U of M study: COVID-19 school policies resulted in enrollment racial disparities 

COVID-19 policies at the height of the pandemic influenced school enrollment differently based on a student’s race or ethnicity.  

That was the conclusion of a University of Michigan study that found student enrollment in districts that provided in-person schooling in fall 2020 showed a greater decline among nonwhite students than white students, while the opposite was true in districts that offered virtual learning.

“The most likely explanation for our findings is that Black — and to a lesser extent Hispanic — families were more concerned about the health risks associated with in-person schooling than white families,” said Brian Jacob, the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy at U of M.

The results, published in the journal PNAS, correlate with data indicating that communities of color faced greater risks from COVID-19 and reported less trust in medical and social institutions.

“This is consistent with the fact that nonwhite communities experienced higher mortality rates during COVID and reported less trust in social institutions even prior to the pandemic,” said Jacob.

The study analyzed enrollment trends at more than 9,000 school districts, serving over 90% of U.S. public school students during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years and focused on how public schools responded to COVID-19 policies and the resulting impact on differing race/ethnicity groups.

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Jacob and colleague Micah Baum, a U of M doctoral student in public policy and economics, found that white enrollment declined by 8% in districts with virtual-only instruction compared with 4.9% at those that offered hybrid or in-person learning. While Black, Hispanic and Asian enrollments declined slightly more in virtual-only districts, the study found the differences to be much smaller.

The study also detected enrollment responses to COVID-19 policies that differed significantly across various age groups. 

“Kindergarten enrollments experienced the largest average declines (10.0%); high school enrollments did not change at all on average,” states the study. “Elementary (grades 1–5) and middle school enrollments declined by 4.2% and 2.2%, respectively. Kindergarten also exhibited the strongest relationship between learning modes and enrollments; enrollments declined 5.7 percentage points more in virtual compared to in-person districts (12.5% vs. 6.8%).”

While elementary and middle school enrollments also declined more in virtual districts, the differences were smaller.

“The findings illustrate the complex interplay between race, income and school policy,” Jacob said. “Public school districts faced tremendous challenges navigating COVID-19, balancing health vs. educational concerns and accounting for changing conditions on the ground. But how families within the same district responded to pandemic schooling policy differed dramatically by race.”

Still, according to the study, the racial differences in enrollments by learning modes persisted into 2021-22, although most public schools had resumed in-person learning.

The researchers say the findings suggest various interpretations. One is that health concerns and perceived risks from COVID-19 might have significantly influenced enrollment decisions, particularly among nonwhite families.

Those decisions may have a relation to available resources.

“To the extent that schools serving more Black and Hispanic students have fewer resources, on average, than other schools in the same district, this perception could have some justification,” said the study. 

The researchers noted the importance of economic and geographic constraints, including a lack of nearby alternative schooling options, on enrollment decisions.

“It is hard for us to disentangle these factors in our study completely,” said Jacob. “We find not only that enrollment declines in in-person districts were larger for nonwhite families, but these families were also more sensitive to local COVID deaths. At the same time, these preferences differences may be due, in part, to differential resources that allow white families to better adapt to in-person schooling.”

In Michigan, concerns over pandemic learning loss led to passage of a law last year ending the retention of third graders, no matter their score on a standardized reading test, with interventions including tutoring, extra instruction and enrichment instead being utilized to help those students improve. 

The change came after a study by Michigan State University’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC), showed a disproportionate number of minority and economically disadvantaged students were receiving low scores, leading critics to charge that the retentions were discriminatory.

But with research documenting substantial learning loss among students who attended school virtually during 2020, Jacob says his biggest concern is that these variations in enrollment responses might also potentially exacerbate preexisting racial disparities.

“There is a good deal of evidence that virtual schooling was detrimental to student learning during COVID,” he said. “And to the extent that nonwhite families were disproportionately likely to avoid in-person schooling, this will have exacerbated racial disparities in learning loss.”