Younger students markedly behind older peers post-pandemic: Study

(NewsNation) — Students who began their formal education during the COVID-19 pandemic are consistently behind historic trends and require more help to keep pace than their older counterparts did, new data reveals.

A Curriculum Associates study compared three years of reading and math results from the same subjects — the youngest being 3 years old at the beginning of collection in 2021 and the oldest roughly 9 — to historical education trends.

The data show that different age groups are wading through post-pandemic education in divergent ways, with older kids rebounding and sometimes excelling, while younger students were concerningly behind historical data in both subjects.