A new study on test scores sheds light on 'substantial' pandemic learning loss. Here's what parents need to know
- Thread starter alaskanseminole
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Personally, I generally supported states taking reasonable measures to protect the general population, so I was certainly never completely anti-lockout. I watched all of this from a few different perspectives, some of which contradict. For context, we’re in Charlotte, NC, which is pretty blue, but is also in a largely red state government that is often purple for national elections. Our schools closed like so many in March 2020 and were out for the rest of that year. In the first half of the next year, the kids were mostly out, but there were periods of going back between infection rate spikes. We were largely back by probably Feb. 2021 and the 2021-2022 school year was 95% normal - dances and sports with crowds and all the things.
1. Parent: During most of COVID, I had a son in HS, a son in MS and a son in upper elementary. I didn’t have to deal with a K or 1st grader trying to do school at home and my HS already knew how to handle his stuff. MS had some major organization problems, but got through it and is actually probably better for those challenges. I also recognize that I have 3 kids that generally do well academically, have parents in the house that believe in education and we have steady income, good internet, good computers and no major learning disabilities, so I’m not going to project our experience on everyone. We know a lot of families that struggled with younger kids or students who couldn’t get all the attention they needed or with kids who could just “hide” online and get lost while falling behind.
2. Mental health: I think the isolation absolutely had an impact on kids. School is about learning the academics, but it’s also about learning how to exist in a group of peers outside your home. There are social lessons learned on busses, playgrounds, gym class, etc. There are growth opportunities like singing, playing an instrument, getting on stage or playing sports that can be huge for development and a lot of those opportunities were reduced or made more challenging. I think kids lost a lot of opportunities to learn how to adjust, deal with disappointment and how to co-exist with others that don’t think or live the same way. I saw some of that play out this year at NC State where there were 12 student suicides this year. They weren’t all freshmen, but most were freshmen and sophomores. I don’t know their individual stories and it’s all tragic, but that’s a LOT. There are always some, but I don’t think there was a month of the school year without one. We need to do more to understand why, as doing things remotely is going to be more and more of an option, so how do we do it right.
3. Parent of kid looking at college. College visits were challenging in a lot of areas and it was the start of a probably inevitable step back from importance of standardized tests. My son did fine and is loving his life now with a good major at a good school, but there were some surprise decisions on his applications and COVID as a whole led to a lot of kids taking gap years, so competition was really hard his year and likely still this year. I think we’re in a normalization process.
4. Tech worker who loves working remote: I’ve been a full-time remote worker since 2010. While I would go back to office, I really don’t want to. I’ve risen significantly in my career during that window, so I’m 100% confident in my ability to still establish relationships, contribute and become a critical part of the business remote….but not everyone can. Some jobs can’t be remote. I also already had been through the period of my career when I was the young guy asking for help over cube walls or getting the opportunity to randomly run into people 2-3 levels above me in an elevator or in the cafeteria. I know a lot of people pushed to remote work in COVID struggled and back to the mental health stuff I talked about earlier, this applies in the professional world, too. Remote work was always going to grow and become more common, but it really got rushed during COVID, so how do we do it right?
Sorry, tl;dr, but I had some things I wanted to say.
Doesn’t fit your narrative. Got it.
Covid sure gives you a boner.
Yeah, not surprising to see some posters want to ‘move on’ and try to minimize the negative impacts of the school closures and Covid response.
Because these same people were telling us it wasn’t a big deal and the kids would be fine
Now, the evidence, data and studies continue to come out detailing the damage that was done, and they have been shown that they were wrong.
So, now they’ll ignore and attack this ‘science’ and ‘do their own research’ because they can’t handle having been on the wrong side of history.
But, we won’t forget.
Because these same people were telling us it wasn’t a big deal and the kids would be fine
Now, the evidence, data and studies continue to come out detailing the damage that was done, and they have been shown that they were wrong.
So, now they’ll ignore and attack this ‘science’ and ‘do their own research’ because they can’t handle having been on the wrong side of history.
