i missed my school during covid pandemic essay in english

Op-Ed: Here’s everything I missed as a COVID-era student. Will any of it ever come back?

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I don’t know what most of the kids in my grade look like. I’ve never gone to a high school dance. My last “regular” school year began in the fall of 2018; that was seventh grade. This week, I start 10th grade.

I have watched many movies about high school. Not one was about a kid eating by themselves at a desk while another student six feet away also eats alone. And I’ve yet to see a movie about students who are only allowed into school every other day.

On a Friday in March 2020, my French teacher looked up from her computer and said we wouldn’t be coming to school on Monday. My first thought was, I hope this lasts for two weeks instead of just one. I could use a vacation.

Adults told me school would be back in a week, maybe two. Now, 18 months and two unusual school years later, I am looking for the stash of masks I wasn’t supposed to need for sophomore year.

This past school year I was scheduled to attend school in-person every other day between September and April. But there was not a lot of consistency. School sometimes would go virtual for a few days, a teacher would be out, or schedules would change because of positive coronavirus cases or exposures, or updated regulations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state or school district.

My in-person school days started with me putting on the mask that I would wear until 4 p.m. I got on the bus at 6:46 a.m. Even in a Massachusetts winter, my bus still had to have all the windows open. I was not allowed to sit with anyone, so I listened to Spotify to pass the time.

My first class began with the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance over the PA system, and then the speaker would remind me to sanitize and wash my hands.

Classes were quiet. I don’t think anyone knew how to act. There was no chatter before or after class, just silence. We didn’t have lockers and we weren’t allowed to hang out in the hallways. There were school officials stationed around the building to make sure we complied.

More than once I would be looking forward to seeing a friend but would get to school and that person wouldn’t be there. Those who tested positive for the virus, or were close contacts of someone who had, had to either quarantine or show negative tests to come back to school.

If a teacher had to stay home, I had to spend that class period in study hall instead. A few times there were so many teachers out that more study hall space had to be created to accommodate all the students whose classes were missing a teacher.

I went back in person full time in April. A friend and I made a bet about how many coronavirus cases there would be in the first week. I won. I guessed there would be at least 15 cases. We hit that by Wednesday. Fortunately, cases dropped after a few weeks.

That first day with all students back, the number of people in the building doubled, class sizes doubled, and space between desks halved. This followed all COVID-19 protocols, but it was still scary. Going to school meant the possibility of getting seriously ill. The good thing was the eerie silence in the building disappeared. Talking was back.

The COVID-19 pandemic has robbed me of memories. I worked so hard in eighth-grade French class, and it took away my spring class trip to Quebec. It canceled my eighth-grade graduation trip to Washington. I didn’t get a proper middle school graduation.

Losing the chance to make those memories was awful, but the day-to-day protocols in high school felt worse.

At robotics, I had to space six feet out from my teammates while working on a robot that was 18 inches tall and wide. One person would go to the robot and the others would step away. Jazz band rehearsal took up the entire auditorium — we weren’t allowed to sit next to one another, so we had to spread out to play.

I wasn’t allowed to high-five other teammates at cross-country practice after a long run or challenging workout. At the beginning of softball season, I had to wear a mask underneath my catcher’s helmet.

Hanging out with friends was entering the local cafe two at a time, ordering a muffin, walking to the town commons, and eating while sitting in a circle six feet apart from one another.

I am not anti-mask or anti-vaccine. I know life can go back to when there was no fear of getting sick, no masks and no social distancing. We have vaccines that allow for this.

I’m about to return to school in person every day, hopefully for the entire school year. As of now my school is not mandating vaccines, but my state just required that masks be worn indoors until at least Oct. 1 . For now, the only certainty I have about my sophomore year is that the rules will keep on changing.

Adults tell me that the way my generation is handling the pandemic is inspiring. That’s a wonderful compliment. But I’d rather have my regular life back.

Sidhi Dhanda is about to start her sophomore year at Hopkinton High School in Hopkinton, Mass.

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What the Covid-19 Pandemic Revealed About Remote School

The unplanned experiment provided clear lessons on the value—and limitations—of online learning. Are educators listening?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis, Undark Magazine

The transition to online learning in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic was, by many accounts, a failure. While there were some  bright   spots  across the country, the transition was messy and uneven — countless teachers had neither the materials nor training they needed to effectively connect with students remotely, while many of those students   were bored , isolated, and lacked the resources they needed to learn. The results were abysmal: low test scores, fewer children learning at grade level, increased inequity, and teacher burnout. With the public health crisis on top of deaths and job losses in many families, students experienced   increases  in depression, anxiety, and suicide risk.

Yet society very well may face new widespread calamities in the near future, from another pandemic to extreme weather, that will require a similarly quick shift to remote school. Success will hinge on big changes, from infrastructure to teacher training, several experts told Undark. “We absolutely need to invest in ways for schools to run continuously, to pick up where they left off. But man, it’s a tall order,” said Heather L. Schwartz, a senior policy researcher at RAND. “It’s not good enough for teachers to simply refer students to disconnected, stand-alone videos on, say, YouTube. Students need lessons that connect directly to what they were learning before school closed.”

More than three years after U.S. schools shifted to remote instruction on an emergency basis, the education sector is still largely unprepared for another long-term interruption of in-person school. The stakes are highest for those who need it most: low-income children and students of color, who are also most likely to be harmed in a future pandemic or live in communities  most affected  by climate change. But, given the abundance of research on what didn’t work during the pandemic, school leaders may have the opportunity to do things differently next time. Being ready would require strategic planning, rethinking the role of the teacher, and using new technology wisely, experts told Undark. And many problems with remote learning actually trace back not to technology, but to basic instructional quality. Effective remote learning won’t happen if schools aren’t already employing best practices in the physical classroom, such as creating a culture of learning from mistakes, empowering teachers to meet individual student needs, establishing high expectations, and setting clear goals supported by frequent feedback. While it’s ambitious to envision that every school district will create seamless virtual learning platforms — and, for that matter, overcome challenges in education more broadly — the lessons of the pandemic are there to be followed or ignored.

“We haven’t done anywhere near the amount of planning or the development of the instructional infrastructure needed to allow for a smooth transition next time schools need to close for prolonged periods of time,” Schwartz said. “Until we can reach that goal, I don’t have high confidence that the next prolonged school closure will be substantially more successful.”

Before the pandemic,  only 3 percent  of U.S. school districts offered virtual school, mostly for students with unique circumstances, such as a disability or those intensely pursuing a sport or the performing arts, according to a RAND  survey  Schwartz co-authored. For the most part, the educational technology companies and developers creating software for these schools promised to give students a personalized experience. But the research on these programs, which focused on virtual charter schools that only existed online, showed  poor outcomes . Their students were a year behind in math and nearly a half-year behind in reading, and courses offered less direct time with a teacher each week than regular schools have in a day.

The pandemic sparked growth in stand-alone virtual academies, in addition to the emergency remote learning that districts had to adopt in March 2020. Educators’ interest in online instructional materials exploded, too, according to Schwartz, “and it really put the foot on the gas to ramp them up, expand them, and in theory, improve them.” By June 2021, the number of school districts with a stand-alone virtual school rose to 26 percent. Of the remaining districts, another 23 percent were interested in offering an online school, the report found.

But the sheer magnitude of options for online learning didn’t necessarily mean it worked well, Schwartz said: “It’s the quality part that has to come up in order for this to be a really good, viable alternative to in person instruction.” And individualized, self-directed online learning proved to be a pipe dream — especially for younger children who needed support from a parent or other family member even to get online, much less stay focused.

“The notion that students would have personalized playlists and could curate their own education was proven to be problematic on a couple levels, especially for younger and less affluent students,” said Thomas Toch, director of FutureEd, an education think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. “The social and emotional toll that isolation and those traumas took on students suggest that the social dimension of schooling is hugely important and was greatly undervalued, especially by proponents for an increased role of technology.”

Students also often didn’t have the materials they needed for online school, some lacking computers or internet access at home. Teachers didn’t have the right training for  online instruction , which has a unique pedagogy and best practices. As a result, many virtual classrooms attempted to replicate the same lessons over video that would’ve been delivered at school. The results were overwhelmingly bad, research shows. ​​For example, a  2022 study  found six consistent themes about how the pandemic affected learning, including a lack of interaction between students and with teachers, and disproportionate harm to low-income students. Numb from isolation and too many hours in front of a screen, students  failed to engage  in coursework and  suffered emotionally .

After some districts resumed in-person or hybrid instruction in the 2020 fall semester, it became clear that the longer students were remote,  the worse their learning delays . For example, national standardized test scores for the 2020-2021 school year showed that passing rates for math declined about 14 percentage points on average, more than three times the drop seen in districts that returned to in-person instruction the earliest, according to a  2021 National Bureau of Economic Research study . Even after most U.S. districts resumed in-person instruction, students who had been online the longest  continued to lag  behind their peers. The pandemic  hit cities hardest  and the effects disproportionately harmed low-income children and students of color in urban areas.

“What we did during the pandemic is not the optimal use of online learning in education for the future,” said Ashley Jochim, a researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. “Online learning is not a full stop substitute for what kids need to thrive and be supported at school.”

Children also largely prefer in-person school. A  2022 Pew Research Center survey  suggested that 65 percent of students would rather be in a classroom, 9 percent would opt for online only, and the rest are unsure or prefer a hybrid model. “For most families and kids, full-time online school is actually not the educational solution they want,” Jochim said.

Virtual school felt meaningless to Abner Magdaleno, a 12th grader in Los Angeles. “I couldn’t really connect with it, because I’m more of, like, a social person. And that was stripped away from me when we went online,” recalled Magdaleno. Mackenzie Sheehy, 19, of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, found there were too many distractions at home to learn. Her grades suffered, and she missed the one-on-one time with teachers. (Sheehy graduated from high school in 2022.)

Many teachers feel the same way. “Nothing replaces physical proximity, whatever the age,” said Ana Silva, a New York City English teacher. She enjoyed experimenting with interactive technology during online school, but is grateful to be back in person. “I like the casual way kids can come to my desk and see me. I like the dynamism — seeing kids in the cafeteria. Those interactions are really positive, and they were entirely missing during the online learning.”

During the 2022-2023 school year, many districts  initially planned  to continue online courses for snow days and other building closures. But they found that the teacher instruction, student experience, and demands on families were simply too different for in-person versus remote school, said Liz Kolb, an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. “Schools are moving away from that because it’s too difficult to quickly transition and blend back and forth among the two without having strong structures in place,” Kolb said. “Most schools don’t have those strong structures.”

In addition, both families and educators grew sick of their screens. “They’re trying to avoid technology a little bit. There’s this fatigue coming out of remote learning and the pandemic,” said Mingyu Feng, a research director at WestEd, a nonprofit research agency. “If the students are on Zoom every day for like, six hours, that seems to be not quite right.”

Despite the bumpy pandemic rollout, online school can serve an important role in the U.S. education system. For one, online learning is a better alternative for some students. Garvey Mortley, 15, of Bethesda, Maryland, and her two sisters all switched to their district’s virtual academy during the pandemic to protect their own health and their grandmother’s. This year, Mortley’s sisters went back to in-person school, but she chose to stay online. “I love the flexibility about it,” she said, noting that some of her classmates prefer it because they have a disability or have demanding schedules. “I love how I can just roll out of bed in the morning, and I can sit down and do school.” Some educators also prefer teaching online, according to  reports  of virtual schools that were inundated with applications from teachers because they wanted to keep  working from home . Silva, the New York high school English teacher, enjoys online tutoring and academic coaching, because it facilitates one-on-one interaction.

And in rural districts and those with low enrollment, some access to online learning ensures students can take courses that could otherwise be inaccessible. “Because of the economies of scale in small rural districts, they needed to tap into online and shared service delivery arrangements in order to provide a full complement of coursework at the high school level,” said Jochim. Innovation in these districts, she added, will accelerate: “We’ll continue to see growth, scalability, and improvement in quality.”

