A RESEARCH REPORT FROM EPIC

Michigan’s 2022-23 Benchmark Assessments

Prepared for the house and senate appropriations committees, the house and senate appropriations subcommittees on school aid, and the house and senate fiscal agencies

November 2023

This is the fifth report in a series prepared and delivered to the governor and the house and senate appropriations committees, the house and senate appropriations subcommittees on school aid, and the house and senate fiscal agencies. It is designed to help interpret and contextualize assessment results and students’ progress toward learning goals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report, we uses newly available data from the 2022-23 school year to expand on our previous analyses and further investigate each of the following questions:

1. How do Michigan students’ achievement trajectories in recent years compare to pre-pandemic trends? To better understand how the pandemic has affected Michigan students and the extent to which they’ve recovered academically, we examine changes in Michigan students’ benchmark assessment scores across the fall and spring semesters of each school year and compare these trends to national and state-specific norms for the same assessments from before the pandemic.
2. How did Michigan students’ growth over the course of each year compare to typical yearly growth before the pandemic? We compare students’ growth between their fall and spring benchmark assessments each year to pre-pandemic national norms for each assessment, subject, and grade level, which differ based on students’ baseline achievement in the fall.
3. How have trends in achievement and growth differed across subgroups of Michigan students? We compare patterns in student achievement and growth across sociodemographic subgroups and instructional modalities (i.e., in-person, hybrid, or remote).