Testing increases in some districts have led to pushback from parents and teachers who say it takes away from valuable classroom time, but proponents say itвЂ™s a crucial step toward understanding the impact of the pandemic. In many buildings, the money is being used to add staff who help students in small groups, or to hire tutors for more personal help after school. The results are also guiding the district as it divides $188 million in federal funding among nearly 200 schools. Teachers have used test results to find concepts students struggle with and create plans to get them up to speed, she said. вЂњWeвЂ™ve been working to figure out which students need the most targeted support most quickly,вЂќ said Amy Goodloe, principal of Rocky Run Middle School. In Fairfax County, where more than 20% of students opted out of state tests last year, district officials attempted to fill in the gaps by giving students informal, low-stakes tests to measure their progress this fall. Schools in Chicago were encouraged to use a new screening exam, but a district spokesperson declined to provide the results. Instead, they said the tests are being used at the school level to help teachers support students. New York City is spending $36 million on new testing, but officials said they donвЂ™t have district-wide results.

But not all major districts are analyzing the data or making it public.

Many bigger districts already had testing regimes and data systems to find students who are falling behind, while some are scrambling to catch up. UtahвЂ™s education officials found that students who missed last yearвЂ™s exams were far more likely to be Native American or Hispanic, prompting an urgent call to find those students and вЂњprevent them from falling into an academic spiral.вЂќ States have been raising alarms, urging schools to focus on students who spent more time away from school. It suggests that longstanding inequities are widening, she said, which could translate to deeper learning and income gaps for generations to come. Similar inequities are turning up at schools across the country, said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a national research group. That was up from 30% in 2019, and nearly three times the rate of white students. Last year, public schools in Houston found that 45% of Black and Hispanic students had at least one failing grade. A quarter of white students were flagged for help, up from 19% in 2019. Students learning English saw a similar increase. In Fairfax County, tests given this fall found that 68% of Hispanic elementary school students need intervention in math, up from 55% in 2019. вЂњSome teachers say theyвЂ™re doing great, others say they can do better.вЂќД®arly results of data gathering by some of the countryвЂ™s biggest school districts confirm what many had feared: Groups of students that already faced learning gaps before the pandemic, including Black and Hispanic students and those from low-income families, appear to be behind in even greater numbers now.

вЂњIвЂ™m not sure because every time you meet with someone, they give you something different,вЂќ she said. Her daughters, Elizabeth and Amerie Allder, have since found support through a local tutoring program, Boston Partners in Education, but Rivera wonders whether their school knows how her daughters are doing. вЂњThere was a lot of giving up - it was hard,вЂќ Rivera said. The 14-year-old twins struggled with virtual learning, feeling like they had nowhere to turn when they had trouble with math problems. Now that Lorena RiveraвЂ™s twin daughters are back in the classroom in Boston, some of their teachers have quit mid-year or gotten sick with COVID-19. For students, disruptions related to the pandemic are still reverberating.

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