鈥淭he thing that really struck us as we looked across all of the data points 鈥� [is] there鈥檚 just a disproportionate impact for those [special populations of] students across the board,鈥� said Robin Lake, director of the at Arizona State University.  鈥淲hat I think really came through to us 鈥� especially in the parent interviews we conducted this year 鈥� was parents were experiencing a system that wasn鈥檛 functioning even before the pandemic effectively for them.鈥�

At a press conference Tuesday, Lake called the report鈥檚 findings a 鈥渨arning bell for systemic reform.鈥� 

Disadvantaged students continue 鈥渂earing the brunt of slow and uneven recovery鈥� from pandemic-era school closures, Lake said, and their struggles come at a time when their numbers are growing.

There was a surge of roughly 343,000 students identified for special education from the 2020鈥�21 to the 2022鈥�23 school years a trend which appears on track to continue. There are variations across states and student groups, with Black and Hispanic students being identified at higher rates.   

Lake said researchers are still trying to determine if this is just normal catch-up following under-identification during school closures, or if something more is going on.

The 2024 State of the American Student Report builds on two previous annual reports, which detailed the impact of COVID on students鈥� academic performance and well-being. Last year鈥檚 research focused on older students with little-to-no time left in the K-12 system, who saw what the organization described as 鈥渟hocking declines鈥� in college and career readiness. This year, CRPE interviewed parents and dug into data around particularly vulnerable student populations.

The academic impacts on students with disabilities and their rate of recovery varied from district to district, according to a CRPE-commissioned analysis by Georgia State professor Tim Sass. This, they believe, shows that what schools and districts did during and after the pandemic had real impact, but more research is needed to learn what kind of mitigation and recovery strategies proved most effective.

More than four years after COVID emerged, the average student who experienced school closures is still less than halfway to a , but Lake emphasized that averages can obscure particular students’ nuanced experiences. 鈥淯nder the hood of average,鈥� she said, she saw reason for both optimism and concern.

The good news: Students are bouncing back in some areas. The average student has recovered about of their pandemic-era learning losses in math and a quarter in reading.

Evidence-based practices, such as tutoring, high-quality curricula and extended learning time, are starting to get baked into school systems, she said, which she hopes will last beyond stimulus funds. 

Yet, many of these practices still aren鈥檛 reaching nearly enough students.

For example, across four major, urban public school systems in 2023, 8th graders with disabilities and English language learners continued to score significantly lower than their peers in English Language Arts. In New York City, 61% of all students demonstrated proficiency, while only 29% of students with disabilities and 9% of English learners did.

Chronic absenteeism also disproportionately plagues special populations, according to Sass鈥檚 analysis. And parents expressed frustration that during school closures their kids weren鈥檛 getting access to their legally required interventions. Simultaneously, they were concerned that expectations for their children were being lowered, while communication was dwindling.

鈥淥ne of our researchers started referring to this as ghosting,鈥� said Lake. 鈥淭hat the parents were being ghosted by their schools 鈥� [and] not getting information about how their kids were doing academically.鈥� 

Ultimately, they felt blindsided when they found out just how far behind their children had fallen. As students have returned to school buildings, more have been flagged as having special learning needs and requiring special education, after a dip during the pandemic. 

Especially when looking at 鈥淐OVID babies,鈥� those who didn鈥檛 necessarily get access to preschool or typical socialization, Lake wondered, 鈥淎re they being funneled into special education as a solution or do they really have a disability that needs to be addressed in special education?鈥� And, she added, 鈥淚s special education equipped to deal with this influx?鈥�

CRPE鈥檚 analysis found that special education identification rates varied greatly across school districts in Massachusetts, which reports more detailed data than most other states. For example, the rate of identification in kindergarten in Boston grew from 14% to 18% between 2018 and 2024, while about an hour away in Worcester, the pre-K identification jumped far more, from 26% to 38%. Lake said this variation demonstrates that the approach to identification matters, but still 鈥渢here are more questions than answers on this front.鈥� 

Lake emphasized that while special populations may be struggling more acutely, many of the issues they face in the classroom are similar to those of their peers. 

