Louisiana State Assessment Data
Steady Recovery Post-COVID Overall, Divergence by Racial Groups
Today’s edition of this newsletter reports on data from Louisiana, released yesterday on 8/2.
Prior Posts:
A Quick Recap
As we discussed in our introductory post (read it here), our goal in this project is to provide a top-line summary of the state-level assessment results. We’re focusing on ELA (English language arts) and math scores for grades 3 through 8, and we’ll provide the same three graphs for each state:
Overall proficiency rates in ELA and math, going back to 2018 if possible
Proficiency rates in ELA and math by race/ethnicity
Proficiency rates in ELA and math by district-level poverty rate
If you are interested in other information out of these data — other analyses, data cuts, or visualizations — please reach out and we’ll see if we can help. We’ve only scratched the surface here, and a main goal of our work is to make these data more accessible to people who want to write about, analyze, or use them in their work. You can email us at statetestscoreresults@gmail.com.
In reaction to the last post, we got a number of questions about linking test score data with school closures. We have not done that for 2023, but in our series of briefs in 2022 we provided those graphs. These can all be accessed here.
Louisiana
The student outcome data used in this data brief come from the “Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) 2025” assessment; more information can be found here. The LEAP 2025 assessment includes five proficiency levels: Unsatisfactory, Approaching Basic, Basic, Mastery, and Advanced. In the summaries below, we define proficiency as students who were in the top two categories. Louisiana did not assess students in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Overall Trends
Overall proficiency in Louisiana fell in both ELA and math between 2019 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proficiency rates fell about 4.4 percentage points in ELA and 7.5 percentage points in math.
State test scores in Louisiana have recovered steadily. ELA pass rates in 2023 are only 1.4 percentage points below 2019, and math scores are 2.7 percentage points lower. This represents a trend upwards since 2022.
Louisiana may be interestingly contrasted to Georgia, which saw virtually identical declines between 2019 and 2021 but has recovered much less.
Trends by Race and Ethnicity
There are very stark differences in proficiency levels across race/ethnicity student subgroups in both ELA and math in the Louisiana data. Black and Hispanic students perform worse than other subgroups, and Asian students, on average, have higher proficiency rates in both subject areas.
Test score recovery has been uneven across racial groups. Asian students in Louisiana saw no significant losses in ELA, and while they saw large losses in math, they have completely recovered. White students have also seen more limited decline and largely fully recovered. In contrast, other racial groups -- especially Hispanice students -- have seen virtually no recovery post-COVID. Math passing rates for Hispanic students in Louisiana remain 5 percentage points below their level in 2019, even as Asian students are seeing higher passing rates than 2019.
Trends by District-Level Income
Districts are divided into groups based on the share of students in poverty, as classified by the U.S. Census Bureau in their 2021 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program (SAIPE). All groups showed declines in proficiency during the pandemic, and limited recovery.
As is commonly true across state assessment data, lower-poverty school districts have higher proficiency rates. In Louisiana, the declines during the pandemic are similar across district poverty levels, and recovery is also similar.
Note that in Louisiana there are no school districts with fewer than 10% of households below the federal poverty line.
Summary
Assessment data in Louisiana points to steady recovery, but a concerning divergence across racial groups.
What else would you like to see in these data? Leave a comment, or email us at statetestscoreresults@gmail.com.