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“The COVID-19 pandemic caused historic learning setbacks for America’s children… Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in their average test scores, with some simply treading water at best…
“Those are the findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as the ‘nation’s report card’ — which tested hundreds of thousands of fourth and eighth graders across the country this year… In fourth grade, Black and Hispanic students saw bigger decreases than white students, widening gaps that have persisted for decades.” AP News
The right argues that schools should have opened sooner, and criticizes teachers’ unions.
“Catholic schools almost everywhere were open full time by the fall of 2020, and on aggregate, the data show that they avoided the worst of the learning loss, avoiding declines in proficiency in fourth grade math and eighth grade reading. Moreover, [according to data analyzed by Harvard professor Martin R. West] states that kept more schools open experienced smaller declines in proficiency than their peers…
“Once it was clear that COVID was not a major threat to children, that they were neither likely to suffer severe symptoms nor to pass the disease to others, every schoolhouse in America should have reopened immediately for in-person instruction. That is to say, any jurisdiction that kept its schools closed in the fall of 2020 is guilty of letting students down despite knowing better.”
Editorial Board, Washington Examiner
“The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief program was intended to pay for training in virtual learning while upgrading school ventilation systems and expanding the space available for social distancing. The obvious intent was to find a way to get the schools open again as soon as possible… Now, a review of the funds allocated for ESSER provides a more complete picture of what happened. As it turns out, less than half of that money was ever spent…
“The least money was spent in the districts where student performance fell the furthest behind. It’s not hard to interpret what [that] means. The school systems that ignored the money and took the longest to reopen were the ones where the children suffered the most deleterious effects from the lockdowns…
“[Keri Rodrigues from the National Parents Union] noted that the excuses offered by the schools always focus on a lack of money and how they need more money. But now, as Rodrigues views it, ‘we have a historic amount of spending, like never before, and you’re not even spending the money.’”
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air
“Education Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged that [the decline is] serious… Yet you wouldn’t know it from the lackadaisical responses to learning loss from teacher-union leaders. Most (in)famous were the comments of Los Angeles union boss Cecily Myart-Cruz. ‘There’s no such thing as learning loss,’ she claimed…
“The Chicago Teachers Union, meanwhile, calls learning loss a ‘contrived notion.’ And Becky Pringle, head of the National Education Association, says she doesn’t use the term learning loss ‘because students are always learning.’…
“Such deflections aren’t surprising, given the large role the unions played in keeping so many schools closed to in-person learning — unlike systems in Europe and Asia… We’re not going to do right by this generation of students with happy talk and political spin. It’s time for all leaders — including union leaders — to acknowledge that we have a big problem, and we’d better get busy working on solving it.”
Michael J. Petrilli, New York Post
The left argues that remote learning did not necessarily cause the learning loss, and calls for action to help students recover.
The left argues that remote learning did not necessarily cause the learning loss, and calls for action to help students recover.
“The sudden onset of the pandemic has been the most catastrophic event in recent American history, making the expectation that there would not be something called ‘learning loss’ bizarre. The idea that life would simply churn on in the same way it always has only underscores the extent to which there have been two distinct experiences of the pandemic. One for people who experienced the upheaval but were able to sequester themselves away from its harshest realities…
“There was another gruesome reality, reaped by poor and working-class families in the surreal numbers of people who have died… [By August, 2020] fifty-seven percent of Black American adults said that they knew someone hospitalized or dead as a result of the virus, compared to thirty-four per cent of white American adults… Black and Latino kids lost their caregivers at nearly twice the rate of white children. As one expert reminded [us], ‘Bereavement is the No. 1 predictor of poor school outcomes.’”
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, New Yorker
“[Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas] made a big show of reopening their states’ schools in the fall of 2020, with DeSantis going so far as to threaten to withhold funding from school districts that did not comply. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, on the other hand, moved more slowly… [But the NAEP report] showed that student performance suffered equally despite the different approaches…
“Math scores for fourth-graders dropped by four points in California, five points in Florida and five points in Texas. For eighth-graders, scores dropped by six points in California, seven points in Florida and seven points in Texas. Scores in reading in those three states also moved in lockstep, falling by a point or two. Political posturing might have mattered to governors who’d like to be president someday, but it made no difference to the millions of children in the nation’s schools.”
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
“President Joe Biden can be doing far more to call public attention to the crisis and mobilize all levels of government to address it, including accelerating efforts to recruit and train tutors focused on highly vulnerable students… It’s also imperative that all students spend more time in class to help make up the lost ground…
“School districts should use federal relief funds to increase instructional time, lengthen the academic year, expand summer-school slots, and launch more ‘Saturday academies’ — preferably all of the above. Schools should provide bonuses for teachers willing to work during the summer and on weekends…
“The Biden administration also needs to encourage more innovation in the public-school system by funding high-quality public charter schools… The US has the resources to help students recover from the pandemic. What it needs is the will.”
Michael R. Bloomberg, Bloomberg
