As the pandemic continued in 2021-22, new evidence on the experiences of students with disabilities has raised more challenges and provided few concrete answers. Troublingly, we still know very little about how the pandemic has impacted outcomes for students with disabilities. In partnership with CRPE (Center on Reinventing Public Education), CLE released How has the pandemic affected students with disabilities? An update on the evidence: Fall 2022, a report exploring evidence on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected America’s students. Some key takeaways from the research are:
- Less than a third of the most rigorous research in the past year on the pandemic’s academic impact in the past year disaggregates outcomes for students with disabilities.
- While all students declined academically on standardized assessments, declines for students with disabilities are particularly concerning as their scores on average were far below their peers even before the pandemic.
- Questions around compensatory services, delays in identifying young children for special education, disrupted transition planning, and reliance on under-qualified educators complicate efforts to accelerate support for students with disabilities.
- Moving forward, more research that explores the pandemic’s impact on students with disabilities and highlights promising models for accelerating learning is urgently needed.
Read the full report here.
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