Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted K–12 education. School staff across the country were faced with the unprecedented task of delivering high quality instruction amidst a global health crisis. In New Jersey, approximately 15% of K–12 public schools managed to improve proficiency rates in math and/or English language arts (ELA) on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment from 2018–19 (pre-pandemic) to 2021–22 (post-pandemic). Motivated by the evident resilience of these schools, the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) commissioned the New Jersey State Policy Lab at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, in partnership with the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies at Rutgers University–Newark, to investigate factors that may have led to such successes. Researchers quantitatively selected 52 schools across the state that demonstrated greater-than-expected outcomes for all students and students in historically underserved student groups, and they conducted semi-structured interviews with groups of administrators, teachers, and staff. Educators discussed a number of both negative and positive influences of the pandemic on their work, and they offered a wide range of practices they believe contributed to their relative successes. The variation in practices discussed in this report indicates that there is no single pathway toward ensuring student achievement. Instead, the themes embedded in this report suggest that recipes for success are likely to include some combination of emphasis on school culture (relationships, beliefs, and expectations), social-emotional learning, tiered supports, data-informed decision making, and attention to persistent achievement gaps. Given the ongoing need to address pandemic-era learning losses that often aggravated longstanding educational inequities, this report contributes to this critical work the voices and wisdom of educators across a range of grade levels, disciplines, ranks, and roles.