Shifting Populations and Changing Classrooms: How Demographic Makeup of Classrooms Changed Since the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: COVID-19 Experiences, Contexts, and Outcomes From The Nation’s Report Card

Abstract

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the demographic make-up of classrooms across the United States (U.S.) has changed, particularly in large urban school districts. To better understand this phenomenon, this paper utilizes federally reported school enrollment data from districts and state departments of education to analyze the demographic changes between the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years for 26 large urban school districts. Next, the study linked the enrollment information to data from the U.S. Census and the American Community Survey (ACS) to determine if the demographic changes observed in schools were also occurring in the general population of the urban districts. Lastly, the paper assessed possible factors that could have influenced these demographic shifts such as changes in employment opportunities, cost of living, and resource availability in schools to support students’ learning, and used them as a lens to analyze the change in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in 2022 compared to 2019. The findings of this paper not only shed light on how the demographic make-up of classrooms in large urban school districts have changed since the pandemic and whether the shifts were part of a larger migration pattern, but also identify the possible factors driving these patterns and how they may have contributed to student performance in the 2022 NAEP assessment.

Authors

• Andrea L Johnson, Optimal Solutions Group

• Sadaf Asrar, Optimal Solutions Group