Effect of Extreme Weather Events on Student Test Performance

Abstract

North Carolina has faced a number of extreme weather systems over the past few years. Although there has been extensive research into the costs associated with these storms, one facet commonly overlooked is the effect on student achievement. Given the national attention to school accountability, it is important to understand how such events can adversely affect student performance on end-of-year tests. We explore the extent to which student scores on standardized tests are lowered. We apply these findings to the North Carolina school accountability model and estimate the number of schools that would have achieved their goals if the 1999–2000 storms had not occurred. We find that roughly twenty more schools would have met the standards for expected growth, exemplary growth, and school of distinction than actually occurred. These translate to between 5 and 15% more than the number observed in the affected area.