Natchitoches Parish emerges as leader in post-pandemic learning recovery

Louisiana has emerged as a national leader in academic recovery, becoming the only state in the country to surpass its 2019 pre-pandemic reading benchmarks. According to the latest Education Scorecard, a collaborative report from Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth, Louisiana also ranks 3rd in the nation for academic growth in math.

The report, which combines state test results from 35 million students nationwide with national assessment data, provides a high-resolution look at the state's educational landscape between 2022 and 2025.

Key Statewide Findings:

• Reading Leadership: Louisiana is the only state in the nation where students are performing above pre-pandemic levels in reading (+.29 grade equivalents over 2019).
• Math Growth: Louisiana is one of only two states performing above 2019 math levels, ranking 3rd our of 38 states in growth.
• Economic Impact: Gains in high-poverty districts were largely driven by federal pandemic relief (ESSER) funds, which provided roughly $6,000 per student.
• Challenges Ahead: Chronic absenteeism remains a significant hurdle, rising from 18.8% in 2022 to 22% in 2025.

Based on the latest reports from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford and Harvard universities, here is the academic and attendance summary for Natchitoches Parish:

• Test Scores: students in Natchitoches Parish performed 1.11 grade levels below the 2019 national average. While below the national baseline, this is an improvement from previous years and competitive with the Louisiana state average (-.70). 
• Performance Trends: Test scores have been improving at a remarkable rate of +0.21 grade levels per year since 2022. This is 3.5 times higher than the statewide average growth trend of +0.06. 
• National Rankings: Natchitoches Parish ranks in the 26th percentile for math and the 30th percentile for reading performance nationwide. 

Learning rates measure how much knowledge students gain as they progress from grade to grade.

• Annual Growth: Students in Natchitoches Parish learned an average of 1.13 grade levels per year during the 2022-2025 period.
• National Standing: This learning rate is higher than 84% of districts nationwide. This significantly exceeds the national average learning rate of 1.0 and the Louisiana state average of 0.97, indicating exceptionally high school quality and effective instruction.

Student Subgroup Trends:

• Economic Progress: Students from low-income families performed 1.35 grade levels below the 2019 national average but are showing rapid recovery with a growth trend of +0.22 grade levels per year.
• Race/Ethnicity: Both White (+0.23) and Black (+0.20) students in the parish are showing strong annual growth. White students performed 0.05 grade levels above the national average, while Black students performed 1.86 grade levels below it.
• Reading Recovery: The district's reading recovery trend is particularly strong, ranking in the 89th percentile nationally. 

Chroinic Absenteeism:

• Current Standing: The average chronic absenteeism rate in Natchitoches Parish was 20.8% between 2022 and 2025. 
• Long-term Change: This represents a 3.6 percentage point increase from the 2017-2019 pre-pandemic average of 17.2%.
• Regional Context: Despite the increased, Natchitoches' absenteeism rate remains lower than the state average (21.8%) and the average for similar districts (23.9%)

The Education Scorecard explicitly identifies Natchitoches Parish as a "District on the Rise." The report credits this success to the district's "sacred" commitment to teacher excellence, including the implementation of the NIET TAP system for performance-based pay and a rigorous transition to science-of-reading curriculum for all educators. 

While the "learning recession" of the last decade has been severe, the recovery has officially begun in Louisiana. Harvard Professor Tom Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research, noted that while a small group of state leaders have started "digging out" by changing how students learn to read, the work must continue. 

With federal relief funds expiring, the report suggests Louisiana focus future school improvement dollars on middle - and higher poverty districts that still trail their pre-pandemic levels.