But, we won’t forget.
We had the worst possible federal leadership during a 100 year pandemic. It is as ****ing simple as that.
They were not open in Delaware. That is to say, they had various hybrid systems where kids could come to school one or two days a week - but it was a completely disrupted system and low-income/special needs kids in particular had essentially zero formal education throughout the state for a year and a half.
Here is a state-by-state breakdown of students who were in-school during the 2020/21 school year.
Decent graphic, but doesn’t identify Fall vs. Spring (unless I am missing something from the article it is pulled from). Also just shows attendance, which can be based on parent’s decision to keep their kid(s) home in conjunction with whether the state or districts opened/closed schools.
Here is a state-by-state breakdown of students who were in-school during the 2020/21 school year.
Notice Iowa behind Texas…just saying.
Also, percent change in test scores between CA and WY is negligible (using other linked study/story).
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Bingo!
You will never convince me that schooldistricts were not acting out of best intentions based on best information at the time.
Could it have been handled better...in retrospect, probably. But as Orlando states..we learn from the past and apply this knowledge next time. We don’t fight the same battles 3 years after the fact.
Honestly, I think schools where I live did pretty well. The flaw in some district’s thinking was the availability and access to “on-line” learning....coupled with ability of parents to oversee their children and their “day to day” discipline in pursuit of education. Of course, by removing the norm (closing schools) some degree of this was to be expected. Hey, Covid was tough times for America. History would show that Americans are not as willing (or as adaptable) to significant society chNges as Europeans or Asians are.
Address the point I was making. Why are you banging the drum on school scores here but don’t seem to care about school scores the rest of the time? Could it be because you’re a partisan hack? I think so.
Should have sacrificed the old's and vulnerable people. They're a drain on our resources anyway.
Party of Life.
My god you people are insane. For the most part, the members of one party were trying to follow the science as presented by the scientists, with the qualifier at the time that this was a novel coronavirus and so there was lots of uncertainty.
The other party was following the whims of whatever their insane leader was spewing on whatever particular day, and the dictates of convenience/annoyance (people who hated masks, etc) and capitalists.
Oh yeah, also the "owning the libs" people.
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Look at my original post stating that both can be (and are) issues. I then went on to state that people like you are the problem. You blast cons for having hypocritical opinions about situations in which you hold the polar opposite views. I can’t believe you still continue to not understand the the mirror image of a hypocrite………is a hypocrite.
But but but show me some cons that aren’t hypocrites. OK. The people you are referring to in your “point” are idiots and examples of the same problem I pointed out in the original post. They are hypocritical idealogues, just like you. As I stated before and you have so eloquently, albeit unintentionally proven, you aren’t smart enough to see that you are the exact same as they are.
Both can be issues but people like you only draw attention to the issue that fits your political agenda. Therefore, I am the issue? Hahaha.
Like you understand why people think it’s strange you guys would be so passionate about how COVID affected test results when you don’t seem to care otherwise, right?
You are just trying to repackage it all into a both sides argument by saying if I care about test scores 99% of the time then I should feel the same as you on the COVID issue.
You are trying to equate the COVID response of blue states to years and years and continued efforts of defunding the public school system by red states. They are not the close to the same and you seem overly focused on an event that is an outlier from what we have seen for decades. Show you actually care about public schools then I’d be willing to hear you out on this once in 100 year event.
There were many scientists who disagreed with the approach of the federal government and they were censored so you are wrong on “following the science” once again.
People no longer take a stance on things based on beliefs or their own logic. It’s all about being counter to your political enemies now.
I’m not religious. I don’t go to church, and have no plans to. But politics has replaced religion/spirituality in driving the moral compass.
This isn’t worth doing with someone who can’t see past the two team system. Oh well.
I’m sure you fall back on that a lot when your “both sides are the same” argument doesn’t land. Have a good one!
The only side that was pushing the closure of schools long term were Democrats so there really is no need to both sides it but you definitely are trying.I’m sure you fall back on that a lot when your “both sides are the same” argument doesn’t land. Have a good one!
