A Widening Chasm: The Divergent Paths of High- and Low-Achieving Students in Algebra I After the Pandemic

We follow four cohorts of students in Texas from grades 3 through 9 to identify which factors predict whether students pass the Algebra I end-of-course test by ninth grade. We find that early achievement accounts for most of the variation: racial and socioeconomic gaps in Algebra I completion trace back to differences in third-grade test scores. Because we follow students over time, we can see how the pandemic compounded existing inequalities. First, we find that the pandemic widened racial and socioeconomic gaps within each achievement level—students from disadvantaged groups who started third grade with the same test scores as their more advantaged peers fell further behind than those peers during COVID. Second, the pandemic amplified gaps between achievement levels. The lowest-scoring students in every group experienced steeper declines than their higher-scoring counterparts, with the sharpest losses concentrated among low-achieving students. In short, we find that algebra achievement gaps are rooted in early elementary school and became deeper during the pandemic. Our results underscore the importance of targeting resources to early elementary math instruction, especially for low-achieving students.