Deborah Loewenberg Ball speaks with The Detroit News about Michigan students’ post-pandemic math recovery 

The newly released Education Recovery Scorecard, a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, shows that Michigan students’ math recovery is above the national average.

In an article reported by The Detroit News, Deborah Loewenberg Ball says these results are likely due to spending on teachers’ professional development, and that improvement should continue over time.

However, Ball notes, a worsening recovery for Michigan’s Students of Color and impoverished students remains a problem. She says more work needs to be done to understand why Black students score lower than white students.

“We’re constantly trying to pump up scores and children’s learning without ever really talking about teaching,” Ball tells The Detroit News. “And what has been happening in elementary math and really math in general, there has been more work helping teachers teach math, more opportunities to learn the math, more opportunities to think about how you address equity, how you address the dis-equities in math learning.”