There were also some schools that were largely successful at switching to online at the start of the pandemic, such as Vista Unified School District in California, which  pooled and shared innovative ideas  for adapting in March 2020; the school quickly put together an online portal so that principals and teachers could share ideas and the district could allot the necessary resources. Digging into examples like this could point the way to the future of online learning, said Chelsea Waite, a senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, who was part of a collaborative project studying 70 schools and districts that pivoted successfully to online learning. The  project found  three factors that made the transition work: a focus on resilience, collaboration, and autonomy for both students and educators; a healthy culture that prioritized relationships; and strong yet flexible systems that were accustomed to adaptation.

“We investigated schools that did seem to be more prepared for the Covid disruption, not just with having devices in students’ hands or having an online curriculum already, but with a learning culture in the school that really prioritized agency and problem solving as skills for students and adults,” Waite said. “In these schools, kids are learning from a very young age to be a little bit more self-directed, to set goals, and pursue them and pivot when they need to.”

Similarly, many of the takeaways from the pandemic trace back to the basics of effective education, not technological innovation. A landmark report by the National Academies of Sciences called “How People Learn,” most recently updated in 2018, synthesized the body of educational research and identified four key features in the most successful learning environments. First, these schools are designed for, and adapt to, the specific students, building on what they bring to the classroom, such as skills and beliefs. Second, successful schools give their students clear goals, showing them what they need to learn and how they can get there. Third, they provide in-the-moment feedback that emphasizes understanding, not memorization. And finally, the most successful schools are community-centered, with a culture of collaboration and acceptance of mistakes.

“We as humans are social learners, yet some of the tech talk is driven by people who are strong individual learners,” said Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of Learning Sciences Research at Digital Promise, a global education nonprofit. “They’re not necessarily thinking about how most people learn, which is very social.”

Another powerful insight from pandemic-era remote schooling involves the evolving role of teachers, said Kim Kelly, a middle school math teacher at Northbridge Middle School in Massachusetts and a K-8 curriculum coach. Historically, a teacher’s role is the keeper of knowledge who delivers instruction. But in recent years, there has been a shift in approach, where teachers think of themselves as coaches who can intervene based on a student’s individual learning progress. Technology that assists with a coach-like role can be effective — but requires educators to be trained and comfortable interpreting data on student needs.

For example, with a digital learning platform called ASSISTments, teachers can assign math problems, students complete them — potentially receiving in-the-moment feedback on steps they’re getting wrong — and then the teachers can use data from individual students and the entire class to plan instruction and see where additional support is needed.

“A big advantage of these computer-driven products is they really try to diagnose where students are, and try to address their needs. It’s very personalized, individualized,” said WestEd’s Feng, who has  evaluated  ASSISTments and other educational technologies. She noted that some teachers feel frustrated “when you expect them to read the data and try to figure out what the students’ needs are.”

Teacher’s colleges don’t typically prepare educators to interpret data and change their practices, said Kelly, whose dissertation focused on self-regulated online learning. But professional development has helped her learn to harness technology to improve teaching and learning. “Schools are in data overload; we are oozing data from every direction, yet none of it is very actionable,” she said. Some technology, she added, provided student data that she could use regularly, which changed how she taught and assigned homework.

When students get feedback from the computer program during a homework session, the whole class doesn’t have to review the homework together, which can save time. Educators can move forward on instruction — or if they see areas of confusion, focus more on those topics. The ability of the programs to detect how well students are learning “is unreal,” said Kelly, “but it really does require teachers to be monitoring that data and interpreting.” She learned to accept that some students could drive their own learning and act on the feedback from homework, while others simply needed more teacher intervention. She now does more assessment at the beginning of a course to better support all students.

At the district or even national level, letting teachers play to their strengths can also help improve how their students learn, Toch, of FutureEd, said. For example, if a teacher is better at delivering instruction, they could give a lesson to a larger group of students online, while another teacher who is more comfortable in the coach role could work in smaller groups or one-on-one.

“One thing we saw during the pandemic are smart strategies for using technology to get outstanding teachers in front of more students,” Toch said, describing one effort that recruited exceptional teachers nationally and built a strong curriculum to be delivered online. “The local educators were providing support for their students in their classrooms.”

Remote schooling requires new technology, and already, educators are swamped with competing platforms and software choices — most of which have  insufficient evidence of efficacy . Traditional independent research on specific technologies is sparse, Roschelle said. Post-pandemic, the field is so diverse and there are so many technologies in use, it’s almost impossible to find a control group to design a randomized control trial, he added. However, there is qualitative research and evidence that give hints about the quality of technology and online learning, such as  case studies  and school recommendations.

Educational leaders should ask three key questions about technology before investing, recommended Ryan Baker, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania: Is there evidence it works to improve learning outcomes? Does the vendor provide support and training, or are teachers on their own? And does it work with the same types of students as are in their school or district? In other words, educators must look at a technology’s track record in the context of their own school’s demographics, geography, culture, and challenges. These decisions are complicated by the small universe of researchers and evaluators, who have many overlapping relationships. (Over his career, for example, Baker has worked with or consulted for many of the education technology firms that create the software he studies.)

It may help to broaden the definition of evidence. The Center on Reinventing Public Education launched the  Canopy project  to collect examples of effective educational innovation around the U.S.

“What we wanted to do is build much better and more open and collective knowledge about where schools are challenging old assumptions and redesigning what school is and should be,” she added, noting that these educational leaders are reconceptualizing the skills they want students to attain. “They’re often trying to measure or communicate concepts that we don’t have great measurement tools for yet. So they end up relying on a lot of testimonials and evidence of student work.”

The moment is ripe for innovation in online and in-person education, said Julia Fallon, executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, since the pandemic accelerated the rollout of devices and needed infrastructure. There’s an  opportunity  and need for technology that empowers teachers to improve learning outcomes and work more efficiently, said Roschelle. Online and hybrid learning are clearly here to stay — and likely will be called upon again during future temporary school closures.

Still, poorly-executed remote learning risks tainting the whole model; parents and students may be unlikely to give it a second chance. The pandemic showed the hard and fast limits on the potential for fully remote learning to be adopted broadly, for one, because in many communities, schools serve more than an educational function — they support children’s mental health, social needs, and nutrition and other physical health needs. The pandemic also highlighted the real challenge in training the entire U.S. teaching corps to be proficient in technology and data analysis. And the lack of a nimble shift to remote learning in an emergency will disproportionately harm low-income children and students of color. So the stakes are high for getting it right, experts told Undark, and summoning the political will.

“There are these benefits in online education, but there are also these real weaknesses we know from prior research and experience,” Jochim said. “So how do we build a system that has online learning as a complement to this other set of supports and experiences that kids benefit from?”

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning journalist covering children, race, gender, disability, mental health, social justice, and science.

This article was originally published on Undark . Read the original article .

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Students Share How COVID Has Changed Their Lives

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(This is the final post in a two-part series. You can see Part One here .)

The new questions-of-the-week (directed toward students) is:

What is the best thing about school this year? Why?

What is the worst thing about school this year? Why?

Several students from our school shared their responses to these questions in Part One .

Here are even more:

Disrupted Plans

Pachia Xiong is a junior at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.:

The best thing about school this year is being able to hang out with my friends again. I think this is the best thing for me this year because I don’t have to use social media or Zoom to contact them. As the previous school year was spent through distance learning, I had little contact with my friends because I was not someone who frequented my social media back then. Now, I am able to, with ease, talk to them in person. It feels much nicer that way.

The worst thing about school this year is being unable to do everything I planned because of COVID-19. Over last year, during distance learning, I was highly hopeful of returning to school in person. Following those hopes came the goals I wanted to achieve upon our return. Some of which involved holding club events and activities that could be enjoyed by both club members and outsiders. However, the rise in COVID-19 cases put a lid over those goals, and now, everything feels as though it’s come to a stop.

‘Classes Are Easier’

Brenda Lin is a senior at Luther Burbank High School:

The best thing about this year is that most of my classes are easier because of the pandemic. For example, most of my finals for first semester were really easy because a lot of it was stress-free assignments. The teachers are more understanding about missing work and absences, and overall, I get sick less when I’m at school because I’m wearing a mask all the time. Overall, it’s a good way to end my high school years.

The worst thing about this year is that we have to be in school during the pandemic. When we were in distance learning, it was definitely a lot easier in terms of difficulty of assignments, but my motivation was very low. It is about the same in in-person school, but now, I have to worry about getting sick and bringing it back to all my family members. Not only that, but some of my teachers assign difficult assignments and require a lot of time and work to complete, and it’s not something I’m willing to do.

‘Being Able to Learn New Things’

Abby Funez is a senior at Luther Burbank High School:

The best thing about school this year is being able to learn new things every day that benefit me later on in life. This is the best thing because I am able to grow in knowledge and mature a lot more. For example, I am learning how to write essays while being timed and under pressure. This will help me in my admissions for classes in college and to be a better writer, which will benefit me long term throughout my life.

The worst thing about school this year is wearing masks. This is the worst thing because it makes it harder to hear our teachers and students within our area. In my Spanish class, my teacher is unable to hear other students even when they are standing by her because of the masks. This makes my life difficult because I miss important concepts of the lesson being taught at times.

‘Teachers Are More Lenient’

Julianna Eakle is a junior at Luther Burbank High School:

The best thing about this school year is how the teachers are more lenient of our absences or our missing assignments. For example, our principal put out an email saying that he understands if parents would like to keep us home due to our safety, for students just to continue doing our work online. My teachers were very concerned about me not attending class but did everything to help me stay on top of my grades.

The worst thing about this school year is people not having their masks over their nose and mouths. There are at least 3 teachers a day telling one of their students to put their mask over their nose and mouth. It’s a serious problem, and because of that one person, COVID cases start to spike fast.

‘We Can’t Eat or Drink Water in Class’

Van Bui is a senior at Luther Burbank High School:

The best thing about school this year is meeting new people and joining different sports like volleyball and track and field. This is the best thing because it taught me to enjoy life and take risks as I go. For example, I get to know a lot of people and hang out with them to do fun activities with, and joining different sports allowed me to step out of my boundaries and improve my health especially during these times. This makes my life better because I was always scared to talk to people and do different sports.

The worst thing about school this year is having COVID-19 going on still. This is the worst thing because I always have to wear a mask and there are limited activities that we can do in school. For example, we can’t eat or drink water in class, waking up early in the morning, and before getting fresh air, it’s blocked by wearing a mask for 8 hours straight. This makes my life worse because I find it very difficult to breathe or eat in class.

‘We Are Back in Person’

Lakeyah Roots is a junior at Luther Burbank High School:

The best thing about school this year is being able to learn in person. When we were doing distance learning, being able to learn the information being taught to me and my ability to do my schoolwork was not good. But now that we are back in person, I feel like I can do more work more efficiently and really get the help I need. Distance learning has taught me that doing school online does not suit me.

The worst thing about school is COVID cases. Students were getting sick, and that caused the class to be empty sometimes. The classroom does not feel the same when it is not filled with the students you normally see every day. It is not fun not being able to do certain activities because of COVID. It’s best to keep our distance from one another, but sometimes I miss the days when we were able to do certain class activities before COVID hit.

Seeing Friends

Joanna Medrano-Gutierrez is a junior at Luther Burbank High School:

The best thing about this school year is being able to see my friends again. This is the best thing about this school year because I haven’t seen most of them since the pandemic started. For example, I haven’t seen a certain friend since March 2020, but now, this school year, we are closer than we were before.

The worst thing about this school year is adapting back into waking up early again. This is the worst thing about the pandemic because I got so used to sleeping late and sleeping in, and then I had to get used to waking up early. For example, before I woke up at 9 a.m.-12 p.m., but now I wake up at 6 a.m.-7 a.m.

Thanks to Pachia, Brenda, Abby, Julianna, Van, Lakeyah, and Joanna for contributing their thoughts.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign—new ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 10 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

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Publication date: 2021-01

Publication series: Innocenti Working Papers

No. of pages: 29

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Download the report, related project(s):.

In 2019, 135 million people in 55 countries were in food crises or worse, and 2 billion people did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. COVID-19 has exacerbated these hardships and may result in an additional 121 million people facing acute food insecurity by the end of 2020. Further, since the beginning of the pandemic, an estimated 1.6 billion learners in 199 countries worldwide were affected by school closures, with nearly 370 million children not receiving a school meal in 150 countries.

