The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) recently launched a new initiative to help educators understand the size and scope of pandemic learning loss. The brainchild of DPI’s Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration (OLR), the initiative encompasses a new blog–called “Research & Recovery Roundup” — as well as a series of monthly white papers.
Here’s the summary from OLR:
Through these blog posts and whitepapers series, each month we will focus on a key finding or student group to explore in more detail and use existing literature to identify and propose key evidenced-based interventions intended to help those students combat the impact of lost instructional time and accelerate learning.
OLR, a relatively new office, was established by State Superintendent Catherine Truitt. Its preliminary report came out in March 2022 and sought to quantify just how much learning students lost during the pandemic. Findings are the result of a partnership with the SAS Institute.
- Access the Research & Recovery Roundup blog.
- View OLR’s April 2022 white paper explaining how researchers assessed impacts.
- Read the May 2022 white paper addressing the number of school months needed for learning recovery.
What’s next?
According to OLR:
Future white-papers will describe subgroup trends, present additional analysis, and provide evidence-based policy recommendations. See here for OLR’s preliminary report to the General Assembly. The final technical report is due December 2022.
The State Board of Education will hear an update on this effort at its June meeting later this week.
