Schoolchildren in the United States have fallen behind in their learning by almost a year in some subjects due to the impact of school closures and other pandemic measures, according to the latest assessments from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The Dispatch has the story.
The NAEP tests a representative sample of 4th and 8th-grade students on reading and maths skills to determine how their learning compares to past students at that age. Scores were already slipping before the pandemic, but in the latest round – administered this spring – about a third of students didn’t meet the lowest reading benchmark, and maths performance saw its steepest decline since the NAEP’s first tests were administered in 1990. The details of the drops vary by age, ethnicity, and other categories, but virtually every measure shows losses.
“I want to be very clear: The results in today’s nation’s report card are appalling and unacceptable,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said Monday. “This is a moment of truth for education. How we respond to this will determine not only our recovery but our nation’s standing in the world.”
Researchers consider 10 points on the NAEP to represent about a school year of learning.“ In NAEP, when we experience a 1- or 2-point decline, we’re talking about it as a significant impact on a student’s achievement,” NAEP commissioner Peggy Carr told the Associated Press. “In maths, we experienced an 8-point decline.”
To be clear, that doesn’t mean the students tested forgot maths they’d already learned – it’s a measure of how far behind they are compared to previous students at their age.
The scores show the havoc wreaked on kids’ learning by abrupt transitions to online learning – and the several semesters of disruption that followed. But although research has established that the students who stayed in remote school the longest typically saw the biggest losses, the NAEP results don’t fit that pattern – California, where schools tended to stay shut longer, didn’t score much differently than eager-to-open Florida.
Even setting the remote vs. in-person debate aside, these NAEP results underline what we already knew – a lot of America’s kids aren’t where they should be academically, and it’s going to take concerted intervention to help them close the gap. The stakes are high: Students could be dealing with the consequences of these learning losses for years to come if schools don’t succeed, since children who read poorly in elementary school are more likely to drop out of high school, for example, while the eighth graders who took the assessment last spring are now in a critical time to prepare for college.
“I don’t want to sugarcoat it,” Michael Petrilli, President of the education reform-focused Thomas B. Fordham Institute, told the Dispatch. “There is a very high risk that – probably especially for the older kids that have gone through this – that there are going to be gaps in their education that just never get filled.”
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I remember cheerleaders for lockdowns telling us that kids were very resilient and not to worry about them- they would bounce back
Does that mean some of them weren’t logging in to Zoom lessons and doing the homework carefully prepared for them by their diligent teachers..?
I’m shocked and disappointed. The last thing we need is a generation of Americans even dumber than this one.
I think you need to substitute “Americans” for “people”. I can’t think of any rich world country in which the majority of citizens have recently given a clear demonstration of common sense or critical thinking skills. Certainly not the UK.
“Common sense” is truly a misnomer, as it is really not that common at all.
The deliberate dumbing down of America. Just like the oligarchs want.
Wow. But nobody could have possibly predicted this, right? Riiiiight. The powers that be KNEW this would happen and did it anyway. SHAME SHAME SHAME on the lot of them!
I remember when the Child Death Cult (CDC) in March 2020 that, shortly after the “15 days to slow the spread” was proclaimed, that a two week to even four week school closure would do more harm than good (true), and thus an eight week or more (!) school closure would be better (false, per the sunk cost fallacy).
The harms of school closures, lockdowns, etc. are front-loaded, and also cumulative as well. The “therapeutic window” for these measures was closed from the start, as there is no truly “safe” level or duration of these extraordinary NPIs in which the benefits outweigh the costs. The only safe level or duration of any of these measures is ZERO.
Maybe a day or two of closure for “deep cleaning” at the individual school level at the very beginning would have been OK, but that still begins the slippery slope to much longer and wider closures, as we saw in the USA. And even then, “deep cleaning” is superfluous for this particular virus, and really only makes sense for hardier things like norovirus.
Short-term closures due to excessive absenteeism may make sense. But such reactive closures are like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Though with a virus that spreads as quickly as this one, one can say the same thing about preemptive closures as well.
It is worth noting that NYC in 1918, during a far worse pandemic, kept schools open as they believed that kids are actually safer in school. And if DeBlasio and Cuomo hadn’t panicked, they probably would have done the same.
Choosing to close the schools was probably mainly down to pressure from the teaching unions, supported by possibly the majority of teachers and parents. I understand from comments that cold and flu season in schools often sees lot of bugs going round, which is doubtless irritating to staff, parents and kids (though I don’t recall it bothering me as a child – perhaps one just expected it and thought little of it). School staff know this when they take the job. The proper response to a bad flu season is to just keep calm and carry on, and take it on the chin when you get ill. Look after your health. If you’re a delicate flower, maybe working in a school isn’t a good choice. For those most vulnerable to covid (almost none of whom would have been fit enough to work in a school) it may have been a good idea to stay at home for a time, but for the vast majority it was simply pathetic.