A Rutgers-Newark report on New Jersey’s Latinx students — the state’s fastest growing demographic — found that after years of progress, educational gains were reversed during the pandemic. Since 2019, the number of Latinx students meeting or exceeding expectations in English and math dropped by 10 percentage points among fourth graders and 11 percentage points among eighth graders. In 2022, 47 percent of Latinx eighth-grade students scored “Below Basic” on the NAEP math tests, with 35 percent scoring “Below Basic” in reading.
“They started off behind other groups in terms of achievement, even though they were improving. But the impact of the pandemic was more devastating than for others,’’ said Charles Payne, director of the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, which published the report in conjunction with the Latino Action Network Foundation. To read the full story.