The paper presents the evidence on the potential negative short-term and long-term effects of school meal scheme disruption during Covid-19 globally. It shows how vulnerable the children participating in these schemes are, how coping and mitigation measures are often only short-term solutions, and how prioritizing school re-opening is critical. For instance, it highlights how girls are at greater risk of not being in school or of being taken out of school early, which may lead to poor nutrition and health for themselves and their children. However, well-designed school feeding programmes have been shown to enable catch-up from early growth failure and other negative shocks. As such, once schools re-open, school meal schemes can help address the deprivation that children have experienced during the closures and provide an incentive for parents to send and keep their children, especially girls, in school.

Related Topics

More in this series: innocenti working papers.

Child-related Policies in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic in 40 Countries

Mental Health in Displaced Child and Youth Populations: A Developmental and Family Systems Lens

Cross-Sectoral Learning in Implementation Research: Harnessing the potential to accelerate results for children

The Impact of Interventions Targeting Caregivers, Health Workers and the Community to Alter Vaccine Behaviours and Childhood Vaccination Uptake: A Rapid evidence assessment protocol

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How to Write About Coronavirus in a College Essay

Students can share how they navigated life during the coronavirus pandemic in a full-length essay or an optional supplement.

Writing About COVID-19 in College Essays

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Experts say students should be honest and not limit themselves to merely their experiences with the pandemic.

The global impact of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, means colleges and prospective students alike are in for an admissions cycle like no other. Both face unprecedented challenges and questions as they grapple with their respective futures amid the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.

Colleges must examine applicants without the aid of standardized test scores for many – a factor that prompted many schools to go test-optional for now . Even grades, a significant component of a college application, may be hard to interpret with some high schools adopting pass-fail classes last spring due to the pandemic. Major college admissions factors are suddenly skewed.

"I can't help but think other (admissions) factors are going to matter more," says Ethan Sawyer, founder of the College Essay Guy, a website that offers free and paid essay-writing resources.

College essays and letters of recommendation , Sawyer says, are likely to carry more weight than ever in this admissions cycle. And many essays will likely focus on how the pandemic shaped students' lives throughout an often tumultuous 2020.

But before writing a college essay focused on the coronavirus, students should explore whether it's the best topic for them.

Writing About COVID-19 for a College Application

Much of daily life has been colored by the coronavirus. Virtual learning is the norm at many colleges and high schools, many extracurriculars have vanished and social lives have stalled for students complying with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

"For some young people, the pandemic took away what they envisioned as their senior year," says Robert Alexander, dean of admissions, financial aid and enrollment management at the University of Rochester in New York. "Maybe that's a spot on a varsity athletic team or the lead role in the fall play. And it's OK for them to mourn what should have been and what they feel like they lost, but more important is how are they making the most of the opportunities they do have?"

That question, Alexander says, is what colleges want answered if students choose to address COVID-19 in their college essay.

But the question of whether a student should write about the coronavirus is tricky. The answer depends largely on the student.

"In general, I don't think students should write about COVID-19 in their main personal statement for their application," Robin Miller, master college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a college counseling company, wrote in an email.

"Certainly, there may be exceptions to this based on a student's individual experience, but since the personal essay is the main place in the application where the student can really allow their voice to be heard and share insight into who they are as an individual, there are likely many other topics they can choose to write about that are more distinctive and unique than COVID-19," Miller says.

Opinions among admissions experts vary on whether to write about the likely popular topic of the pandemic.

"If your essay communicates something positive, unique, and compelling about you in an interesting and eloquent way, go for it," Carolyn Pippen, principal college admissions counselor at IvyWise, wrote in an email. She adds that students shouldn't be dissuaded from writing about a topic merely because it's common, noting that "topics are bound to repeat, no matter how hard we try to avoid it."

Above all, she urges honesty.

"If your experience within the context of the pandemic has been truly unique, then write about that experience, and the standing out will take care of itself," Pippen says. "If your experience has been generally the same as most other students in your context, then trying to find a unique angle can easily cross the line into exploiting a tragedy, or at least appearing as though you have."

But focusing entirely on the pandemic can limit a student to a single story and narrow who they are in an application, Sawyer says. "There are so many wonderful possibilities for what you can say about yourself outside of your experience within the pandemic."

He notes that passions, strengths, career interests and personal identity are among the multitude of essay topic options available to applicants and encourages them to probe their values to help determine the topic that matters most to them – and write about it.

That doesn't mean the pandemic experience has to be ignored if applicants feel the need to write about it.

Writing About Coronavirus in Main and Supplemental Essays

Students can choose to write a full-length college essay on the coronavirus or summarize their experience in a shorter form.

To help students explain how the pandemic affected them, The Common App has added an optional section to address this topic. Applicants have 250 words to describe their pandemic experience and the personal and academic impact of COVID-19.

"That's not a trick question, and there's no right or wrong answer," Alexander says. Colleges want to know, he adds, how students navigated the pandemic, how they prioritized their time, what responsibilities they took on and what they learned along the way.

If students can distill all of the above information into 250 words, there's likely no need to write about it in a full-length college essay, experts say. And applicants whose lives were not heavily altered by the pandemic may even choose to skip the optional COVID-19 question.

"This space is best used to discuss hardship and/or significant challenges that the student and/or the student's family experienced as a result of COVID-19 and how they have responded to those difficulties," Miller notes. Using the section to acknowledge a lack of impact, she adds, "could be perceived as trite and lacking insight, despite the good intentions of the applicant."

To guard against this lack of awareness, Sawyer encourages students to tap someone they trust to review their writing , whether it's the 250-word Common App response or the full-length essay.

Experts tend to agree that the short-form approach to this as an essay topic works better, but there are exceptions. And if a student does have a coronavirus story that he or she feels must be told, Alexander encourages the writer to be authentic in the essay.

"My advice for an essay about COVID-19 is the same as my advice about an essay for any topic – and that is, don't write what you think we want to read or hear," Alexander says. "Write what really changed you and that story that now is yours and yours alone to tell."

Sawyer urges students to ask themselves, "What's the sentence that only I can write?" He also encourages students to remember that the pandemic is only a chapter of their lives and not the whole book.

Miller, who cautions against writing a full-length essay on the coronavirus, says that if students choose to do so they should have a conversation with their high school counselor about whether that's the right move. And if students choose to proceed with COVID-19 as a topic, she says they need to be clear, detailed and insightful about what they learned and how they adapted along the way.

"Approaching the essay in this manner will provide important balance while demonstrating personal growth and vulnerability," Miller says.

Pippen encourages students to remember that they are in an unprecedented time for college admissions.

"It is important to keep in mind with all of these (admission) factors that no colleges have ever had to consider them this way in the selection process, if at all," Pippen says. "They have had very little time to calibrate their evaluations of different application components within their offices, let alone across institutions. This means that colleges will all be handling the admissions process a little bit differently, and their approaches may even evolve over the course of the admissions cycle."

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The debate over how to handle kids’ “lost year” of learning

Some want to hold students back. Experts say there’s a better way.

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The moment of truth for Gregory Heights Elementary School came last June.

The school in Burien, Washington, had closed its buildings in the spring when the pandemic forced lockdowns around the country. That meant students — about 50 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and about 40 percent of whom are learning English as a second language — traded classrooms for worksheets and Zoom meetings, and saw their teachers a lot less than before. After a few months of this, “we began to just think about how many hours of lost instruction we had,” principal Robin Totten told Vox. “Going into the next year, if that didn’t change, what were we going to do?”

One option was remediation: taking kids back and redoing everything they’d missed. But research from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina showed this approach didn’t work well — students got bored doing work below their grade level and didn’t make enough progress. So Gregory Heights, along with its district, Highline Public Schools, tried something different: acceleration, in which students keep doing grade-level work but get targeted help catching up when they don’t understand something. Instead of going back and redoing everything with students, it’s about “just giving them those little scaffolded pieces, so that they can tackle the grade-level standard lesson,” Totten said.

It’s still early, but the results have been encouraging: “From fall to winter we saw really great growth” in student learning, Totten said. And the approach could be a model for other schools now trying to help kids rebound from not one but two school years deeply marked by the pandemic.

Ever since schools around the country closed their buildings last spring, educators and families alike have been worried about how the shift online would affect kids’ learning. Early research was concerning: A June 2020 analysis found that the average student could fall seven months behind due to the pandemic, with Latinx students losing nine months and Black students losing 10. More recent studies have been more encouraging, showing students losing ground in math but not in reading. However, researchers are concerned that many students of color and those living in poverty aren’t being captured in the data.

Now, with many schools likely to reopen full time in the fall , districts around the country are facing the challenge of figuring out how much their students have missed and how to address it. Some are planning a remedial approach, even holding students back a grade so they can repeat all the material they missed. But some experts say that approach could actually widen educational inequity by depriving Black, Indigenous, and other students of color of access to grade-level work. What’s more effective, they say, is what Gregory Heights is doing: keeping kids moving forward, even if they need a little help to stay on track.

“Our tendency as a system has been to go backward and meet kids where they are,” Bailey Cato Czupryk — vice president of practices, diagnostics, and impact at TNTP, an education nonprofit that advocates for acceleration — told Vox. But “you don’t close the gaps we see in performance by holding a subset of kids back and deciding they don’t get to try grade-level stuff.”

We’re just starting to find out how the pandemic has affected kids’ learning

When schools moved their classes online in the spring of 2020, teachers and parents had lots of reasons to worry. First were basic issues of access : In a 2019 analysis by the Associated Press , about 17 percent of students nationwide lacked a computer at home, and 18 percent lacked broadband internet access. Low-income families and families of color were especially likely to be without these resources, according to the AP. That meant a significant number of students simply couldn’t attend remote classes, although many school districts sent iPads or laptops to students’ homes in an effort to remedy the problem.

Then there were the pressures online learning put on families: Remote lessons often require a parent or other adult to help the student with technology and staying on task, especially at younger ages, and that simply wasn’t possible in many households, whether because parents were working during school hours or because they had limited English fluency or other barriers. Again, low-income families were more likely to face obstacles in helping kids with online school, experts said .

On top of these challenges has been the trauma of the pandemic itself, during which millions of people have lost jobs, countless families have fallen into poverty, and nearly 40,000 children have lost a parent to Covid-19 . Learning new material under such circumstances has been, for many students, difficult, to say the least.

Given all that, recent research on learning during the pandemic is, in some ways, reassuring. In fall 2020, the nonprofit NWEA studied students’ performance on reading and math assessment tests, and compared it to scores for students in the same grades in fall 2019, before the pandemic began. In math, the 2020 students scored about 5 to 10 percentile points lower than the 2019 group — a “moderate” drop, NWEA research head Beth Tarasawa told NPR . But in reading, students this fall scored about the same on average as they did before the pandemic.

The group also measured individual students’ performance over time, comparing their test scores in early 2020 with their scores in the fall. “We saw, on average, students showed growth in both math and reading across the grade levels in almost all grades,” Tarasawa told NPR. “Most students made some learning gains in both reading and math since Covid started.”

But amid the positive news, the researchers also found something deeply concerning. About a quarter of students never took the assessment tests this fall, meaning they’re not represented in NWEA’s analysis. And those students, the group found, were more likely to be Black, Indigenous, or other people of color, or to attend high-poverty schools — essentially, the groups that experts were already concerned about with regard to remote education.

Some students might not have taken the tests because they lacked internet access, while others may have stopped going to school entirely. Indeed, chronic absenteeism has been a serious problem during the pandemic, with hundreds or even thousands of students missing from classes in some districts. Miami-Dade County public schools, for example, opened with more than 10,000 fewer students than in 2019, according to ABC News . The district sent teams of social workers to locate and help the students, but as of March, about 1,000 remained unaccounted for.

“We believe that these were the students who were in crisis prior to the Covid-19 crisis,” Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told ABC . “These were probably poor students, probably English language learners, learners who may have had a disability, may have had home insecurity, food insecurity, and may have had a fragile immigration status.”

Overall, the missing test scores in the NWEA are yet more evidence of something that’s concerned educators since Covid-19 first hit: It seems to be having the biggest impact on students who already faced inequities at school.

“We already knew that Black and brown students weren’t getting the support that they need even before the pandemic,” Kayla Patrick, a senior data and policy analyst at the Education Trust, told Vox. “And then the pandemic made all of that worse.”

Some places are responding to the pandemic by holding kids back

Now, the question is what schools and districts should do to address the impact of the pandemic on students in ways that shrink those inequalities rather than widening them.