Test scores have gone dramatically as a result of the policies during Covid pushed forth by blue state governors. That is a fact and everything else you are talking about is just diverting from the topic at hand because it makes Team Blue look bad.
… but I ACTUALLY care about test scores. I’m stoked you guys care all of a sudden. You gonna start supporting the funding of public schools too now?
I always have. Check out the thread about school choice in iowa back when it was being debated.
The results are in from Sweden where they performed the best and largest experiment possible. Lower grade teachers were in person while upper grade teachers were remote. The in-person cohort was twice as likely to get severe Covid that required hospitalization. Their spouses were about a third more likely to get severe Covid. There were fewer than 100,000 public school teachers in all of Sweden at the time. There were about 7 million public school teachers in this country. I know math is hard for you but that's a few more. Many wouldn't have gone back to school given the risk. A lot didn't.
And, before you start, I am on record here advocating for in-person schooling long before it was allowed in my state. Here's your rather serious problem. Even after the worst had passed and we went back on a hybrid model, fewer than half our students returned to school even though ALL had the option. That wasn't the state, that wasn't the schools, that wasn't the teachers...that was the parents exercising the rights you seem to ignore when it suits you. The idea that they would have sent them back when the pandemic was at it's worst is beyond laughable.
You don't have a f'n clue what you're talking about. As usual.
Following which science? There was plenty of "science" contradicting what was being spewed by the mainstream media. However, it was all dismissed as conspiracy theory. Many, including many on the left, are waking up to the fact that many of those "conspiracy theories" have been proven correct. Not the die-hard "follow the science" crowd. Keep wearing that little blue mask! A little research will set you free!
Iowa's numbers would have been even better had there not been a defiant school district.
"follow the science"? That concept seems to be selectively adhered to by one party.
Again I’ll say the main problem with the online learning was parents were (for the most part) worthless as hell during that time. The spotlight got shown on the highest problem with the American education system: parents complete apathy toward their kids education. Parents were most happy to then blame teachers and covid.
I’ll again use the example of my daughter. She was a struggling reader and was two grade levels behind her peers. During covid, I made sure she did her school work and worked with her on the side. The vey next year she was in grade level, now is in the 90th percentile for reading. It takes parent effort to educate kids. Parents don’t seem to want to do that anymore.
I’ll again use the example of my daughter. She was a struggling reader and was two grade levels behind her peers. During covid, I made sure she did her school work and worked with her on the side. The vey next year she was in grade level, now is in the 90th percentile for reading. It takes parent effort to educate kids. Parents don’t seem to want to do that anymore.
The biggest takeaway from all this is the idea of eliminating public schools for private education and the ultimate replacement for public schools, which would be free online public schools (for the people who can't afford private education) is an abject failure and can never be implemented as a serious alternative. The reality is that most parents are completely incapable of getting their kids to stay focused and doing their work, whether that is because they are too busy with their own work or just too lazy to keep their kid working. The majority of kids just won't do anything unless they are locked in a classroom with nothing else to do (also why smart phones have been almost as destructive to the learning process as online learning).
In a future pandemic, I don't know what the proper solution is. You can't have people dying because they went to school but clearly a different approach will be necessary if you want anything effective to happen with learning. One thing is don't tell the kids that their grades can't go below what they had before schools shut down because I had students who had a grade they liked at the shutdown and I never heard from them again. Yet I had to give them an A or B anyway. Hopefully I will be long dead before the next pandemic happens.
In a future pandemic, I don't know what the proper solution is. You can't have people dying because they went to school but clearly a different approach will be necessary if you want anything effective to happen with learning. One thing is don't tell the kids that their grades can't go below what they had before schools shut down because I had students who had a grade they liked at the shutdown and I never heard from them again. Yet I had to give them an A or B anyway. Hopefully I will be long dead before the next pandemic happens.
Republicans don’t give a shit about public education. They never have and never will. This fake outrage by them is embrasassing.
