Low-income and minority students at Tucson Unified School District are still struggling to close the achievement gap in English and math despite ongoing intervention efforts, data compiled from just before the pandemic until 2024 show.
Arizona state test scores and data from the national Education Recovery Scorecard reveal both marginal improvement and longer-term struggles for TUSD’s economically disadvantaged, Latino, Black and native students.
It’s worth noting that disparities between TUSD’s general student population and students in minority groups are not unique to TUSD, said governing board member Natalie Luna Rose.
Arizona has struggled with achievement gaps similar to those plaguing TUSD, according to both state and Education Recovery Scorecard data.
“While some student groups continue to need additional support, the district’s targeted interventions appear to be making a positive impact,” said a written statement provided by TUSD’s curriculum leadership. “It’s important to consider when specific initiatives were introduced and how they align with broader district efforts, such as the instructional framework enhancements and teacher clarity training.”
State testing: Math climbs, English slides
Arizona state test scores record proficiency rates, which the district uses to measure growth in-house, TUSD data chief Halley Freitas said in an email.
“Overall proficiency tells us the percent of students who are at or above grade level. Minimally proficiency students tell us what we need to focus on among targeted subgroups to create a multiyear proficiency plan.”
District officials have lasered in on minimally proficient students in TUSD’s efforts to regain ground lost during the pandemic.
At a TUSD board meeting in January, superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said focusing on minimally proficient students offers expedited long-term progress by forming a solid knowledge foundation. By establishing knowledge on the basics, minimally proficient students, in theory, should boost their growth potential, he said.
Trujillo was unavailable this week to discuss the latest data.
National data: Grade levels still uneven
The Education Recovery Scorecard — a collaboration between the Center for Education Research at Harvard University and the Education Opportunity Project at Stanford University — takes a wide view of national data and takes state data from apples-to-oranges, to placing the varied testing methods on the same plane.
Researchers used test score results from roughly 11,000 school districts in 43 states to measure the extent to which test scores changed from Spring 2019 to Spring 2022 and from Spring 2022 to Spring 2024. The researchers used the methods to put the test scores from each state’s tests onto a common scale, and to convert proficiency rates to “grade levels” of achievement.
Freitas acknowledged the validity of the Education Recovery Scorecard, but indicated that because of the wide scope, it does not influence TUSD’s learning recovery-related policy.
“The Education Recovery Scorecard is useful to compare districts against the state and the state against the nation. It is a big picture view of the impact of the pandemic/post-pandemic in terms of learning loss and recovery.”
The scorecard indicates TUSD’s grade-level losses and gains closely mirror those of Arizona as a whole. Although there has been some recovery, the Education Recovery Scorecard shows, Latino, Black and economically disadvantaged students have continued to regress in grade levels, even after the implementation of the district’s learning recovery efforts.
The Education Recovery Scorecard did not provide data for Native American students.
TUSD relied on COVID relief funds
Tucson Unified School District used $3.6 million of its ESSER III federal COVID relief dollars on learning recovery specialists. That round of pandemic relief funding brought a total of $172.9 million to the district.
Other COVID relief-funded learning recovery efforts employed by the district include adding social worker, counselor and tutor positions. Academic loss expenditures covered by federal pandemic relief funds also paid for summer school.
After pandemic relief funds expired last fall, the district arguably fought to keep the specialists — interventionists and “return to instruction” (RTI) professionals — on TUSD’s roster.
Interventionists design and plan individualized work with students, using data to identify who needs extra help and to evaluate which techniques and materials best meet those students’ needs. Response to intervention teachers, or RTIs, primarily work with grades 6-8 and are embedded within classes.
Within the last year, TUSD regained oversight of desegregation funds. In order to pay for the learning recovery specialists, desegregation money was shifted to cover the cost to keep interventionists and RTIs, a move that infuriated some of the district’s stakeholders.
District officials in support of rerouting desegregation funds argued that students meant to benefit from the desegregation order would work with interventionists and RTIs the most.
Tucson Unified School District governing board member Dr. Ravi Shah is one of those supporters. “(Learning recovery specialists) are working predominantly with students of color,” he said. “Even though the deseg case is over and court supervision is over, the work of deseg is continuing.
“We want to address disparities and do what we can to make sure that our African American and Mexican Americans and other minority students are getting resources to succeed when so many challenges are in their way.”
Freitas said that although there are differences between the data compiled by the state and that assembled for the Education Recovery Scorecard, both have value.
“Districts and states (TUSD included) still have plenty of work to do to regain learning losses that were a result of COVID,” Freitas said in a statement. “This data also underscores the importance of in-person quality education and how quickly students become negatively affected when the education system is disrupted, especially for students in poverty.”
The Education Recovery Scorecard data indicated current efforts are not working, says Val Romero, a board member. It would be helpful to have those numbers assembled at the building level, he added.
“I have heard positive stories where these interventionists have turned kids around that were not doing well, and were able to sit down with them more individually,” Romero said.
Luna Rose said, “I’m not really surprised at the test scores, but I’m hopeful. We’re starting to see the incremental change.”
Luna Rose said the data should be looked at from a wide view.
“I would like the district to take this data and look at it, as, this is where we are, this is where we’re excelling at, this is where we’re not – and then you make a plan of attack.”
Still, it’s not just about the numbers, she added. “I think we as adults also are so focused in on those nuances that we’re forgetting that these are actual kids taking these tests.”
