COVID-era school shutdowns caused historic learning losses for kids, Department of Education report shows

 Pandemic-era shutdowns caused learning loss for grade school students

• For fourth graders, math scores dropped 8 points from 2019 to 2022, erasing a significant amount of the gains made since 1990
• The decline was largely nationwide, with not a single state seeing its math scores improve since 2019
• National average reading scores decreased by 3 points

Critics have blasted the pandemic-era school shutdowns, pointing to the learning loss suffered by students and the medical research which showed children were largely safe from the worst of COVID-19.

• "Classroom closures failed our students and crushed their academic progress," said Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah. "I introduced the RECOVER Act to fight this learning loss crisis by empowering parents."

Others said this was the price that had to be paid to keep people safe during the pandemic

• "This was to be expected," Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation and former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said.

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/covid-era-school-shutdowns-caused-historic-learning-losses-for-kids-department-of-education-report-shows/article_33f651b8-53ac-11ed-9a39-679e20f8b141.html