New reports have given us the best look yet at the scope of learning loss from the pandemic.
And experts say schools need to act now to ensure students catch up before it’s too late.
“It’s really critical that they start to think about it now,” said Thomas J. Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.
Kane’s group, along with researchers from Stanford University, found the average public school student in grades 3-8 lost the equivalent of a half year of learning in math.
They also found students lost a quarter of a year in reading.
Meanwhile, a new report from the U.S. Department of Education compared math and reading scores for fourth- and eighth-graders between 2019 and 2022 and found declines in both subjects and both age groups.
The government’s report, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, said the score declines in math were “the largest ever recorded in that subject.”