Ever since Covid-19 in 2020, reading and math levels have dropped around the US. Schoolchildren in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are still about half a year behind typical pre-Covid reading levels, the New York Times says. Florida and Michigan are behind about three-quarters of a year. Maine, Oregon, and Vermont are behind close to a full year!
On the morning of February 11, a group of teachers released their latest report card on learning loss after the pandemic. Because of Covid, many schools shut down; this led to children being set back academically. And still most districts have not been able to make up lost ground.
One reason is the rise in school absences that has continued to rise long after Covid stopped controlling daily life. “The pandemic may have been the earthquake, but heightened absenteeism is the tsunami, and it’s still rolling through schools,” Thomas Kane, an economist at Harvard and a member of the research team, told David Leonhardt.
A new report—from scholars at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Stanford—compares academic performance across states, based on math and reading tests. This test was taken by fourth and eighth graders.
There is definitely a wide variety of outcomes.the New York Times stated in the states that have made up the most ground, fourth and eighth graders were doing nearly as well last spring as their predecessors were doing five years earlier.
But the overall picture is not good. In most states, the students last spring were still half a year behind students in 2019. In a few states, the gap approaches a year.
Here are some of the reading scores.
A red and blue divide:
In America, Democratic and Republican states made different decisions during the pandemic. Many schools in the Democratic area stayed closed for almost a year, from spring 2020 to spring 2021.In comparison, many schools in the Republican area only closed for the spring of 2020.
This helps explain why some blue schools/states are further behind than others. The difference is especially large; in 8 of 10 states that have lost most ground since 2019, voters have chosen Democratic candidates in recent political elections. And 8 of 10 states that have lost the least ground in math since 2019 voted Republican.
Cites –
https://reason.com
https://nl.nytimes.com/morningFebruary11
