Study: Report cards may not accurately reveal if kids have fallen behind

Is your child making the grade in school?

A new study shows that report cards may not tell the entire story.

While many parents believe that report card time shows where their child's progress and problem areas are, that may not be true.

Researchers say nearly nine out of 10 parents believe their student is performing at grade level, though standardized testing shows far fewer students are on track.

The poll, released by Gallup and the nonprofit Learning Heroes, shows report cards might be missing the whole picture.

In a federal survey, school officials said half of all students in the United States started the last school year behind grade level in at least one subject. These gaps in learning are showing up in standardized tests but not in grades.   

Educators believe that young people are starting to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic learning loss, but there's still a lot of work to do.

"I was encouraged to see that the districts are showing improvement from last year, but the improvements aren’t huge and that is concerning," said Gary Bingham, the director of the Urban Child Studies Center at Georgia State University.

Last year's Georgia Milestones test results show particularly good gains for elementary school-age students. But the children aren't back to the levels of performance schools were experiencing in 2019.

Georgia is investing in new tutoring programs to help.

"We're launching the Georgia Tutor program. With that program, we're working with 100 Georgia teachers after school hours to provide online one-on-one tutoring sessions for high school students," Deputy Superintendent for the Georgia Department of Education Allison Timberlake told FOX 5.

For parents looking for more information beyond the report card, educators say they should go to parent-teacher conferences and ask questions about their student's strengths and areas for growth.