How To Know If Your Child Is Falling Behind In School

Data emerging from this school year confirms a troubling reality facing America's schools: The pandemic erased two decades of kids' progress in math and reading, depriving many of more than a full school year's worth of learning. Recent figures also show a decline in civics and history proficiency among eighth graders.

It could take at least four years for student achievement to return to pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent analysis by scholars from Harvard University and Stanford University.

Now that the school year is wrapping up, parents may want to get a better handle on how their kids are performing academically and on how much work (if any) is needed to get them caught up.

Here are some tips for better understanding how your kid did this school year and how to better support their progress in the fall.

Is My Child At Grade Level?

Report cards can help indicate how a child is doing in school, but "they typically also have little to no connection to whether the child has mastered the content and skills necessary to succeed at the next grade," said Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan think tank based at Arizona State University that's been studying pandemic-era achievement and districts' responses.

Despite culture war-fueled efforts to assert parents' so-called rights and spur their involvement in school, most families, as the Harvard and Stanford researchers pointed out, "remain ill-informed about how far behind their children are." A Pew Research Center survey last fall found just a quarter of parents felt their children were still lagging while in reality about 2 in 3 kids were at least partly behind where they should be in some subjects.

If you want to further investigate whether your child is ready for the next school year, start by asking whether they're performing at grade level. (Kids' teachers are usually the best person to ask, but if classrooms are already closed for the summer or you don't know how to reach the teachers, try contacting the central office - the staff there might be able to help track down the info you need.)

Whether a student is performing at the level expected of someone in their grade isn't a perfect metric, nor are the tests used to assess that, Lake said. But "if a parent could ask their teacher, 'Is my child performing at grade-level expectations and how do you know?' - that question alone can yield a lot of important information," she said.

That's especially true at certain points in the K-12 trajectory. If a child isn't reading by third grade, research suggests, they are significantly less likely to graduate on time. Other research shows the same goes for kids who fail Algebra I by the end of ninth grade.

Will My Child Be Ready For College?

The next important question to ask your kids' educators once the students reach high school or even middle school is whether they are ready for college or are on the right track to be ready.

You can dig further by asking if your student has taken the required courses to graduate. Are they getting the grades required to get into their desired postsecondary programs? And how did they perform on the PSAT?

Education Terms Parents Should Know

People in the education world, including teachers, often use certain terms when talking about grade-level performance. Here is what you should know before talking with your kid's teachers:

Proficient: On federal tests and in your kid's school, this generally means someone who is performing at grade level.

Standard: An educational goal, typically set by the state and used to determine whether a student is at grade level.

Assessments: This word is usually used to describe federal, state, or local standardized exams designed to measure whether a student is performing at a certain level.

Curriculum: A broad (and loaded) phrase that can refer to a variety of things but at K-12 schools generally involves a teacher's plan and content for instruction, including the topics and skills students are expected to learn over the course of the school year.

Intervention: A student-specific program or steps schools take to help children improve in an area of need - small-group instruction for kids still learning English, for example, or silent signals for those who struggle with behavior.

What To Do If Your Child Is Behind

The above prompts should be treated as "conversation starters," Lake said, that can help parents decide on the next best steps. You may want to request examples of your child's school work and more information on standards to see how their performance was evaluated.

You can also ask your child's educators what they did this past school year to help them improve and what steps should be taken next year to help them stay or get on track. Research shows so-called high-dosage tutoring - intensive small-group sessions during the school day - is one of the most effective means of catching kids up.

See if you can talk or connect with professionals on campus, such as reading specialists or special-education experts, who are trained to help students struggling in certain areas.

Check if your child is eligible for summer learning or enrichment programs that may be designed specifically for students in need of a boost. There may also be free summer tutoring in your area and options online.