The dire consequences of COVID school closings

New study out

US does surprisingly well on COVID-era declines in latest PISA math test

PISA test scores for math were released today. As usual, the US trails just about everyone, a result I take with a grain of salt because I've always had some doubts about the PISA methodology. More interesting, I think, is the decline in scores from 2018 to 2022:

This fits with data suggesting that school closures had little effect on test score declines within the US. Put everything together and the evidence is pointing ever more strongly to the conclusion that COVID test declines were unrelated to school closures. The real cause of the declines, then, remains a bit of a mystery. Perhaps just overall stress from the pandemic?

Extra embedded link on generalized scores
US does surprisingly well on COVID-era declines in latest PISA math test - Kevin Drum

 

Our addiction to gun violence shuts down in person classes at UNLV for a semester

UNLV students won’t return for in-person classes this semester
UNLV students won’t return for in-person classes this semester - Tampa Bay Times

 

*waves*

 

More evidence that the formula is not nearly as simple as we desperately want to make it

The Wall Street Journal reports today about a new study on learning loss from the pandemic:

In kindergarten, students tested in 2023 were about 2 percentage points less likely to begin school at grade level in both math and reading, compared with 2019, data compiled by the testing company Curriculum Associates show. Scores also remained below prepandemic levels in the first and second grades.

Kindergarten students weren't even in school during the pandemic, so obviously their learning loss isn't due to remote learning. This is yet more evidence that remote learning wasn't the culprit for learning losses around the globe. But we still don't know what the cause was.

Kindergarten kids also suffered learning losses during the pandemic - Kevin Drum

 

Mass-derangement is a bitch.

 

How many kids would typically go to preschool? That was disrupted. How many kids who didn't go to preschool had their at home education/prep for Kindergarten disrupted due to other activities now taking place at their home. Or perhaps other educational activities that they would have been exposed to no longer taking place.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

COVID as a whole was disruptive, no doubt. Which is kind of the point

 

We may just see it differently. The guy's point was not to blame "remote learning," but if the kids aren't in their normal learning environments, is that really substantially different? I thought the point of blaming "remote learning" was BECAUSE the kids were not in their normal learning environments.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS