SOE Dean Elizabeth Moje speaks with Chalkbeat about the sharp downturn in Michigan students’ test scores
Factors including the trauma of the pandemic and foreboding headlines are at play, says Moje.
Participation in Michigan’s standardized test returned to normal this spring, and results show that student scores are sharply down from before the pandemic. This decline, reports Chalkbeat, underlines the severe academic toll of virtual learning and other COVID-related disruptions and traumas.
In addition to grade retention, the scores also play a major role in teacher evaluations and in the letter grades that the state gives to each school. The most academically troubled districts will be put under increased state scrutiny, known as a partnership agreement, that can lead to a takeover or closure if scores don’t improve.
The trauma of the pandemic, combined with dark headlines about climate change and school shootings, offer one explanation for falling scores, said SOE Dean Elizabeth Moje.
“They’re looking around and going, ‘Gosh, the world is crumbling around us.’ There’s all this violence. How about school shootings? These are young people who are trying to make sense of their place in the world and asking ‘Where do I fit?’ and they’re being asked to learn abstract things that they don’t understand the purpose for learning. That in itself is stress-inducing.”
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