Four years after the COVID 19 pandemic hit, New Jersey students are still recovering from the learning loss.

A new Harvard Stanford study finds we're one of 17 states where students are lagging in math and those from low income districts.

They're affected the most.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis has the details.

Even though we are technically out of COVID, the impact of COVID continues to linger.

And we're seeing it in our schools.

The education scorecard was just released showing New Jersey among 17 other states whose math scores in 2023 were lower than they were in 2019 before the pandemic.

And the disparities are worse for students of color.

People have unrealistic expectations about what it's going to take to help students catch up.

Harvard University researcher Tom Kean helped author the scorecard report.

And just to drive the point home, that math is a critical skill, he says.

It all comes down to the numbers when trying to catch these students up.

Students in Newark and in Paterson are more than at grade level behind.

So that would mean that students would have to learn 150% of what they would typically learn in a school year.

Two years in a row.

Just to get back to where they were in 2019.

So are we thinking like teachers are just going to talk faster?

The report makes recommendations for districts, the main one adding instructional time after school and in the summer.

For each student that attends six weeks of summer learning.

You get about a quarter of a year's worth of of additional growth.

So if students were to do that for summers in a row, that would make up, you know, on average for like a whole year lost.

But if only ten or 15% of students are attending summer learning, that's that's not going to solve the problem.

Districts have until the end of September to dedicate the last of the federal COVID relief funds to closing their education gaps.

Or they'll have to give the money back.

This is where state oversight is needed, says advocates for Children of New Jersey's Mary Coogan.

State leadership needs to make sure this money is being allocated effectively and to work with the districts to make sure we find the most evidence based programs that are going to help kids.

One of the biggest blown opportunities from this whole pandemic is that we have not systematically tracked what different districts are doing with the federal money.

And so we've missed an opportunity to learn which of the strategies are most effective.

Last year, the state provided funding to districts that applied for an in-school initiative called High Impact Tutoring.

Katherine Bassett runs one of them, the New Jersey tutoring corps that's seen their student's math proficiency improve in just one year from 16% to 40% pre-COVID.

Tutoring was not accessible to so many.

The majority of our states families because of the cost.

Post COVID post-pandemic.

Tutoring is available to all scholars who need it and when we look at that report and we look at those numbers, what comes through to me is equity.

We need to do more to get high impact tutoring made available at no cost to all children who need it.

But for all the concern, Betsy Ginsberg from the Garden State Coalition of Schools remains optimistic.

In December 2023, the State Board and the rest of us looked at results from the spring.

NJ SLA testing and we saw that gains are starting to happen.

And I think that that it is key to think about that.

Most agree we need to find out which efforts are having the most success.

Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight News.