Newspaper’s analysis shows LAUSD students suffered severe impacts from pandemic school closures

Los Angeles Unified School District students have suffered “deep drops in assessment scores or below grade-level standing in key areas of learning” because of the pandemic and school closures, a data analysis by the Los Angeles Times found.

Black, Latino and other vulnerable students were particularly hard hit, the newspaper reported Thursday

Elementary school reading scores are down 7%, and more than 200,000 students are not meeting grade-level math and reading goals, according to the report.

The achievement gap between Black and Latino students and white and Asian students widened to 21% during the pandemic, according to the report.

“We have to fix it,” the Times quoted LAUSD board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin as saying. “The opportunities available to students that have been most historically marginalized by systems of power are exactly what we have to be focused on.”