The 2020-21 school year in West Virginia was rocked by the pandemic, and new test results show just how much learning students missed.
The Statewide Summative Assessment standardized test results, released Wednesday by the State Board of Education, show students lost substantial ground in core subjects.
The test results for grades 3-8 and grade 11 show student proficiency in math had the biggest drop from 2019 to last year, from 39 percent to 28 percent. (The test was not administered in 2019-20.)
Science proficiency was down from 33 percent to 27 percent of students who tested. English Language Arts proficiency fell by six points to 40 percent.
State School Superintendent Clayton Burch braced for the news last week when he said the testing results would be devastating. Wednesday, he attributed the poor outcomes to the chaotic school year.
“Without a doubt, we know that such factors as participation rates, learning modes and learning disruptions over the past 18 months varied by school and likely affected student performance,” Burch said.
There were no bright spots in the results.
Math proficiency dropped in all seven grades tested. The biggest decline was among sixth graders, where aptitude declined by 13 points to just 21 percent. Only one in four high school juniors tested as proficient in math.
Science proficiency among fifth graders declined from 35 percent in 2019 to just 27 percent. Only 34 percent of third graders tested proficient in English Language Arts, a decline from 44 percent two years earlier.
Education officials cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from direct comparisons because the 2020-21 school year was in a near constant state of disruption because of the pandemic.
That is a fair point. The 2021 results must be accompanied by an asterisk since the school year was anything but normal. Students missed valuable instruction time and were too often relegated to hit-or-miss remote learning.
What is even more worrisome, however, is the test scores were not very good before the pandemic. Proficiency in math among the tested grades dating back to the 2014-15 school year has never gotten above 39 percent of students. Reading proficiency has never reached 50 percent of students during the same time.
Test scores by themselves are not the sole indicator of success or failure. However, they do provide valuable measurements to counties, individual schools, students, teachers and staff about the learning deficits.
Based not only on these test results, but also the results from the previous five tests, West Virginia has a long road ahead to reach proficiency for most of our children.