Students in majority-Black schools are now a full 12 months behind those in mostly white schools, widening the achievement gap by a third, according to a new analysis by McKinsey & Co. Overall, students are four months behind in math and three in reading compared with years past, but those totals hide wide disparities.

At the same time, the range of students’ academic needs teachers must address within a single classroom has widened, with the share of children at or above grade level in math falling by 6 percentage points and the number two or more grade levels behind increasing by 9 points. As a result, the number of students far below grade level in a hypothetical math class of 30 fourth graders has risen from eight to 11.

The researchers based their conclusions on Curriculum Associates’s i-Ready assessments administered this fall in person to 3 million students in grades 1 to 6 in all 50 states. They compared the results with exam scores from a comparable set of schools in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In addition, they used data from Burbio and from McKinsey’s own parent surveys to show that while there is less disruption to learning than last spring, a variety of factors are limiting students’ time in class just when they need it the most.

Read the full article about racial disparities in education by Beth Hawkins at The 74.