Some districts are likely to treat 2020 as something of a lost year, Czupryk told Vox. Those districts basically take the view that “you should take kids back to where they were in spring 2020 and do all the stuff they would have done,” Czupryk said.

At the extreme end of that approach would be actually holding kids back a grade. Eighteen states have laws on the books requiring students to repeat third grade if they don’t meet certain literacy standards, Politico reports , most inspired by a Florida law passed in 2002. The latest such law is Tennessee’s, passed in January in an effort to address the pandemic’s impact on learning.

But experts say having students repeat a grade can backfire, pointing to research showing that the practice stigmatizes students, harms their self-esteem , and makes them more likely to drop out of school . In particular, “I don’t want to see retention policies really target Black and brown communities and have only those kids having to repeat a grade,” Patrick said.

More broadly, some say there’s a danger in simply assuming that particular kids have lost ground academically because of their race or family income. That’s because if schools overestimate students’ learning loss, they may fail to give them grade-level work, pushing them even further behind, Chase Nordengren, a senior research scientist with NWEA, told Vox. “Assumptions are really a threat to equity, because they limit the kinds of experiences that students have access to.”

Even as we acknowledge inequities in access, Nordengren said, it’s important to “understand that every student is different, and when we come back this fall, every student’s individual level of proficiency is going to need to be understood really well.”

But experts say the better approach is “acceleration”

And for students who have missed out on a lot this year, experts say there’s a better way to help than just making them repeat material. The best approach, they argue, is to keep kids at grade level but give them specific help when they face an obstacle due to something they missed, a process sometimes called targeted remediation or “just in time” learning.

At Gregory Heights Elementary, for example, third graders are learning double-digit multiplication right now. But some of them don’t have their single-digit multiplication facts down yet. Rather than holding them back or putting them in a remedial class, teachers can pull them into small Zoom groups to figure out what their specific challenges are. When teachers worked with one student individually, they found that she actually only had trouble multiplying sixes and sevens. So the question, Totten said, was, “what could we do with sixes and sevens to help her learn those more quickly?”

Another student, who has special needs, is still working on being able to spell and handwrite letters. But his grade is working on five-paragraph essays. Rather than keep him from working on essays until his handwriting is perfect, teachers have him use Google Translate to dictate his work into a computer. “He can still look for the organization, like his class is doing, he can still develop his theme, he can still develop his claim,” Totten said. “We know that we still have to work with him on actually writing himself and being able to do the spelling piece, but using a strategy, he’s able to do the work at his grade level.”

Gregory Heights started using the approach in September, and so far educators are pleased with the results, at least as measured by assessments students took in fall and winter. Students began returning to school buildings on a hybrid schedule in March, and the district has not yet announced a schedule for the fall. But whatever happens, Gregory Heights plans to continue and refine the acceleration approach, helping teachers identify what skills are the most important to teach in a limited amount of time. “If I’m truly going to accelerate,” Totten asks, “am I going to do every one of these lessons, or am I going to cut out some of these lessons and spend more time on other lessons?”

District-wide, the real test of the method may not come until next spring, when Washington students are likely to take their next round of statewide tests (the tests were paused this year due to the pandemic). But previous research by TNTP has found that when students who have fallen behind are given grade-level work along with stronger instruction and higher expectations, they catch up more quickly than those who don’t get grade-level assignments. The group has seen what students “are capable of when we as grown-ups let them try, rather than deciding before they even get up to the plate that they’re not going to get a hit,” Czupryk said.

Districts from Alabama to California are taking such messages to heart and planning an acceleration approach to help their students catch up after the past 18 months, according to the Washington Post . And the Department of Education recommended an acceleration approach to address pandemic learning gaps in a reopening handbook released earlier this month, which also noted that funds from the American Rescue Plan can be used for tutoring or summer school programs to help support acceleration.

The increased interest in the approach could help districts address the longstanding inequities that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. For example, in a 2018 report , TNTP found that classes composed predominantly of students from higher-income families spent twice as much time on grade-level work as classes with students from lower-income backgrounds. An emphasis on acceleration could help districts examine what they offer their students and make sure they’re giving every student the opportunity to excel.

“It’s not like we had an exceptionally just, equal, or equitable education system before the pandemic,” Czupryk said. “These gaps existed before.”

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‘I miss school’: How students are coping with remote learning during coronavirus pandemic

“In my opinion, I think that this is very annoying and I think people will agree,” A. Falcon, a fifth-grader at P.S. 290Q in Ridgewood, said about New York City’s public schools shutting down as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

For Falcon — whose mother requested her son’s full name not be used — and many of the 1.1 million students in NYC’s school system, the largest school system in the country, the city’s decision to close schools was an abrupt, but necessary measure to stop the spread of the pandemic.

“For many people, school is really fun. You get to meet new friends and goof around at recess after learning new things,” Falcon told QNS. “And for teachers, they get to pass down knowledge to their students. Not only is there math and ELA, but also specials like P.E., science, art and music! But then it came along to the U.S.”

The decision to close schools wasn’t an easy or quick one. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza received pushback from many parents, educators and fellow elected officials who felt that schools should’ve closed much sooner.

“I was worried about the disease spreading throughout all of the public schools because although the death rate was low, the more people who get it, the more will die,” Jamie A. said. “I was especially worried for those who have family members with compromised health because if the children carried it home it would put those family members at risk.”

Although schools are closed until Monday, April 20, students still have about three months left of classes. De Blasio recently said there’s a good chance schools won’t open again for the rest of the school year.

As a result, a whole new way of learning and teaching had to take place — remote learning . In anticipation of the city announcing schools would close, many schools throughout the city began to prepare by creating packets and homework for students to take home.

The Department of Education (DOE) then gave teachers a week to train for virtual education, where many teachers, some of which never used online tools, got familiar with resources like Google Classroom and Zoom. Remote learning officially kicked off on March 23.

“I feel sad I cannot see my friends,” said Jordan Turkoglu, a first-grader at P.S. 290Q. “I have some school work but it’s not a lot and I feel sad I cannot see my teacher. I’m happy because I saw some of my friends on video yesterday. I do want to play with my friends but now I cannot.”

“It’s not too stressful and you can work at your own pace without the teacher going too fast during the lesson,” she said. “But I had many questions about my work and the teacher can’t answer the questions right away, so that wastes time and the students might end up doing the assignment wrong if they don’t get it either.”

“Yesterday we learned about money in my math class, and it was helpful because there were videos that helped me understand. It was fun to see comments from my friends on the computer,” Malik said. “But I miss school because there are a lot of fun activities like gym, and you get to make a lot of friends. I didn’t do my music class yet on my computer and I hope it will be like class at school where we get to learn about different singers. I miss hearing my music teacher, Miss Schwab, play the piano.”

Carranza said they estimate about 300,000 students don’t have devices. The DOE distributed 25,000 iPads to students who need it the most, and there are companies offering free internet deals — but there’s still a big disparity between students who have the resources they need and those who don’t.

Jacob Altamirano, a fifth-grader at P.S. 290Q, is worried about the services some students in District 75 (P.S. 277Q, which shares the same building) will miss due to the shutdown, such as counseling, physical therapy, Special Education Teacher Support Services (SETTS) and Individualized Education Program (IEPs).

“Our speech and SETTS are very important for us to continue to develop and do well in school. I hope and wish that me and my friends can continue to see our very important teachers, even if it is online, so we can continue to learn and grow,” Altamirano said.

In a press conference on March 23, Carranza said that the DOE is still developing the remote learning model, and all schools have had to develop their own way of dealing with the change. He asked the school community for “flexibility and patience.”

“It’s also great for the school community because it’s bringing families together,” Leon said. “Teachers, staff members and students get to go home with their families and enjoy this time off as well. It’s a positive thing because families get to spend more time together.”

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Science News

What kids lost when covid-19 upended school.

A year and a half of pandemic has left many children struggling academically and emotionally

At Herbert H. Lehman High School in New York City, Yzabella Padagas, center right, talks about the mental and emotional toll of her father’s illness with COVID-19 during a roundtable on vaccinations. Students will be returning to school this fall with losses, both big and small, from those types of struggles.

Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

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By Laura Sanders

August 10, 2021 at 6:00 am

At the start of a school year, kids usually show up with oversized backpacks stocked with fresh pencils, crisp notebooks and snacks. This back-to-school season, many children will carry extra baggage.

Eighteen months of an unprecedented pandemic turned routines — including going to school — topsy-turvy. This fall, many kids are heading to their new classrooms toting traumas, worries and gaps in their learning.

What’s more, schoolchildren are returning as the pandemic is once again shifting the ground under our feet. Infections driven by the more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus are putting new twists on questions over how to keep kids learning while still protecting unvaccinated children from illness. These burdens may profoundly change yet another school year.  

COVID-19: Back to school

This story is one in a series looking at what to expect as U.S. children return to in-person school.

• Schools are reopening. COVID-19 is still here. What does that mean for kids?
• 6 answers to parents’ COVID-19 questions as kids return to school
• Colds and other common respiratory diseases might surge as kids return to school
• How different COVID-19 testing plans can help keep kids safe in school

This year comes on the heels of one already marked by losses big and small. When school buildings abruptly closed in the spring of 2020 and school shifted online, many children lost regular time spent together with friends and teachers. Kids missed out on gym class, organized sports and time to goof around at recess. Some kids even lost their voices, digitally silenced by exasperated teachers doing their best to corral rambunctious students in virtual classrooms. “I’m muting you,” these kids were told.

But every student had their own personal pandemic experience. “You can’t generalize,” says Pedro Noguera, dean of the education school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Half of the kids in the United States went to in-person school by the end of 2020, either full-time or on a hybrid schedule. Faced with closed schools, some kids instead had private teachers and learning bubbles. Others muddled along on their own, without solid internet access or a quiet place to sit.

Too many kids who rely on schools as a safety net went without consistent meals and regular check-ins from adults. More than 1.5 million kids globally lost a parent, live-in grandparent or other live-in relative to the pandemic, scientists estimated July 20 in the Lancet . School counselors had harder times reaching kids.

These pandemic losses were not spread evenly. Existing inequities deepened during the pandemic ( SN: 9/8/20 ). Children from Black and Hispanic communities, and other traditionally underserved groups of kids, suffered some of the biggest losses.

Despite the variation, a patchwork of new data is beginning to put numbers to the scope of the problems that teachers, school administrators and families will face as students return to school. Understanding these challenges is a step toward helping kids come back to the classroom and, ultimately, thrive, says Kathleen Ethier, a social and behavioral scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Maybe one of the positive take-home messages from this past year and a half,” she says, “is that we understand now just how important school is.”

Learning loss

Getting a measure of academic performance that applies to all kids across the United States is tough. But early in the pandemic, students’ test scores hinted at the academic blows that were to come.

Comparing previous test score changes of kids in California to the changes from fall of 2019 to the winter of 2020 showed an overall academic lag . “On average, kids are two to two-and-a-half months behind where we would expect they would have been if COVID hadn’t happened,” says learning science expert Libby Pier of Education Analytics, a nonprofit based in Madison, Wis. Considering that a normal school year is nine months long, “that’s a quarter to a third of the school year they missed out on.”

The pandemic, of course, didn’t end in 2020; measures of academic slipping got worse as time went on. Elementary school students across the United States finished the 2020–2021 school year an average of five months behind in math and four months behind in reading, an analysis from the analytics firm McKinsey & Company, headquartered in New York City, shows. Those numbers, described in a July 27 report, don’t reflect all students. The analysis counted results only from kids who were in schools to take the tests; kids at home might have fared worse.

Learning, interrupted

Compared with their usual progress in a non-pandemic year, students at schools that are majority Black or Hispanic are farther behind than students at schools that are majority white in math (left) and reading (right). 

Academic performance based on school demographics 

The learning lag was most pronounced in children from underserved communities : those who are Hispanic, Black, economically disadvantaged or learning English ( SN : 9/8/20). Students in majority-Black schools ended the year six months behind where they would have been in both reading and math; students in white-majority schools lost four months of math and three months of reading.

