The data shows that at the beginning of the current academic year, White students were hitting early literacy benchmarks at rates similar to their performance levels before the coronavirus pandemic. But Black and Hispanic students were still far behind where they were in the fall of 2019, months before school buildings shut down and students were sent home for virtual learning.

Twenty-eight percent of Black students and 30 percent of Hispanic students were considered proficient on a test administered in fall 2021, according to the data. Seventy percent of White students hit these benchmarks. In fall 2019, 44 percent of Black students and 42 percent of Hispanic students hit these benchmarks, compared with 73 percent of White students.

In the beginning of the 2020 school year — when all students were learning remotely — around 30 percent of Black and Hispanic students hit these benchmarks, compared with 66 percent of White students who did.