Racial Disparities in Education During and Following the Pandemic: Evidence in Connecticut through 2025

Eric Brunner, Stephen Ross and Xinrui Wang

No 35409, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine pandemic related racial and ethnic disparities in test scores, absenteeism, and disciplinary incidents for K-12 students in the State of Connecticut through the 2024-25 school year. Notably, most existing pandemic studies only cover absenteeism through 2022-23, and minimal quantitative evidence exists on the post-pandemic incidence of student discipline related behaviors. Consistent with prior studies, we find persistent negative effects of the pandemic on test scores, as well as substantial disparities in test scores along racial and ethnic lines. For middle school, we also find persistent post-pandemic increases in both severe disciplinary incidents overall and racial and ethnic disparities in severe discipline incidents. However, we document substantial recovery in racial and ethnic disparities in attendance rates and chronic absenteeism by 2024-25. For all outcomes, most of the increases in disparities are associated with Black and Latinx students attending schools that had worse pre-pandemic outcomes and higher pre-pandemic shares of students who are either economically disadvantaged or face learning barriers.

JEL-codes: I21 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
Note: ED
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