No-credit rates during the pandemic varied considerably across elementary schools, including among schools serving similar student populations¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2022 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2027: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? In spring 2020, 120 elementary schools (just under one-third) had no-credit rates of 20 percent or more, while 128 schools remained below 5 percent; among schools with over 90 percent free-lunch eligibility, rates ranged from 1 percent to nearly 40 percent. → Gwynne 2022
Evidence¶
Gwynne 2022¶
Gwynne, J.A., Allensworth, E.M., & Liang, Y. (2022). Student engagement in learning during COVID-19: Students' course grades in Chicago Public Schools. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://www.cps.edu/about/departments/office-of-equity/
q2 · i? · associational · r2
School-level analysis of 417 district-run CPS elementary schools, classifying schools by no-credit grade rates pre-pandemic, spring 2020, and spring 2021. The report finds "120 schools ( just under one-third of elementary schools)" with rates of 20 percent or more in spring 2020.
"When the pandemic hit in spring 2020, there were 120 schools ( just under one-third of elementary schools) in which 20 percent or more of all course grades given were no-credit grades, and 164 schools in which 5-19 percent or more of the grades given out were no-credit grades"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Course grades of students in grades 4-8 declined during remote and hybrid learning relative to pre-pandemic years — related
- Remote learning exacerbated pre-pandemic disparities in no-credit grades for low-income students and students of color in grades 4-8, but within-school differences were small — related
- Students in grades 4-8 were much more likely to receive no-credit grades during remote learning, with 41 percent receiving at least one Incomplete in spring 2020 — related
- Interpreting differences in school-aggregate test scores as real differences in school performance raises accuracy concerns even under routine schooling conditions, which the pandemic may exacerbate — a broader claim this one bears on
- Schools varied considerably in how much their absence rates increased after the pandemic, with some showing little or no change — related
- Schools serving similar students from similar neighborhoods had substantially different absence rates, with over half of school variation unexplained by student backgrounds or prior absences — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
cps-school-level-variation-nocredit-rates |
title |
No-credit rates during the pandemic varied considerably across elementary schools, including among schools serving similar student populations |
description |
No-credit rates during the pandemic varied considerably across elementary schools, including among schools serving similar student populations |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2022 |
recheck_by |
2027 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-08 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — gwynne-2022 |
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