The Education Recovery Scorecard finds progress nationwide, but many districts serving Latino students continue to post deeper academic losses, with California families watching closely.
A major new national education study released May 13 found that Latino students have made academic progress since the pandemic, but many still remain behind pre-2020 levels and continue to face wider achievement gaps than students in wealthier and whiter districts.
The report, released through the Education Recovery Scorecard project by researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University, and Dartmouth College, analyzed test results for roughly 35 million students in grades 3 through 8 across more than 8,700 U.S. school districts.
For Latino families across California and especially Los Angeles, the findings are significant because many of the nation’s largest Latino student populations are concentrated in districts still working to recover from years of disrupted learning.
Latino Students Still Hit Hardest in Many Districts
Researchers found that districts enrolling high shares of Black and Latino students continue to show larger overall academic declines since 2019 than predominantly white and affluent districts.
That means even though many Latino students are improving, recovery has not been equal.
In some districts, Latino students are also losing ground compared with white classmates attending the same schools. Researchers said pandemic learning loss may have exposed and accelerated deeper inequalities that already existed.
This is especially relevant in California, where Latino students make up a large share of public school enrollment and where academic outcomes strongly shape future earnings, college access, and long-term economic mobility.
One of the most striking findings is that academic decline may have begun years before the pandemic.
Researchers say test score trends suggest a national “learning recession” started around 2013, meaning many students were already struggling before school shutdowns began in 2020.
That is key because it changes the conversation. The problem may not be only pandemic recovery. It may also be about deeper structural issues in education, including attendance, literacy support, staffing shortages, poverty concentration, and unbalanced school resources.
The report notes that racial achievement gaps are heavily tied to poverty concentration.
Because Latino families are more likely to live in lower-income communities due to long-standing economic inequality, many Latino students were concentrated in districts that entered the pandemic with fewer resources and suffered steeper setbacks.
For California families dealing with high housing costs, overcrowding, long commutes, and digital access challenges during remote learning, those pressures likely compounded the academic damage.
Federal Relief Money Helped Prevent Worse Losses
There was also encouraging news.
Researchers found that federal pandemic relief funds known as ESSER helped many high-poverty districts recover faster than expected. Those districts often serve large Latino student populations.
The funding supported tutoring, summer school, counseling, staff retention, technology access, and expanded learning programs.
Without that money, researchers suggest long-term losses could have been worse.
What This Means for Los Angeles Families
In the Los Angeles Unified School District and surrounding Southern California districts, families are likely to see continued focus on attendance, literacy, math intervention, tutoring, and after-school support.
Parents may want to ask schools:
- Is my child on grade level in reading and math?
- What tutoring help is available?
- Are summer learning programs open?
- How is attendance affecting progress?
- What recovery data does the school track?
The report reinforces a hard truth: recovery is happening, but not evenly.
For Latino students in California, the next phase may determine whether recent gains become lasting momentum or whether old achievement gaps widen again.
The biggest question now is whether states and districts continue targeted support after federal emergency funds expire.
For many Latino families, the answer could shape a child’s future for years.
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