abstract
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According to Peters, et al. (2017), millions of students have already demonstrated that they know the material slated to be taught that year. Consequently, the grade-level standards are unlikely to be appropriately challenging for these students. In this paper, we conceptually replicate and extend this prior study. Using data from schools that administered the Renaissance Star assessment in both fall 2018 and fall 2021, we quantify pre-COVID and mid-COVID average achievement and variance in achievement in mathematics and reading in 5th grade and estimate the grade-level of instruction needed for each student. Our results indicate (a) achievement dropped during COVID-19 relative to pre-COVID, but the drop in mathematics was larger, (b) achievement variability increased during COVID-19, but the variability in reading was slightly more pronounced. Further, our results replicate Peters et al., (2017) resultslarge numbers of students perform above grade-level, and substantial variability in achievement is present within schools.