor in the Texas Christian University College of Education, said the report shows clearly that the pandemic caused educational setbacks for all kinds of students. But Faggella-Luby, who wasn’t a part of the research, said it’s important to remember that there are groups of students who were affected much more deeply than the numbers in the report show. Students with disabilities, those who are learning English, students of color and students whose families are in poverty had the potential to be affected more severely than their peers, he said.
Faggella-Luby said it’s critical that education and other public policy leaders be able to look at student performance data as they make decisions about how to help students recover from the academic effects of the pandemic. To that end, he said, it’s good that Texas administered STAAR tests this year, even in spite of problems with the rollout of the exams. But while the report highlights the academic damage the pandemic did, it doesn’t show the specific ways the pandemic affected students and how those effects led to learning loss. It’s the job of public officials to understand how the pandemic affected students and put supports in place that maximize learning, he said.
The numbers outlined in the report mirror statewide trends.
In June, the Texas Education Agency reported that the number of students statewide who didn’t meet grade level on state tests ticked up across all grade levels and subject areas except English I and English II. The effects were most pronounced in math: the number of Texas students who didn’t meet grade level in math grew by 16 percentage points over 2019, while the number of students who didn’t perform on grade level in reading grew by just four points.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 8:44 PM.
