STATE POLICIES
Photo Credit: Ting Shen | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Through the course of the pandemic, many states implemented different policies. In our project, we focus on student performance trends in California and Ohio, two states that implemented different measures. While both states began initial school closures during March 2020 and extended the closure, the reopening timeline differed between the two. California was more cautious and slower reopening, with many districts sticking to remote learning until early 2021. In Ohio, on the other hand, many schools began reopening by Fall 2020, with remote options too. Furthermore, the power of state and local governments for covid response differed between the states. While California implemented a more strict state level reopening criteria based on case rates and testing with county “tiers,” Ohio left many decisions to local school districts. Furthermore, masks were enforced by state public health orders in California schools with local districts having less flexibility, while in Ohio, some districts ended mandates despite state level public health orders. Another key difference is that Ohio “does not mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for school attendance” (Ohio Department of Health), while California mandated the COVID-19 vaccine until after the state of emergency came to an end.
Ohio seemed to encourage in person learning but still allowed for remote options, while California required fully remote learning in most areas. Furthermore, Ohio left more power to the district rather than enforcing state policies strictly, from campus reopening, masking mandates, and technological support for students.
In “The World Bank Research Observer,” researcher Azevedo asserted that prolonged disruptions of learning could lead to skill gaps in educational outcomes. Our data visualizations, showing the disparity between California and Ohio academic test scores over time may support this hypothesis, potentially indicating that in person learning is correlated with better academic scores. Furthermore, socioeconomic status and racial background may also play a role in academic outcomes in students due to remote learning.
However, we recognize some limitations in our data, as California has much more overall data collected compared to Ohio. Furthermore, Ohio doesn’t have as much representation and data collected for minority groups. These disparities could lead to a misrepresentation of average test scores when comparing the states.
We recognize the potential impact of state policies for remote/in-person learning, campus closures, masking mandates, vaccinations, and financial support in student learning outcomes. Thus, while comparing California versus Ohio’s math and English scores, we conducted extensive research on how each state responded to the pandemic.