From McCook to Falls City, students in the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln fared well academically during the pandemic, according to a five-year analysis of test scores that officials released last week.
The breakdown looks at students who were in third, fourth and fifth grades in 2018 and how they performed over the next five years on the diocese's annual assessment. Diocesan schools use the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, a norm-referenced test that compares a student's knowledge in various subjects to a norm group.
And Catholic education officials were pleased with what they found: Students not only withstood the pandemic better than their peers, they thrived.
"It's really a joy to see that we've made it through that difficult time, not only managing but prospering," said the Rev. Lawrence Stoley, superintendent of schools.
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The analysis measured students' grade equivalency, essentially where students stand compared with the average performance of other students at a certain grade level.
By 2022, all three cohorts — now in seventh, eighth and ninth grade — were above grade level in all subjects, sometimes by as many as two or three years.
On the composite portion of the test, which covers a variety of subjects, seventh graders performed two years above their grade equivalent. That means those students are essentially at the level of high school freshmen.
Eighth graders performed 2.4 years ahead on the composite, while ninth graders performed 2.9 years above grade level.
A similar pattern is replicated across all subjects, including in areas where students struggled the most during the pandemic, such as eighth grade math. In some cases, such as ninth grade language, students were nearly four years above their grade equivalent.
"We just haven't seen that dip in performance from (students)," said Sister Janelle Buettner, principal of North American Martyrs Catholic School in northwest Lincoln. "I would say we're really quite close to where we were pre-COVID."
While the diocese does not use state assessments, it is required to administer some kind of norm-referenced exam to students, according to Matthew Hecker, chief administrative officer of schools.
In the Diocese of Lincoln, which covers the state of Nebraska south of the Platte River, students in grades 3-9 are tested in March. The test that students took last spring used norms established in 2017.
It covers multiple subjects, including reading, English, math, science and social studies.
About 500 students were tested in each cohort, which roughly corresponds to the number of students in each of those grades. There are just less than 7,000 students in the Diocese of Lincoln's schools.
When schools closed in March 2020 because of the pandemic, the diocese went fully remote. Then when classrooms reopened that fall, Catholic schools offered a remote-learning option, but fewer students opted to use it compared to their public-school peers, officials say.
At North American Martyrs, for example, students were encouraged to come back to in-person learning — which has been correlated to greater academic success — unless they couldn't for health reasons.
Still, it was a very "difficult time" for parents, teachers and administrators, Stoley said.
"Teachers had to do a lesson plan and a half practically every day," he said.
The breakdown of test scores, which officials shared with a Journal Star reporter, also examined where students landed in national percentile ranks, the standing of a student or group of students in comparison to others in the same grade who took the test in other states.
In general, students on average landed anywhere from the 65th to the 75th national percentile rank on the test's various subjects, meaning they tested better than 65%-75% of students nationally.
Across the country, Catholic school students performed better than their public school peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, the Omaha World-Herald reported. The NAEP assesses a sampling of students nationally in math and reading.
Students in the diocese's six high schools also performed better on the ACT, the national college entrance exam, compared to the rest of Nebraska.
The statewide average composite ACT score for the class of 2022 was 19.4, while that figures ranges anywhere from 21.7 at Lourdes Central Catholic in Nebraska City to 24 at Lincoln Pius X.
Jeremy Ekeler, the associate director of education policy at the Nebraska Catholic Conference, was impressed by the results, saying it demonstrates the hard work of Catholic educators in the state.
The scores are even more impressive, he said, because diocesan schools have become increasingly diverse in recent years. Schools, for example, are serving more special-education students than they have in the past, he said.
"I was, like, 'This is pretty remarkable,'" Ekeler said. "It's like COVID didn't happen in most of the areas I looked at."
While enrollment across the diocese dipped by about 5% during the pandemic as many parents opted to home-school their children, officials said they hope the newly released test scores will show families that Catholic education is still strong.
"It's what our educators opt in to," Hecker said. "It's more than just a job for our teachers. It's their ministry and mission."