It’s impossible to say to what extent school closures and shifts to virtual learning played in these lower-than-expected test scores. “Right now, we don’t have the evidence to conclude whether the impacts we are seeing are because students were learning remotely, or because there was a global pandemic happening,” Pier says. Kids could have also been struggling with losing a parent, caring for siblings or internet connection problems. Without all the information about kids’ lives, including their school experiences, she says, “we can’t answer the questions we want.”

Virtual, for some

One big question is how virtual school stacks up against in-person school. In the fall of 2020, the CDC’s Ethier and her colleagues asked 1,290 parents of 5- to 12-year-olds about the type of schooling available to their child, along with questions about the well-being of the family.

On 11 of 17 measures, families with kids who were doing partial or full-time virtual school were doing worse than those who attended full-time in person. Kids in virtual school were getting less exercise, less time in person with friends and less time outside. Parents of kids in virtual school were worse off, too, reporting mental distress, difficulty sleeping and conflicts between work and childcare. “Both in terms of stress that families feel, and outcomes among children, there really were significant differences” between in-person and virtual learning, Ethier says.

Ethier’s study, published March 19 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , “gives us some clues about who to watch out for and what to watch out for,” she says.

Families of color were more likely to have a student in virtual school than white families, Ethier’s team found. A recent study of New York schools revealed similar trends. Across the state, about 18 percent of elementary students had access to in-person school . But a racial breakdown turned up stark differences in who could go to school and who had to stay home. About 30 percent of white students could attend in-person school; for Black students, that number was only 5 percent, Ashley Fox and her colleagues report July 15 in JAMA Network Open .

More advantaged students, such as white, suburban middle-class kids, had considerably more access to in-person school than other groups. Those other groups included students from urban areas, low-income families, students with disabilities and students experiencing homelessness, Fox, a health policy researcher at University at Albany in New York, and her team found.  

Even before the pandemic, schools had massive inequities; depending on where students live, they received different educational experiences. Fox’s new tally of which schools stayed open shows that the pandemic exacerbated these inequities. A caveat, Fox says, is that the researchers measured access to in-person school, not whether a family actually chose that option.

An emotional toll

These academic inequities are not surprising, says Noguera. “The real issue now is what we do about it.” It would be a mistake, he says, “to focus narrowly on academics and ignore some of the mental health challenges that kids will be bringing back with them.”

Depression and anxiety rates among children and adolescents are rising. More kids with mental health crises are turning up in emergency departments, scientists described in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report November 13. Compared with April through December of 2019, the proportion of children ages 5 to 11 who had mental health-related visits in the same months of 2020 increased by about 25 percent on average, from 782 mental-health-related visits per 100,000 total visits in 2019 to 972 such visits in 2020.  For adolescents ages 12 to 17, that proportion increased by about 30 percent, from 3,098 mental-health visits per 100,000 total visits in 2019 to 4,051 in 2020.

And in February and March of this year, there were an average of 855 emergency department visits a week for suspected suicide attempts among 12- to 17-year-old girls, an increase of about 50 percent over with the same winter weeks of 2019, scientists reported June 18 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report .

These studies weren’t designed to pinpoint causes of this increasing emotional distress. But hints come from surveys of families, such as Ethier’s. Parents of children who received virtual school were more likely to report their kids had worse mental or emotional health compared with parents of children who attended in-person school.

Interrupted schooling may cast long shadows, says Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Earlier studies have linked educational attainment with people’s future health, earnings potential and even how long they live. Losing out on school is a big deal, says Christakis. “Children’s lives, their longevity, their health, will be impacted,” he says, “not in the short term, necessarily, but over their life-span.”

As students come back into their classrooms, teachers, administrators and parents would do well to acknowledge all the burdens kids are carrying into class, and not just the academic ones. “We should be thinking of the restart, the return to school, as an opportunity to do things differently,” Noguera says. “To not just to go back to the way it was, but to really try to make schools much more responsive to the needs of kids and parents than they have been.”

If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts, please seek help. In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

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"I miss my school!": Examining primary and secondary school students' social distancing and emotional experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic

Affiliations.

• 1 Section for Teacher Education and Research, University of Trier, Universitätsring 15, 54296 Trier, Germany.
• 2 Professional School of Education, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany.
• 3 School of Psychology, University of Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico.
• PMID: 36254220
• PMCID: PMC9555703
• DOI: 10.1007/s11125-022-09621-w

With the rapid spread of Covid-19, countries around the world implemented strict protocols ordering schools to close. As a result, educational institutions were forced to establish a new form of schooling by implementing emergency remote education. Learning from home during the Covid-19 pandemic brought numerous changes, challenges, and stressors to students' daily lives. In this context, major concerns have been raised based on the reports of students' negative experiences resulting from social distancing and isolation. Given the impact of Covid-19 on many aspects of students' lives, in particular their social and school experiences, research that provides insights into the consequences of this health crisis for students' well-being has become important. This study aims to explore students' experiences of social distancing and its relation to their negative emotional experiences during Germany's first Covid-19-related school closure. Findings indicate that both primary and secondary students missed their friends and classmates and that primary school students perceived higher levels of social distancing. However, a linear regression analysis indicated that the older the students were, the more negatively affected they were by social distancing. The implications of the study's results and further lines of research are discussed.

Keywords: Covid-19; Distance learning; Homeschooling; Social distancing; Students’ experiences.

© The Author(s) 2022.

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6 things we've learned about how the pandemic disrupted learning

Cory Turner

How did the pandemic disrupt learning for America's more than 50 million K-12 students?

For two years, that question has felt immeasurable, like a phantom, though few educators doubted the shadow it cast over children who spent months struggling to learn online.

Now, as a third pandemic school year draws to a close, new research offers the clearest accounting yet of the crisis's academic toll — as well as reason to hope that schools can help.

1. Surprise! Students learned less when they were remote

But really, this should surprise no one.

Most schools had little to no experience with remote instruction when the pandemic began; they lacked teacher training, appropriate software, laptops, universal internet access and, in many cases, students lacked stability and a supportive adult at home to help.

Even students who spent the least amount of time learning remotely during the 2020-21 school year — just a month or less — missed the equivalent of seven to 10 weeks of math learning, says Thomas Kane of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.

Much of that missed learning, Kane says, was likely a hangover from spring 2020, when nearly all schools were remote and remote instruction was at its worst.

Kane is part of a collaborative of researchers at Harvard, the American Institutes for Research, Dartmouth College and the school-testing nonprofit NWEA, who set out to measure just how much learning students missed during the pandemic.

And notice we're saying "missed," not "lost," because the problem is that when schools went remote, kids simply did not learn as much or as well as they would have in person.

" We try not to say 'learning loss,' because if they didn't learn it, they didn't lose it," explains Ebony Lee, an assistant superintendent in Clayton County, Ga.

Not everyone agrees. Some parents who saw their kids struggle while trying to learn remotely believe "learning loss" fits — because it captures the urgency they now feel to make up for what was lost.

"It would mean so much for parents if somebody would acknowledge it. 'You know, we have learning loss,' " says Sheila Walker, a parent in Northern California. "Like our board, they don't even use those words. We know we have learning loss, so how are we going to address it?"

Kane and his fellow researchers studied the test scores of more than 2 million elementary- and middle-schoolers, comparing the growth they made between fall 2017 and fall 2019 to their pandemic-era growth, from fall 2019 to fall 2021.

Though researchers focused on math, the instructional time students missed in reading was "comparable," Kane says.

One quick caveat: Obviously, test scores can tell us only so much about what students actually learn in a given year (social-emotional skills, for example, are harder to measure). But they're a start.

2. Students at high-poverty schools were hit hardest

Students at high-poverty schools experienced an academic double-whammy: Their schools were more likely to be remote and, when they were, students missed more learning.

The Coronavirus Crisis

How schools can help kids heal after a year of 'crisis and uncertainty'.

Let's break that down.

First, high-poverty schools spent about 5.5 more weeks in remote instruction during the 2020-21 school year than low- and mid-poverty schools, the report says. Researchers also found a "higher incidence of remote schooling for Black and Hispanic students."

And second, in high-poverty schools that stayed remote for the majority of the 2020-21 school year, students missed the equivalent of 22 weeks of in-person math learning.

That's more than half of a traditional school year (roughly 36-40 weeks).

By contrast, students in similarly remote, low-poverty schools missed considerably less learning: roughly 13 weeks, Kane says, and he warns that closing these gaps could take years.

Homeless Families Struggle With Impossible Choices As School Closures Continue

This new data backs up what many teachers and school leaders have been saying.

"It's very disconcerting," says Sharon Contreras, the superintendent of North Carolina's third-largest district, in Guilford County. "Because we know that the students who are most vulnerable saw the most amount of learning loss, and they were already behind."

Why did students in high-poverty schools miss more learning while remote? Recent U.S. Government Accountability Office surveys of more than 2,800 teachers offer some explanations.

Teachers in remote, high-poverty schools were more likely to report that their students lacked a workspace and internet at home, and were less likely to have an adult there to help. Many older students disengaged because the pandemic forced them to become caretakers, or to get jobs.

Making matters worse, as NPR has reported, high-poverty students were also more likely to experience food insecurity , homelessness and the loss of a loved one to COVID-19.

"These gaps are not new," says Becky Pringle, head of the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest teachers union. "We know that there are racial and social and economic injustices that exist in every system ... what the pandemic did was just like the pandemic did with everything: It just made it worse."

3. Different states saw different gaps

Kane and his fellow researchers found that learning gaps were most pronounced in states with higher rates of remote instruction overall.

For example, in the quarter of states where students spent the most time learning remotely, including California, Illinois, Kentucky and Virginia, "high-poverty schools spent an additional nine weeks in remote instruction (more than two months) than low-poverty schools," the report says.

On the other hand, in the quarter of states where overall use of remote instruction was the lowest, including Texas, Florida and a host of rural states, the report says, high-poverty schools were still more likely to be remote "but the differences were small: 3 weeks remote in high poverty schools versus 1 week remote in low poverty schools."

The report says, "as long as schools were in-person throughout 2020-21, there was no widening of math achievement gaps between high-, middle-, and low-poverty schools."

Kane says he hopes that, instead of relitigating districts' choices to stay remote, politicians and educators can use this data as a call to action.

"That student achievement declined is not a surprise," Kane says. "Rather, we should think of it as a bill for a public health measure that was taken on our behalf. And it's our obligation now, whether or not we agreed with those decisions, to pay that bill. We can't stiff our children."

4. High school graduation rates didn't change much

One more study , from Brookings, looks at the impact all this pandemic-driven turmoil had on high school graduation and college entry rates.

It turns out, for the 2019-20 school year, when graduation ceremonies were canceled and students ended the year at home, high school graduation rates actually increased slightly.

"The message clearly was 'just show up,' " says Douglas Harris, the study's lead researcher and director of the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice at Tulane University.

"So it became pretty easy," Harris says. "Anybody who was on the margin of graduating at that point was going to graduate because the states officially relaxed their standards."

For the 2020-21 school year, Harris says, states and school districts largely returned to pre-pandemic standards and, as a result, the high school graduation rate dipped slightly.

College enrollment plummeted during the pandemic. This fall, it's even worse

5. many high school grads chose to delay college.

While the pandemic appeared to have little impact on students' ability to finish high school, it seemed to have the opposite effect on their willingness to start college.

Harris says entry rates for recent high school grads at four-year colleges dipped 6% and a worrying 16% at two-year colleges. Why?

Harris has a theory: "I think for anybody, regardless of age, starting something new, trying to develop new relationships in the pandemic, was a nonstarter."

6. Schools can do something about it

School leaders are now racing to build programs that, they hope, will help students make up for at least some of this missed learning. One popular approach: "high-dosage" tutoring.

Here's what schools are doing to try to address students' social-emotional needs

"For us, high-dosage means two to three times per week for at least 30 minutes, and ... no more than three students in a group," says Penny Schwinn, Tennessee's state education commissioner.

Schwinn led the creation of the TN ALL Corps, a sprawling, statewide network of tutors who, Schwinn hopes, can reach 150,000 elementary- and middle-schoolers over three years. High school students with busier schedules can access online tutoring anytime, on demand.

In Guilford County, Contreras says the benefits of their tutoring program go well beyond learning recovery. Their new tutoring corps draws heavily from graduate assistants at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a regional HBCU.

