Utah given an "F" for lack of school performance data
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Utah is among the majority of states that are failing to provide accessible, transparent school performance data on student learning loss from COVID-19 shutdowns, a new study finds.
Why it matters: The lack of data makes it hard for parents to choose a school for their child by relying on state report cards mandated by federal law or for parents to put pressure on struggling schools.
Driving the news: The study by Arizona State's Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) released Thursday found that most states make it hard to find pre-COVID data to compare how far today's students have fallen behind.
- CRPE developed a grading system to judge state websites and found that 35 earned a "C" or worse on making data available.
- Utah and a dozen states received "F" ratings, with Maine, New Mexico, and North Dakota earning zero out of the 21 points possible under the grading system.
- Just seven states got "A" grades.
The big picture: Following the pandemic, student absenteeism skyrocketed, achievement gaps grew, graduation rates fluctuated, and English learner proficiency suffered.
- School closings also exposed deep systemic inequalities in school technology access, teacher shortages and transportation. Failures to report the pandemic's lasting effects hurt efforts to address them.
Zoom in: In Utah, proficiency rates in math, English and science fell from 2019 to 2021 but rose slightly from 2021 to 2022, per the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
- Low-income students have been disproportionately affected and have ended up falling behind in those subjects by two to three times more than the state average.
State of play: Neither former President Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris has offered any new ideas on their plans to improve public education.
- Trump has talked about abolishing the U.S. Department of Education and focused on conservative cultural policies like "patriotic" history lessons.
- Harris has leaned into reducing school shootings.
The intrigue: The CRPE report also comes a day after the Biden administration called on governors and state education leaders to create statewide systems for chronic absenteeism-related data.
- The administration issued new school improvement guidance on Wednesday to accelerate academic achievement.
Between the lines: The manipulation of data or the refusal by some states and districts to report it makes it hard to get an accurate picture of what's going on in public schools, Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at USC Rossier who led the CRPE research, tells Axios.
- "We've been doing testing and accountability for, like, two decades, and the fact that you still have so much data that's just missing, or even if it's there, you have to have a Ph.D. in education policy, is problematic," Polikoff said.
What they're saying: "The accountability movement isn't dead, but it's on life support," says Dale Chu, a senior visiting fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
- Chu says that since Trump's first term, red states have focused on school choice policies, and blue states have watered down accountability and testing requirements.
What we're watching: Education advocates and parents could pressure the next administration to drop the partisan culture fights around education and bring back bipartisan coalitions that shaped accountability measures.