The wealthiest school districts in the Capital Region have largely recovered from pandemic-related learning loss, whereas many of the poorer districts have stagnated or even worsened over the past year, a Monitor analysis of 2024 state assessment data released earlier this fall shows.

In Hopkinton, which has a median household income of $116,000, the percentage of students who failed to score proficient this year was nearly identical to the district’s percentages in 2019, the last year before the pandemic upended education nationwide.

In contrast, in Pittsfield, where the median income is $65,000, the percentage of students who failed to score proficient grew by multiple percentage points from last year to this year, reaching 80% in math and 65% in reading. Those rates are 14 and 6 percentage points higher, respectively, than in 2019.

Overall, New Hampshire continues to incrementally improve in its ongoing recovery from the pandemic, but that statewide trend obscures the role community wealth has appeared to play in the recovery process.

In the higher-income towns of Hopkinton and Bow, Statewide Assessment System scores returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 and remained there this year. 

In low-income districts like Pittsfield and Franklin, the numbers have either largely remained static or worsened.

In a third group of school districts – those that generally have middling median household incomes – modest improvements have occurred year-over-year but have yet to yield a return to pre-pandemic levels.

In Concord, for example, the percentage of students who weren’t proficient decreased by multiple percentage points in math and reading from last year to this year, continuing a multi-year trend of improvement. Concord’s proficiency rates remain 13 and 9 percentage points lower in math and reading, respectively, than in 2019, reflecting the ongoing recovery process.

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Statewide, math and reading scores remained virtually even from last year to this year, with a one percentage point decline in math and a one percentage point improvement in reading. This year’s state average of 41% proficiency in math is seven percentage points lower than the 2019 average, while the average of 53% proficiency in reading is 3 percentage points below the 2019 rates.

“The 2024 results reveal significant achievements in English language arts, with many grades showing increased proficiency and increased acceleration in student learning,” DOE test administrator Nate Greene said in a press release. “However, while we celebrate these successes, we must also address the areas where challenges persist.”

Despite an incomplete return to pre-pandemic achievement in many districts, money from the federal government that had been allocated to schools to address learning loss has as of this fall run out.

The Statewide Assessment System, or SAS, test is administered to students in grades 3-8 and 11. Scores fall into one of four categories: below proficient, approaching proficient, proficient, and above proficient.

SAS test scores have been considered one barometer of pandemic recovery, though individual school district employ their own assessment tools, as well.

In addition to raw proficiency categories, the test results also provide a student growth percentile, or SGP, which measures student progress from year to year. Percentiles above 50% indicate that a district’s average student performance has improved from the previous year more than the statewide average improvement.

SGP also appeared correlated to district wealth, though not as uniformly as the raw scores. Hopkinton had the highest SGP among Merrimack County schools at 60%, while Epsom, with a median household income of $91,000, had the lowest.

Franklin and Pittsfield had the third and fourth lowest SGPs at 40% and 43%, respectively.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.