" We want to continue to grow the number of Black and brown teachers in the district," Contreras says. "So hiring graduate assistants was a very intentional effort to make sure our students saw themselves, but also to introduce those graduate assistants to the teaching profession."

Multiple superintendents, including Contreras, emphasized that the purpose of these tutoring efforts was not to look backward, over old material, but to support students as they move forward through new concepts.

"We don't want to remediate," Contreras says emphatically. "We want to accelerate learning."

Kane says districts should also consider making up for missed learning by adding more days to the school calendar .

"Schools already have the teachers. They already have the buildings. They already have the bus routes," Kane explains. Extending the school year may be logistically easier than, say, hiring and scheduling hundreds of new tutors.

But that doesn't mean extending the school year is easy.

In Los Angeles, where students spent most of the 2020-21 school year learning remotely, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho says he would love to expand the next school year by as many as 10 additional days to help address what he calls "unprecedented, historic learning loss." But, he says, "[that idea] ran into a lot of opposition" from parents and teachers alike.

So Carvalho has had to settle for four additional student learning days next year.

Kane acknowledges that adding time to the school year is asking a lot of teachers and some families and would likely require a pay bump above educators' normal weekly rate.

"Everybody is eager to return to normal. And I can appreciate that," Kane says, "but normal is not enough."

If there is a silver lining for districts rushing to create new learning opportunities, it's that many school leaders — and politicians — are realizing they make good sense long-term too.

In Los Angeles, Carvalho says many students attending high-poverty schools "were in crisis prior to COVID-19," academically speaking. And he hopes these new efforts, forced by the pandemic, "may actually catapult their learning experience."

Tennessee's ALL Corps "is now funded forever more," Schwinn says.

"So this isn't going to be a COVID recovery. This is just good practice for kids."

Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

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New research finds that pandemic learning loss impacted whole communities, regardless of student race or income.

Analysis of prior decade shows that learning loss will become permanent if schools and parents do not expand learning time this summer and next year

(May 11, 2023) – Today, The Education Recovery Scorecard , a collaboration with researchers at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University (CEPR) and Stanford University’s Educational Opportunity Project, released 12 new state reports and a research brief to provide the most comprehensive picture yet of how the pandemic affected student learning. Building on their previous work, their findings reveal how school closures and local conditions exacerbated inequality between communities — and how little time school leaders have to help students catch up.

The research team reviewed data from 8,000 communities in 40 states and Washington, D.C., including 2022 NAEP scores and Spring 2022 assessments, COVID death rates, voting rates and trust in government, patterns of social activity and survey data from Facebook/Meta on family activities and mental health during the pandemic.

They found that where children lived during the pandemic mattered more to their academic progress than their family background, income, or internet speed.  Moreover, after studying instances where test scores rose or fell in the decade before the pandemic, the researchers found that the impacts lingered for years. 

“Children have resumed learning, but largely at the same pace as before the pandemic. There’s no hurrying up teaching fractions or the Pythagorean theorem,” said CEPR faculty director Thomas Kane. “The hardest hit communities—like Richmond, VA, St. Louis, MO, and New Haven, CT, where students fell behind by more than 1.5 years in math—would have to teach 150 percent of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row—just to catch up. That is simply not going to happen without a major increase in instructional time.  Any district that lost more than a year of learning should be required to revisit their recovery plans and add instructional time—summer school, extended school year, tutoring, etc.—so that students are made whole. ”

“It’s not readily visible to parents when their children have fallen behind earlier cohorts, but the data from 7,800 school districts show clearly that this is the case,” said Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality, Stanford Graduate School of Education. “The educational impacts of the pandemic were not only historically large, but were disproportionately visited on communities with many low-income and minority students. Our research shows that schools were far from the only cause of decreased learning—the pandemic affected children through many ways – but they are the institution best suited to remedy the unequal impacts of the pandemic.”

The new research includes:

• A research brief that offers insights into why students in some communities fared worse than others.
• An update to the Education Recovery Scorecard, including data from 12 additional states whose 2022 scores were not available in October. The project now includes a district-level view of the pandemic’s effects in 40 states (plus DC).
• A new interactive map  that highlights examples of inequity between neighboring school districts.

Among the key findings:

• Within the typical school district, the declines in test scores were similar for all groups of students, rich and poor, white, Black, Hispanic. And the extent to which schools were closed appears to have had the same effect on all students in a community, regardless of income or race.
• Test scores declined more in places where the COVID death rate was higher, in communities where adults reported feeling more depression and anxiety during the pandemic, and where daily routines of families were most significantly restricted. This is true even in places where schools closed only very briefly at the start of the pandemic.
• Test score declines were smaller in communities with high voting rates and high Census response rates—indicators of what sociologists call “institutional trust.” Moreover, remote learning was less harmful in such places. Living in a community where more people trusted the government appears to have been an asset to children during the pandemic.
• The average U.S. public school student in grades 3-8 lost the equivalent of a half year of learning in math and a quarter of a year in reading.

The researchers also looked at data from the decade prior to the pandemic to see how students bounced back after significant learning loss due to disruption in their schooling. The evidence shows that schools do not naturally bounce back: Affected students recovered 20-30% of the lost ground in the first year, but then made no further recovery in the subsequent 3-4 years.  

“Schools were not the sole cause of achievement losses,” Kane said. “Nor will they be the sole solution. As enticing as it might be to get back to normal, doing so will just leave the devastating increase in inequality caused by the pandemic in place.   We must create learning opportunities for students outside of the normal school calendar, by adding academic content to summer camps and after-school programs and adding an optional 13th year of schooling.”

The Education Recovery Scorecard is supported by funds from Citadel founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin , Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Walton Family Foundation.

About the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, seeks to transform education through quality research and evidence. CEPR and its partners believe all students will learn and thrive when education leaders make decisions using facts and findings, rather than untested assumptions. Learn more at cepr.harvard.edu.

Contact: Jeff Frantz, [email protected] , 614-204-7438 (mobile)

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Going back to school during the covid-19. - voices of children, children tell about their feelings and challenges they face.

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Starting a new school year is always full of emotions and especially during a pandemic.

Part of the schools in Georgia started teaching at classrooms, other part continues the distance learning. But children in every city or village are looking forward to meet their friends and teachers in person.  

We asked children to tell what they feel, how their lives have changed and how they handle these challenges.

Natia Samnashvili, 10 years old.

"I am happy to return to school. Distance learning was hard, working with computer caused pain for eyes and fingers. I could understand the online lessons, but it was easier when we had face-to-face meetings with the teacher. One more thing I am happy about is to see my friends, meet new teachers. If the lessons were distance again, we won't have a chance to get introduced with teachers. We have new teachers this year." 

Andria Khocholava, 9 years old.

"Don’t remind me about online lessons. Going to school is cool. There are many changes though: you can’t hug the teachers, they always wear masks, hugging friends is not allowed either, but we violate this rule sometimes. Breaks are shortened and we have to wash our hands many times. Also, you are not allowed to lend something to others. I am carrying water in the bottle as the water dispensers are turned off. Still, it’s good to go to school. We are repeating the materials from the previous year and I understand everything better in class than on the online lesson. We have a new game called “Coronobana” – it’s like a game of catch." 

Teona Jghiradze, 13 years old.

"I didn’t have a personal computer and was attending online lessons from a mobile phone. We had to either write the homework in the workbook and then send the photo of it or type it on the keyboard.  Sometimes there were technical problems with the internet or electricity and we were missing the lessons, now we will cover those materials too. I am happy to return to school, it was boring at home and also I missed my friends and I am happy to see them."

Lasha Devlarishvili, 11 years old.

"Yes, I am happy to return to school. It was boring at home. I was playing or reading books. In school, there will be more positivity and better learning process". 

Elene Melikadze, 12 years old.

"Online classes were interesting at the beginning, but now I think going to school is better. We could only see the face of the teacher at online lessons, eyes were getting tired and you miss the human interaction. But it was good that the exams were cancelled.

Now I am back to school. My friends got taller in this period. I am happy to return to school because I can see the people and talk to them. I am having fun on breaks, but we all remember that we must be careful. We have to avoid getting the virus or transfer it. Yes, we have lots of homework, but I don't complain. I like school and I am happy. If the online lessons are back, I don't know what will I do. I think I will start drawing instead of studying."

Data Sulaberidze, 10 years old.

"I am happy to return to school because I really missed my friends and teachers. I love school and I think that interaction with my peers is part of the education process." 

Nino Khvichia, 10 years old.

"I am very happy to go back to school. I was very nervous on the first day about the mandatory distance, and I was looking forward to hug everyone, I missed everyone so much. I am getting up early in the mornings not to be late and get to school early. Sometimes I was forgetting about the lessons when we were on distance learning and could not join the classes, could not interact with children normally and sometimes I was shy to ask questions. I love the lessons held in school, they are more interesting and joyful." 

Giorgi Alavidze, 6 years old.

"School is good. Very good. It is fun there. There are many friends of mine from kindergarten. We have two new students too and I made friends with one of them. From lessons, I like Georgian more than math, teachers read books and it is like a literature club. I like drawing club too. I want the breaks to be longer to have more time for playing with friends. I want to go to school by school-bus and make friends with more people. Teachers were masks and gloves at school. I know if anyone catches the virus in school, it will be closed again."

Aleksandre Alasania, 7 years old.

"I was happy to return to school. It was different though, our class was split into half. We wore masks and maintain the distance, and we could not play and "go crazy".

When we turned back to distance learning, I was very upset. I am not able to communicate with friends and miss them. The software is always laggy during the lessons, I can't hear the voice well. When everyone starts to talk together, I am getting tired and turning off the software. We again have to sit at home to avoid getting infected by "Conora" (he calls Coronavirus like that)." 

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Student Opinion

Has Your Relationship to School Attendance Changed Since the Pandemic?

School absences have exploded across the United States. What do you make of this trend?

By Jeremy Engle

Take a look at the graph above. It shows rates of chronic absence in the United States since 2016. What do you notice? What do you wonder? What story does it tell about the state of education today? What headline would you write to capture the graph’s main idea?

Does the information in the graph surprise you? Or is the problem of absenteeism something you have observed in your own school and classrooms?

In “​ Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere ,” Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris write about how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed families’ lives and the culture of education itself, making attendance feel optional for many:

In Anchorage, affluent families set off on ski trips and other lengthy vacations, with the assumption that their children can keep up with schoolwork online. In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance. And across the country, students with heightened anxiety are opting to stay home rather than face the classroom. In the four years since the pandemic closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on a number of fronts, from learning loss , to enrollment , to student behavior . But perhaps no issue has been as stubborn and pervasive as a sharp increase in student absenteeism, a problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened. Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute . Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason.

The article continues:

The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous. “Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. The habit of daily attendance — and many families’ trust — was severed when schools shuttered in spring 2020. Even after schools reopened, things hardly snapped back to normal. Districts offered remote options, required Covid-19 quarantines and relaxed policies around attendance and grading .

Ms. Mervosh and Ms. Paris look at why students are missing school, describing how the “new calculus among families is complex and multifaceted”:

Across the country, students are staying home when sick , not only with Covid-19, but also with more routine colds and viruses. And more students are struggling with their mental health, one reason for increased absenteeism in Mason, Ohio, an affluent suburb of Cincinnati, said Tracey Carson, a district spokeswoman. Because many parents can work remotely, their children can also stay home. For Ashley Cooper, 31, of San Marcos, Texas, the pandemic fractured her trust in an education system that she said left her daughter to learn online, with little support, and then expected her to perform on grade level upon her return. Her daughter, who fell behind in math, has struggled with anxiety ever since, she said. “There have been days where she’s been absolutely in tears — ‘Can’t do it. Mom, I don’t want to go,’” said Ms. Cooper, who has worked with the nonprofit Communities in Schools to improve her children’s school attendance. But she added, “as a mom, I feel like it’s OK to have a mental health day, to say, ‘I hear you and I listen. You are important.’”

Students, read the entire article and then tell us:

Has your relationship to school changed since the pandemic began? Have you noticed any differences in your own attendance?

The article says that “the trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting.” Does that resonate with your own experiences? Do you agree with Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor at Duke University, who said that “our relationship with school became optional”?

What is your reaction to the article and the accompanying graphs? Were you surprised to learn that about 26 percent of students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic? Is the problem of absenteeism something you have observed in your own school and classrooms?

