3 September 2024
Amanda Forrester / [email protected]
According to experts, school closures caused by COVID-19 have had a negative impact on the reading skills of many students across Michigan.
Third and fourth graders across the state took the M-STEP, a test that measures various learning outcomes. According to a press release from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, students’ scores in the 2023-2024 school year were “significantly lower” than the scores in the 2018-2019 school year. Last year’s test scores were also higher than those in the 2023-2024 school year.
The third-graders who will take the test in the 2023-2024 school year were in kindergarten during the 2020-2021 school year, at the height of the pandemic.
“Michigan’s schools were closed for much longer than many other states, including many of our neighboring states,” said Molly Macek, director of education policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Relations. “Many schools were closed for most, if not all, of the 2020-2021 school year. Some were even closed partially the following year.”
According to the press release, Governor Whitmor “vetoed three bills that would have helped families cover the costs of tutoring, remedial programs and literacy coaches.”
“Michigan schools received an unprecedented amount of federal COVID funding, $6 billion,” Macek said. “That averaged about $4,600 per student. In the poorest districts, they received significantly more. According to a study we recently published at the Mackinac Center, much of that funding was used to increase the salaries of existing staff or their administrators or administrative staff. We find very little evidence that those funds were used for actions that directly impacted student learning and helped them recoup those learning losses.”
Macek said several laws have been introduced to promote literacy, but for students currently being tested, these measures may come too late.
“There have been some laws introduced to promote literacy, but it’s too late to help the kids who were learning to read and developing those skills during the pandemic,” Macek said. “There have been various types of laws introduced that would have given parents access to tutoring and other academic support services that could have helped our kids catch up. Now the kids are so far behind that it’s going to be really difficult to implement something that has a meaningful impact in a short period of time.”
For more information about the Mackinac Center, please visit the links below.