NC superintendent touts state's 'unique' approach to post-pandemic learning recovery
North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt testified before Congress on Wednesday, touting the state’s approach to post-pandemic learning recovery.
Truitt called the state’s approach “unique” in that it involved student-level data collection on what learning suffered the most and state-level guidance for districts on learning recovery programs that work best.
“A scattershot approach of investing in things that may or may not work [was] not a viable option,” Truitt said.
Truitt’s remarks mirrored remarks she’s made to state lawmakers and other state education leaders but were delivered on a higher, national stage Wednesday during a meeting of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Truitt spoke briefly and was largely not the focus of lawmakers, who mostly engaged in a rehashing of the politics around school closures and speculation on the politics of decision-making during potential future pandemics of unknown viruses.
Truitt’s testimony was not focused on the closure debate but on her hopes and reasons to believe in gradual progress for North Carolina students.
North Carolina has spent federal COVID-19 pandemic relief dollars on high-dosage tutoring, various types of summer learning programs, math boot camps and professional development for elementary and pre-kindergarten teachers on a research-backed reading instruction approach.
Truitt said North Carolina students still have hills to climb, with data showing they are still months behind where their knowledge levels should be.
“The big deal is that it will take multiple years to recover, and some students may never recover" because they were behind before the pandemic, Truitt said.
However, data from standardized tests conducted in the spring of 2022 showed North Carolina students were less behind in 2022 than they were in 2021. That calculation is done for each student, based on projected test scores compared to actual test scores.
Truitt created the Office of Learning Recovery and Intervention in early 2021. School districts received a large influx of pandemic relief dollars to be spent on a short timeline but were already stretched thin administratively, she said, and the new office provides guidance.
Lawmakers from both parties responded positively to Truitt’s testimony.
Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., said researching and choosing what was best for North Carolina is what Congress intended with federal pandemic relief dollars.
“That’s what we sent that money to you in order to do,” Hayes said. “For you to make decisions on the ground.”
Some lawmakers and experts complained that they did not know how some of the pandemic relief dollars were being spent across the country and cited examples of some schools spending money on facility improvements as being against what Congress intended.
In central North Carolina, school systems have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward learning recovery. If the pattern held across North Carolina, well more than $1 billion would be going toward learning recovery.
