The warning signs are unmistakable. Younger students, who were in their formative years when schools shut down, are not catching up as quickly as their older peers. Chronic absenteeism remains alarmingly high, creating a vicious cycle of missed learning and disengagement. Meanwhile, teachers are stretched to their limits, grappling with the dual pressures of addressing learning loss and managing their own burnout. These are not just temporary setbacks; they are harbingers of long-term consequences that could define a generation.

The situation is even more dire for students with disabilities, English learners and others facing unique challenges. The nation’s schools underserved these students even before the pandemic, and now the gaps have widened. Americans are witnessing a deepening of educational inequities that could have devastating effects if policymakers and educational leaders do not intervene.

Perhaps most concerning is that politicians and government agencies aren’t being open and honest with parents and advocates about these problems — or about potential solutions. In a recent analysis, CRPE found that only seven states made it easy for the average parent or website user to see the pre- and post-COVID educational data that every state is required to provide.

The path forward is clear: Educators must urgently expand the use of proven strategies that are already showing results, such as targeted tutoring, high-quality curricula and extended learning time. But these alone will not be enough. The pandemic has laid bare the fact that the nation’s education system was never designed to meet the needs of every student, particularly those with the most complex challenges. Truly supporting all students will mean reinventing the system itself.

This means moving beyond the traditional, one-size-fits-all model of education. Schools must become more flexible, adapting to students rather than forcing them to conform to outdated norms, such as a single teacher per classroom and ineffective special education programs. School superintendents and principals must embrace new staffing and scheduling approaches, such as team teaching, that allow for more personalized instruction and support. Further, schools must harness the power of technology, including artificial intelligence, to provide real-time insights into student progress and tailor learning experiences to each child’s individual needs.

Students who have fallen behind developmentally or academically during the pandemic are being placed at very high rates in special education or language programs that the parents we interviewed for our report described as rigid, unresponsive and fundamentally lacking in high expectations for their children. Students who do not fit neatly in programmatic boxes, such as “twice exceptional” children who are both academically gifted and in need of disability accommodations, exemplify why such boxes too often fail to meet individual needs. 

In the pandemic’s wake, it is critical for schools to abandon flawed and outdated approaches. This will mean redeploying staff and reconfiguring schedules to avoid pitting academic tutoring against special education services and supplemental pullout services against core instruction. It will also mean giving parents more options and power if their child is failing to thrive in the assigned program or school. 

But systemic change requires more than just innovative ideas — it takes political will and a commitment to evidence, equity, accountability and a relentless focus on innovation. Policymakers, advocates and philanthropists must work together to ensure that the most vulnerable students receive the targeted support they need. This includes providing honest, transparent data on academic performance so parents and educators can make informed decisions and ensuring that resources are directed where they are most needed.

The stakes could not be higher. If the current state of affairs continues, COVID-19 will leave its indelible mark on yet another cohort of students — young people whose potential will go unrealized and whose futures will be constrained by the failures of adults to act. The time for incremental change has passed. Those with the power to make these critical shifts must act with urgency, creativity and a deep sense of responsibility to all our students. The future of our society will be shaped by decisions and leadership actions in the coming year.

“The thing that really struck us as we looked across all of the data points … [is] there’s just a disproportionate impact for those [special populations of] students across the board,” said Robin Lake, director of the at Arizona State University.  “What I think really came through to us — especially in the parent interviews we conducted this year — was parents were experiencing a system that wasn’t functioning even before the pandemic effectively for them.”

At a press conference Tuesday, Lake called the report’s findings a “warning bell for systemic reform.” 

Disadvantaged students continue “bearing the brunt of slow and uneven recovery” 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 2020–21 to the 2022–23 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’ academic performance and well-being. Last year’s research focused on older students with little-to-no time left in the K-12 system, who saw what the organization described as “shocking declines” 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. “Under the hood of average,” 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’t 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’s analysis. And parents expressed frustration that during school closures their kids weren’t getting access to their legally required interventions. Simultaneously, they were concerned that expectations for their children were being lowered, while communication was dwindling.

“One of our researchers started referring to this as ghosting,” said Lake. “That the parents were being ghosted by their schools … [and] not getting information about how their kids were doing academically.” 

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 “COVID babies,” those who didn’t necessarily get access to preschool or typical socialization, Lake wondered, “Are they being funneled into special education as a solution or do they really have a disability that needs to be addressed in special education?” And, she added, “Is special education equipped to deal with this influx?”

CRPE’s 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 “there are more questions than answers on this front.” 

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. 

“While we’re 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,” she said. “And if we can figure out how to do that, making sure that all kids can be successful.”