The article notes that student absenteeism is “a leading factor hindering the nation’s recovery from pandemic learning losses” and that “a rotating cast of absent classmates can negatively affect the achievement of even students who do show up.” How has the rise in absenteeism affected you?

Ms. Mervosh and Ms. Paris describe how schools are scrambling to improve attendance. The Ypsilanti school district in Michigan, they say in the article, has tried a bit of everything, including home visits, themed dress-up days and, after noticing a dip in attendance during winter months, warm clothing giveaways. What do you think of these strategies? What else do you think schools should do to address the problem?

How concerned should we be about the issue of chronic absenteeism? Is it the “new normal,” or just a minor, temporary problem? What do you think adults — parents, teachers, reporters and politicians — should know about young people and their relationship to school as we move forward?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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Covid 19 Essay in English

Essay on Covid -19: In a very short amount of time, coronavirus has spread globally. It has had an enormous impact on people's lives, economy, and societies all around the world, affecting every country. Governments have had to take severe measures to try and contain the pandemic. The virus has altered our way of life in many ways, including its effects on our health and our economy. Here are a few sample essays on ‘CoronaVirus’.

100 Words Essay on Covid 19

200 words essay on covid 19, 500 words essay on covid 19.

COVID-19 or Corona Virus is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in 2019. It is similar to other coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, but it is more contagious and has caused more severe respiratory illness in people who have been infected. The novel coronavirus became a global pandemic in a very short period of time. It has affected lives, economies and societies across the world, leaving no country untouched. The virus has caused governments to take drastic measures to try and contain it. From health implications to economic and social ramifications, COVID-19 impacted every part of our lives. It has been more than 2 years since the pandemic hit and the world is still recovering from its effects.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the world has been impacted in a number of ways. For one, the global economy has taken a hit as businesses have been forced to close their doors. This has led to widespread job losses and an increase in poverty levels around the world. Additionally, countries have had to impose strict travel restrictions in an attempt to contain the virus, which has resulted in a decrease in tourism and international trade. Furthermore, the pandemic has put immense pressure on healthcare systems globally, as hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients suffering from the virus. Lastly, the outbreak has led to a general feeling of anxiety and uncertainty, as people are fearful of contracting the disease.

My Experience of COVID-19

I still remember how abruptly colleges and schools shut down in March 2020. I was a college student at that time and I was under the impression that everything would go back to normal in a few weeks. I could not have been more wrong. The situation only got worse every week and the government had to impose a lockdown. There were so many restrictions in place. For example, we had to wear face masks whenever we left the house, and we could only go out for essential errands. Restaurants and shops were only allowed to operate at take-out capacity, and many businesses were shut down.

In the current scenario, coronavirus is dominating all aspects of our lives. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc upon people’s lives, altering the way we live and work in a very short amount of time. It has revolutionised how we think about health care, education, and even social interaction. This virus has had long-term implications on our society, including its impact on mental health, economic stability, and global politics. But we as individuals can help to mitigate these effects by taking personal responsibility to protect themselves and those around them from infection.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Education

The outbreak of coronavirus has had a significant impact on education systems around the world. In China, where the virus originated, all schools and universities were closed for several weeks in an effort to contain the spread of the disease. Many other countries have followed suit, either closing schools altogether or suspending classes for a period of time.

This has resulted in a major disruption to the education of millions of students. Some have been able to continue their studies online, but many have not had access to the internet or have not been able to afford the costs associated with it. This has led to a widening of the digital divide between those who can afford to continue their education online and those who cannot.

The closure of schools has also had a negative impact on the mental health of many students. With no face-to-face contact with friends and teachers, some students have felt isolated and anxious. This has been compounded by the worry and uncertainty surrounding the virus itself.

The situation with coronavirus has improved and schools have been reopened but students are still catching up with the gap of 2 years that the pandemic created. In the meantime, governments and educational institutions are working together to find ways to support students and ensure that they are able to continue their education despite these difficult circumstances.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Economy

The outbreak of the coronavirus has had a significant impact on the global economy. The virus, which originated in China, has spread to over two hundred countries, resulting in widespread panic and a decrease in global trade. As a result of the outbreak, many businesses have been forced to close their doors, leading to a rise in unemployment. In addition, the stock market has taken a severe hit.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Health

The effects that coronavirus has on one's health are still being studied and researched as the virus continues to spread throughout the world. However, some of the potential effects on health that have been observed thus far include respiratory problems, fever, and coughing. In severe cases, pneumonia, kidney failure, and death can occur. It is important for people who think they may have been exposed to the virus to seek medical attention immediately so that they can be treated properly and avoid any serious complications. There is no specific cure or treatment for coronavirus at this time, but there are ways to help ease symptoms and prevent the virus from spreading.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

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Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi . 

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story. 

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or  MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.  

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process. 

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From the Cover

Learning loss due to school closures during the covid-19 pandemic, per engzell.

a Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1JD, United Kingdom;

b Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom;

c Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

d Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1JD, United Kingdom

Mark D. Verhagen

Author contributions: P.E., A.F., and M.D.V. designed research; P.E., A.F., and M.D.V. performed research; A.F. and M.D.V. analyzed data; and P.E., A.F., and M.D.V. wrote the paper.

Associated Data

The data underlying this study are confidential and cannot be shared due to ethical and legal constraints. We obtained access through a partnership with a nonprofit who made specific arrangements to allow this research to be done. For other researchers to access the exact same data, they would have to participate in a similar partnership. Equivalent data are, however, in the process of being added to existing datasets widely used for research, such as the Nationaal Cohortonderzoek Onderwijs (NCO). Analysis scripts underlying all results reported in this article are available online at https://github.com/MarkDVerhagen/Learning_Loss_COVID-19 .

Significance

School closures have been a common tool in the battle against COVID-19. Yet, their costs and benefits remain insufficiently known. We use a natural experiment that occurred as national examinations in The Netherlands took place before and after lockdown to evaluate the impact of school closures on students’ learning. The Netherlands is interesting as a “best-case” scenario, with a short lockdown, equitable school funding, and world-leading rates of broadband access. Despite favorable conditions, we find that students made little or no progress while learning from home. Learning loss was most pronounced among students from disadvantaged homes.

Suspension of face-to-face instruction in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to concerns about consequences for students’ learning. So far, data to study this question have been limited. Here we evaluate the effect of school closures on primary school performance using exceptionally rich data from The Netherlands ( n ≈ 350,000). We use the fact that national examinations took place before and after lockdown and compare progress during this period to the same period in the 3 previous years. The Netherlands underwent only a relatively short lockdown (8 wk) and features an equitable system of school funding and the world’s highest rate of broadband access. Still, our results reveal a learning loss of about 3 percentile points or 0.08 standard deviations. The effect is equivalent to one-fifth of a school year, the same period that schools remained closed. Losses are up to 60% larger among students from less-educated homes, confirming worries about the uneven toll of the pandemic on children and families. Investigating mechanisms, we find that most of the effect reflects the cumulative impact of knowledge learned rather than transitory influences on the day of testing. Results remain robust when balancing on the estimated propensity of treatment and using maximum-entropy weights or with fixed-effects specifications that compare students within the same school and family. The findings imply that students made little or no progress while learning from home and suggest losses even larger in countries with weaker infrastructure or longer school closures.

The COVID-19 pandemic is transforming society in profound ways, often exacerbating social and economic inequalities in its wake. In an effort to curb its spread, governments around the world have moved to suspend face-to-face teaching in schools, affecting some 95% of the world’s student population—the largest disruption to education in history ( 1 ). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that governments should provide primary education for all on the basis of equal opportunity ( 2 ). To weigh the costs of school closures against public health benefits ( 3 – 6 ), it is crucial to know whether students are learning less in lockdown and whether disadvantaged students do so disproportionately.

Whereas previous research examined the impact of summer recess on learning, or disruptions from events such as extreme weather or teacher strikes ( 7 – 12 ), COVID-19 presents a unique challenge that makes it unclear how to apply past lessons. Concurrent effects on the economy make parents less equipped to provide support, as they struggle with economic uncertainty or demands of working from home ( 13 , 14 ). The health and mortality risk of the pandemic incurs further psychological costs, as does the toll of social isolation ( 15 , 16 ). Family violence is projected to rise, putting already vulnerable students at increased risk ( 17 , 18 ). At the same time, the scope of the pandemic may compel governments and schools to respond more actively than during other disruptive events.

Data on learning loss during lockdown have been slow to emerge. Unlike societal sectors like the economy or the healthcare system, school systems usually do not post data at high-frequency intervals. Schools and teachers have been struggling to adopt online-based solutions for instruction, let alone for assessment and accountability ( 10 , 19 ). Early data from online learning platforms suggest a drop in coursework completed ( 20 ) and an increased dispersion of test scores ( 21 ). Survey evidence suggests that children spend considerably less time studying during lockdown, and some (but not all) studies report differences by home background ( 22 – 26 ). More recently, data have emerged from students returning to school ( 27 – 29 ). Our study represents one of the first attempts to quantify learning loss from COVID-19 using externally validated tests, a representative sample, and techniques that allow for causal inference.

Study Setting

In this study, we present evidence on the pandemic’s effect on student progress in The Netherlands, using a dataset covering 15% of Dutch primary schools throughout the years 2017 to 2020 ( n ≈ 350,000). The data include biannual test scores in core subjects for students aged 8 to 11 y, as well as student demographics and school characteristics. Hypotheses and analysis protocols for this study were preregistered ( SI Appendix , section 4.1 ). Our main interest is whether learning stalled during lockdown and whether students from less-educated homes were disproportionately affected. In addition, we examine differences by sex, school grade, subject, and prior performance.

The Dutch school system combines centralized and equitable school funding with a high degree of autonomy in school management ( 30 , 31 ). The country is close to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average in school spending and reading performance, but among its top performers in math ( 32 ). No other country has higher rates of broadband penetration ( 33 , 34 ), and efforts were made early in the pandemic to ensure access to home learning devices ( 35 ). School closures were short in comparative perspective ( SI Appendix , section 1 ), and the first wave of the pandemic had less of an impact than in other European countries ( 36 , 37 ). For these reasons, The Netherlands presents a “best-case” scenario, providing a likely lower bound on learning loss elsewhere in Europe and the world. Despite favorable conditions, survey evidence from lockdown indicates high levels of dissatisfaction with remote learning ( 38 ) and considerable disparities in help with schoolwork and learning resources ( 39 ).

Key to our study design is the fact that national assessments take place twice a year in The Netherlands ( 40 ): halfway into the school year in January to February and at the end of the school year in June. In 2020, these testing dates occurred just before and after the first nationwide school closures that lasted 8 wk starting March 16 ( Fig. 1 ). Access to data from 3 y prior to the pandemic allows us to create a natural benchmark against which to assess learning loss. We do so using a difference-in-differences design ( SI Appendix , section 4.2 ) and address loss to follow-up using various techniques: regression adjustment, rebalancing on propensity scores and maximum-entropy weights, and fixed-effects designs that compare students within the same schools and families.

Distribution of testing dates 2017 to 2020 and timeline of 2020 school closures. Density curves show the distribution of testing dates for national standardized assessments in 2020 and the three comparison years 2017 to 2019. Vertical lines show the beginning and end of nationwide school closures in 2020. Schools closed nationally on March 16 and reopened on May 11, after 8 wk of remote learning. Our difference-in-differences design compares learning progress between the two testing dates in 2020 to that in the 3 previous years.

We assess standardized tests in math, spelling, and reading for students aged 8 to 11 y (Dutch school grades 4 to 7) and a composite score of all three subjects. Results are transformed into percentiles by imposing a uniform distribution separately by subject, grade, and testing occasion: midyear vs. end of year. Fig. 2 shows the difference between students’ percentile placement in the midyear and end-of-year tests for each of the years 2017 to 2020. This graph reveals a raw difference ranging from −0.76 percentiles in spelling to −2.15 percentiles in math. However, this difference does not adjust for confounding due to trends, testing date, or sample composition. To address these factors, and assess group differences in learning loss, we go on to estimate a difference-in-differences model ( SI Appendix , section 4.2 ). In our baseline specification, we adjust for a linear trend in year and the time elapsed between testing dates and cluster standard errors at the school level.