鈥淲hile we鈥檙e seeing a lot of kids moving into special education right now, maybe we need to flip the narrative and think about solving for the kids with the most complex needs,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd if we can figure out how to do that, making sure that all kids can be successful.鈥�

The researchers found these schools, five out of six with high numbers of students of color and those on free and reduced-price lunch, asking how to offer students multiple pathways to postsecondary success, beyond just college, without lowering academic rigor or expectations. Chosen because they had a track record of innovation, the schools were questioning whether the accommodations given to students during the throes of remote learning or right after the return to in-person instruction were still serving them well.

In doing so, they are expanding their visions of success and reimagining their purpose, a move which researchers note could mark a departure from past understandings of schooling. They titled their study 鈥淎 鈥楪ood Life鈥� for Every Student.鈥�

鈥淲e saw high schools starting to adjust the goal posts, where they were taking on more responsibility for student success in the long run,鈥� said Chelsea Waite, senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University.

Between April 2022 and November 2023, Waite and her partner, Maddy Sims, from Columbia University鈥檚 Center for Public Research and Leadership, did 266 interviews with current high school students, graduates, parents, teachers and school administrators. Of the six schools, including some in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, four were traditional public and two were charter schools. 

Two were alternative programs for students who are overage and undercredited, pregnant or parenting or have a history of chronic absenteeism. These students, administrators said, would have once been considered a success if they just reached graduation. Three other schools were focused on increasing access to Advanced Placement and other rigorous academic courses and to “Early College Experience” offerings.

Participating students and families identified three major priorities for post-high school futures: happiness, fulfillment and stability. For some, this included college. For others, it meant immediately entering the workforce. The concept of a 鈥渉appy life鈥� included financial security, but no one interviewed said salary was the main determinant of success.

These schools were not just trying to get students across the finish line to graduation and then directly to college, Waite said. Instead they were asking 鈥淲hat are students鈥� individualized understandings of who they want to be as adults and what they want to be in the world?鈥� And 鈥淗ow can we set them up with a corresponding, individualized plan that can help them on that path to a good life?鈥�

Each of the six schools prioritized students graduating with a 鈥済ood plan鈥� in place, but educators also acknowledged that 鈥渢here really hadn’t been full alignment on what constitutes or what defines a 鈥榞ood plan鈥� in practice,鈥� said Sims.

Looking to provide roadmaps for other high schools, researchers asked what success means to school communities, especially for students who have been historically marginalized; what solutions schools were exploring to help all students achieve; and what obstacles they were facing in this attempt. 

Challenges they observed across schools:

• Educators鈥� concerns that increasing flexibility could decrease rigor
• Desire to give students room to define their own paths to success without perpetuating historical 鈥渙pportunity gaps鈥�
• Overreliance on traditional data (such as test scores or graduation rates), despite recognizing that these are insufficient to meaningfully track success

 Examples of innovations they observed schools introducing to ensure students were academically engaged and supported:

• Shifts to interdisciplinary units and coursework. For example, in one school students were learning about marketing, social science, financial literacy and ratios in a multi-week course on the loan industry. One administrator said, 鈥淚 think we can do a much better job of trapping kids in the honey of each content area. To be a writer is such a powerful thing. To be a scientist is such a powerful thing.鈥�
• AP courses and 鈥淓arly College Experience鈥� courses, which partner with local colleges and universities
• Shift in grading towards 鈥済rading for equity鈥� practices that focus on measuring what students know rather than how they behave
• Moving toward using the classroom as a space of exploration of identity and student-driven learning. One school allowed students to build credit-bearing 鈥減ersonalized learning experiences,鈥� essentially independent studies with an advisor
• Individualized mentoring and counseling. For example, two schools used a 鈥減rimary person鈥� model, in which each student has one adult mentor who they check in with regularly 
• Alternative approaches to discipline, such as 鈥渞estorative circles,鈥� which they defined as 鈥渃onversations intended to repair relationships and find mutually-agreeable solutions, after a behavioral incident or conflict鈥�

鈥淲e did feel ourselves really compelled to illustrate how many different actions鈥� taken by different people at different levels of the system鈥� are necessary to support high schools systemically to be the kinds of places that set students up for a life of their own choosing,鈥� said Waite.

While most of the schools started this transformational work before 2020, the pandemic provided a unique opportunity to study high school reform, according to the researchers. These challenging few years 鈥渟trengthened educators鈥� dedication to achieving new designs for high school,鈥� while increasing their focus on race, racism and equity.

Waite and Sims noticed that educators and administrators across the board were reflecting on how to provide students with flexibility and support without compromising rigor and high expectations. As teachers welcomed students back from remote learning, they needed to prioritize creating a supportive environment to see young people through a disruptive, traumatizing period. But now they鈥檙e questioning what comes next.

In discussing leniency during the pandemic, one teacher said, 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 teach coping mechanisms, we just protected [students].鈥� Teacher turnover and burnout also made it hard to hold students accountable. At two of the schools studied, the teaching staff was so new that they didn鈥檛 know what the classrooms looked like before COVID hit.

As for 鈥渃ollege for all,鈥� the researchers found a number of reasons some students are moving away from that mindset, including financial stress and risk, burnout, high-stakes testing and applications, and an understanding that there are an increasing number of jobs that don鈥檛 require a college degree. Schools wanted to ensure that college doesn鈥檛 become a privilege for a select group of students, while also communicating that a wider variety of options exist. 

High schools alone cannot be held wholly responsible to address all of the challenges presented in the report, the researchers said. 鈥淚nstead, what we really observed is the incredible power of bridge building between high schools and the higher education sector, as well as between high schools and local employers.鈥�

Waite acknowledged the study’s limitations, noting that these six schools don鈥檛 necessarily represent the entire country or even the Northeast. 鈥淲hat we do believe is that the themes and ideas and challenges that came through in the research 鈥� are really widespread and challenging issues that feel relevant to many different kinds of high schools.”

And yet, in most American cities 鈥� and a wide range of 鈥� a quiet consensus has formed around dual language immersion programs. These bilingual schools appear to appeal to everyone 鈥� for the past two decades, . They鈥檙e popular because they offer 1) all students the chance to become bilingual in diverse learning settings, and 2) English learners the best chance to retain their emerging bilingual skills and succeed academically. But in a joint Century Foundation and the Children鈥檚 Equity Project published this week, we show that these bonuses aren鈥檛 a certainty. 

First: What are they? The most effective are 鈥渢wo-way鈥� dual language immersion programs. These offer bilingual instruction and a bilingual social world 鈥� by enrolling roughly equal shares of children who are native speakers of English and children who are native speakers of the program鈥檚 other, 鈥減artner,鈥� language. This is a major improvement on traditional U.S. language courses, where one Spanish-speaking (or French-speaking, or Arabic-speaking, etc.) teacher tries to cajole a classful of native English-speakers into conjugating verbs. It is also an improvement on traditional U.S. bilingual education programs, which usually only offer bilingual instruction long enough to transition English-learning children to English-only instruction. 

But, as one of us noted in 鈥� and 鈥� the relative scarcity of dual language schools means that these goals are in tension. and these students gain unique benefits from dual language programs, particularly when they鈥檙e integrated. And yet, in some cases, high demand for dual language from privileged, English-dominant, and often white families displaces less-privileged ELs, who are disproportionately likely to be , and . 

It鈥檚 an elemental question of fairness: research suggests that policymakers should prioritize equitable dual language access for English-learning children, but also that diverse, linguistically integrated programs work best for ELs and English-dominant children alike. And, of course, the program鈥檚 popularity with the privileged can make it difficult to find a balance. 

To get a clearer view of the situation, our new report analyzes more than 1,600 dual language schools enrolling more than 1 million students across 13 states and the District of Columbia. It explores the different ways that cities and school districts are navigating that tension in their dual language programs. 

Given the tension between prioritizing English learners鈥� access and maintaining diverse dual-language campuses, it can be difficult to define and measure what counts as fair access. For instance, we found that a majority of dual-language schools in Dallas, New York City, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Oakland, San Francisco, Houston, and Portland enrolled a lower share of white students compared to their share of the district population in 2020. 

But we also found that access to these schools is changing over time. ELs鈥� share of dual-language enrollment shrank between 2015 and 2020 in a majority of these schools in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jos茅. Meanwhile, white enrollment shares grew in a majority of dual-language schools in New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Portland, and Washington, D.C.

These patterns are particularly striking in the context of shifting American public school demographics, where the share of white students 鈥� and the share of English learners has been growing.

Up to a point, enrolling more English-dominant students (of any race or ethnicity) can make dual-language schools work better for all students 鈥� including ELs. Indeed, while 92 of Dallas’s 154 dual-language programs got whiter since 2015, just 33 were whiter than the district in 2020. This is mostly because Dallas enrolls relatively few white, English-dominant students. A majority of the district’s students are current or former English learners and most come from Spanish-dominant homes. As a result, most of Dallas鈥檚 programs are 鈥渙ne-way鈥� dual-language models, serving classrooms of only Spanish-dominant children. The upshot: the district might benefit from finding ways to increase English-dominant enrollment in these schools. Notably, San Antonio is pursuing this strategy in some of its dual-language programs.

The challenge, however, is to ensure that privileged, English-dominant families don鈥檛 fully colonize these schools and push ELs out. Fortunately, there are relatively straightforward ways for policymakers to protect English learners鈥� access. For instance, in Washington, D.C., 13 out of 17 dual-language schools had student populations whiter than the district in 2020. But in San Francisco, another gentrification epicenter, just 3 out of 21 dual language schools were whiter than the district. 

Demand for dual language is high in both places. wind up on D.C. dual language schools鈥� waitlists each year. In , in one program, there were two applicants for each seat reserved for native Japanese-speakers and 15 applicants for each seat available to non-native Japanese speakers 鈥� and similar patterns in other dual language programs. 

Notably, district leaders in San Francisco are much more aggressive about reserving seats for native speakers of the non-English partner language (e.g. Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, etc.). The data suggest the reserved seats are perhaps the key difference 鈥� without them, demand from San Francisco鈥檚 English-dominant families would rapidly shift programs away from English learners who are native speakers of the program鈥檚 non-English languages. Our research suggests that more schools should consider similar policies to ensure that ELs have fair access to the dual-language classrooms that serve them best. 

Finally, as we note in the report, 鈥渘othing exacerbates educational unfairness like scarcity.鈥� The tension between prioritizing English learners鈥� access and enrolling diverse dual language classrooms would dissolve if there were enough programs to meet family demand. Local, state and federal policymakers should increase public investments in growing these programs. Above all, this means committing resources to train and license more of the bilingual teachers necessary to expand dual language instruction. 

Without reforms like these, the country鈥檚 growing number of dual language programs could fall well short of their potential for ELs and English-dominant students alike. Dual language schools full of privileged, English-dominant children will be less effective at producing bilingual graduates. Dual language schools that segregate Spanish-dominant (or Arabic-dominant, Vietnamese-dominant, etc.) English learners away from their English-dominant peers risk reinforcing social separation between families of different backgrounds. Given the popularity and effectiveness of dual language programs with children from linguistically, racially, socioeconomically, ethnically and politically diverse communities, that would be a failure indeed.聽

Century Foundation senior fellow and 74 contributor ; Children鈥檚 Equity Project executive director ; Century Foundation fellow and Century Foundation senior policy associate are the co-authors of 鈥淓nsuring Equitable Access to Dual-Language Immersion Programs.鈥