Difference in test scores 2017 to 2020. Density curves show the difference between students’ percentile placement between the first and the second test in each of the years 2017 to 2020. Note that this graph does not adjust for confounding due to trends, testing date, or sample composition, which we address in subsequent analyses using a variety of techniques.

Baseline Specification.

Fig. 3 shows our baseline estimate of learning loss in 2020 compared to the 3 previous years, using a composite score of students’ performance in math, spelling, and reading. Students lost on average 3.16 percentile points in the national distribution, equivalent to 0.08 standard deviations (SD) ( SI Appendix , section 4.3 ). Losses are not distributed equally but concentrated among students from less-educated homes. Those in the two lowest categories of parental education—together accounting for 8% of the population ( SI Appendix , section 5.1 )—suffered losses 40% larger than the average student (estimates by parental education: high, −3.07; low, −4.34; lowest, −4.25). In contrast, we find little evidence that the effect differs by sex, school grade, subject, or prior performance. In SI Appendix , section 7.9 , we document considerable variation by school, with some schools seeing a learning slide of 10 percentile points or more and others recording no losses or even small gains.

Estimates of learning loss for the whole sample and by subgroup and test. The graph shows estimates of learning loss from a difference-in-differences specification that compares learning progress between the two testing dates in 2020 to that in the 3 previous years. Statistical controls include time elapsed between testing dates and a linear trend in year. Point estimates are with 95% confidence intervals, with robust standard errors accounting for clustering at the school level. One percentile point corresponds to ∼ 0.025 SD. Where not otherwise noted, effects refer to a composite score of math, spelling, and reading. Regression tables underlying these results can be found in SI Appendix , section 7.1 .

Placebo Analysis and Year Exclusions.

In SI Appendix , sections 7.2 and 7.3 , we examine the assumptions of our identification strategy in several ways. To confirm that our baseline specification is not prone to false positives, we perform a placebo analysis assigning treatment status to each of the 3 comparison years ( SI Appendix , section 7.2 ). In each case, the 95% confidence interval of our main effect spans zero. We also reestimate our main specification dropping comparison years one at a time ( SI Appendix , section 7.3 ). These results are estimated with less precision but otherwise in line with those of our main analysis. In SI Appendix , section 7.13 , we report placebo analyses for a wider range of specifications than reported in the main text and confirm that our preferred specification fares better than reasonable alternatives in avoiding spurious results.

Adjusting for Loss to Follow-up.

In Fig. 4 , we report a series of additional specifications addressing the fact that only a subset of students returning after lockdown took the tests. Our difference-in-differences design discards those students who did not take the tests, which might lead to bias if their performance trajectories differ from those we observe. In SI Appendix , Table S3 , we show that the treatment sample is not skewed on sex, parental education, or prior performance. Therefore, adjusting for these covariates makes little difference to our results ( SI Appendix , section 7.1 ). Next, we balance treatment and control groups on a wider set of covariates, including at the school level, using maximum-entropy weights and the estimated propensity of treatment ( SI Appendix , section 7.4 ). Moreover, we restrict analysis to schools where at least 75% of students took their tests after lockdown ( SI Appendix , section 7.5 ). Finally, we adjust for time-invariant confounding at the school and family level using fixed-effects models ( SI Appendix , sections 7.6 and 7.7 ). As Fig. 4 shows, social inequalities grow somewhat when adjusting for selection at the school and family level. The largest gap in effect sizes between educational backgrounds is found in our within-family analysis, estimated at 60% (parental education: high, −3.25; low, −4.67; lowest, −5.20). However, the fixed-effects specification shifts the sample toward larger families, and effects in this subsample are similar using our baseline specification ( SI Appendix , section 7.7 ).

Robustness to specification. The graph shows estimates of learning loss for the whole sample and separately by parental education, using a variety of adjustments for loss to follow-up. Point estimates are with 95% confidence intervals, with robust standard errors accounting for clustering at the school level. For details, see Materials and Methods and SI Appendix , sections 4.2 and 7.4–7.8 .

Knowledge Learned vs. Transitory Influences.

Do these results actually reflect a decrease in knowledge learned or more transient “day of exam” effects? Social distancing measures may have altered factors such as seating arrangements or indoor climate that in turn can influence student performance ( 41 – 43 ). Following school reopenings, tests were taken in person under normal conditions and with minimal social distancing. Still, students may have been under stress or simply unaccustomed to the school setting after several weeks at home. Similarly, if remote teaching covered the requisite material but put less emphasis on test-taking skills, results may have declined while knowledge remained stable. We address this by inspecting performance on generic tests of learning readiness ( SI Appendix , section 3.1 ). These tests present the student with a series of words to be read aloud within a given time. Understanding of the words is not needed, and no curricular content is covered. The results, in Fig. 5 , show that the treatment effects shrink by nearly two-thirds compared to our main outcome (main effect −1.19 vs. −3.16), suggesting that differences in knowledge learned account for the majority of the drop in performance. In years prior to the pandemic, we observe no such difference in students’ performance between the two types of test ( SI Appendix , section 7.8 ).

Knowledge learned vs. transitory influences. The graph compares estimates for the composite achievement score in our main analysis (light color) with test not designed to assess curricular content (dark color). Both sets of estimates refer to our baseline specification reported in Fig. 3 . Point estimates are with 95% confidence intervals, with robust standard errors accounting for clustering at the school level. For details, see Materials and Methods and SI Appendix , sections 3.1 and 7.8 .

Specification Curve Analysis.

To identify the model components that exert the most influence on the magnitude of estimates we assessed more than 2,000 alternative models in a specification curve analysis ( 44 ) ( SI Appendix , section 7.13 ). Doing so identifies the control for pretreatment trends as the most influential, followed by the control for test timing and the inclusion of school and family fixed effects. Disregarding the trend and instead assuming a counterfactual where achievement had stayed flat between 2019 and 2020, the estimated treatment effect shrinks by 21% to −2.51 percentiles ( SI Appendix , section 7.11 ). However, failure to adjust for pretreatment trends generates placebo estimates that are biased in a positive direction and is thus likely to underestimate treatment effects. Excluding adjustment for testing date decreases the effect size by 12%, while including fixed effects increases it by 1.6% (school level) or 6.3% (family level). The placebo estimate closest to zero is found in the version of our preferred specification that includes family fixed effects. The specification curve also reveals that treatment effects in math are more invariant to assumptions than those in either reading or spelling.

During the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020, schools in many countries were forced to close for extended periods. It is of great policy interest to know whether students are able to have their educational needs met under these circumstances and to identify groups at special risk. In this study, we have addressed this question with uniquely rich data on primary school students in The Netherlands. There is clear evidence that students are learning less during lockdown than in a typical year. These losses are evident throughout the age range we study and across all of the three subject areas: math, spelling, and reading. The size of these effects is on the order of 3 percentile points or 0.08 SD, but students from disadvantaged homes are disproportionately affected. Among less-educated households, the size of the learning slide is up to 60% larger than in the general population.

Are these losses large or small? One way to anchor these effects is as a proportion of gains made in a normal year. Typical estimates of yearly progress for primary school range between 0.30 and 0.60 SD ( 45 ). In their projections of learning loss due to the pandemic, the World Bank assumes a yearly progress of 0.40 SD ( 46 ). We validate these benchmarks in our data by exploiting variation in testing dates during comparison years and show that test scores improve by 0.30 to 0.40 percentiles per week, equivalent to 0.31 to 0.41 SD annually ( SI Appendix , section 4.3 ). Using the larger benchmark, a treatment effect of 3.16 percentiles would translate into 3.16/0.40 = 7.9 wk of lost learning—nearly exactly the same period that schools in The Netherlands remained closed. Using the smaller benchmark, learning loss exceeds the period of school closures (3.16/0.30 = 10.5 wk), implying that students regressed during this time. At the same time, some studies indicate a progress of up to 0.80 SD annually at the low extreme of our age range ( 45 , 47 ), which would indicate that remote learning operated at 50% efficiency.

Another relevant source of comparison is studies of how students progress when school is out of session for summer ( 7 – 10 ). This literature reports reductions in achievement ranging from 0.001 to 0.010 SD per school day lost ( 10 ). Our estimated treatment effect translates into 3.16/35 = 0.09 percentiles or 0.002 SD per school day and is thus on the lower end of that range. * Although early influential studies also found that summer is a time when socioeconomic learning gaps widen, this finding has failed to replicate in more recent studies ( 8 , 9 ) or in European samples ( 48 , 49 ). However, there are limits to the analogy between summer recess and forced school closures, when children are still being expected to learn at a normal pace ( 50 ). Our results show that learning loss was particularly pronounced for students from disadvantaged homes, confirming the fears held by many that school closures would cause socioeconomic gaps to widen ( 51 – 55 ).

We have described The Netherlands as a best-case scenario due to the country’s short school closures, high degree of technological preparedness, and equitable school funding. However, this does not mean that circumstances were ideal. The short duration of school closures gave students, educators, and parents little time to adapt. It is possible that remote learning might improve with time ( 47 ). At the very least, our results imply that technological access is not itself sufficient to guarantee high-quality remote instruction. The high degree of school autonomy in The Netherlands is also likely to have created considerable variation in the pandemic response, possibly explaining the wide school-level variation in estimated learning loss ( SI Appendix , section 7.9 ).

Are these results a temporary setback that schools and teachers can eventually compensate? Only time will tell whether students rebound, remain stable, or fall farther behind. Dynamic models of learning stress how small losses can accumulate into large disadvantages with time ( 56 – 58 ). Studies of school days lost due to other causes are mixed—some find durable effects and spillovers to adult earnings ( 59 , 60 ), while others report a fadeout of effects over time ( 61 , 62 ). If learning losses are transient and concentrated in the initial phase of the pandemic, this could explain why results from the United States appear less dramatic than first feared. Early estimates suggest that grades 3 to 8 students more than 6 mo into the pandemic underperformed by 7.5 percentile points in math but saw no loss in reading achievement ( 28 ).

Nevertheless, the magnitude of our findings appears to validate scenarios projected by bodies such as the European Commission ( 34 ) and the World Bank ( 46 ). † This is alarming in light of the much larger losses projected in countries less prepared for the pandemic. Moreover, our results may underestimate the full costs of school closures even in the context that we study. Test scores do not consider children’s psychosocial development ( 63 , 64 ), either societal costs due to productivity decline or heightened pressure among parents ( 65 , 66 ). Overall, our results highlight the importance of social investment strategies to “build back better” and enhance resilience and equity in education. Further research is needed to assess the success of such initiatives and address the long-term fallout of the pandemic for student learning and wellbeing.

Materials and Methods

Three features of the Dutch education system make this study possible ( SI Appendix , section 2 ). The first one is the student monitoring system, which provides our test score data ( 40 ). This system comprises a series of mandatory tests that are taken twice a year throughout a child’s primary school education (ages 6 to 12 y). The second one is the weighted system for school funding, which until recently obliged schools to collect information on the family background of all students ( 31 ). Third is the fact that some schools rely on third-party service providers to curate data and provide analytical insights. It is not uncommon that such providers generate anonymized datasets for research purposes. We partnered with the Mirror Foundation ( https://www.mirrorfoundation.org/ ), an independent research foundation associated with one such service provider, who gave us access to a fully anonymized dataset of students’ test scores. The sample covers 15% of all primary schools and is broadly representative of the national student body ( SI Appendix , section 5.1 ).

Test Scores.

Nationally standardized tests are taken across three main subjects: math, spelling, and reading ( SI Appendix , section 3.1 ). Students across The Netherlands take the same examination within a given year. These tests are administered in school, and each of them lasts up to 60 min. Test results are transformed to percentile scores, but the norm for transformation is the same across years so absolute changes in performance over time are preserved. We rely on translation keys provided by the test producer to assign percentile scores. However, as these keys are actually based on smaller samples than that at our disposal, we further impose a uniform distribution in our sample within cells defined by subject, grade, and testing occasion: midyear vs. end of year.

Our main outcome is a composite score that takes the average of all nonmissing values in the three areas (math, spelling, and reading). In sensitivity analyses in SI Appendix , section 7.1 , we require a student to have a valid score on all three subjects. We also display separate results for the three subtests in Fig. 3 . The test in math contains both abstract problems and contextual problems that describe a concrete task. The test in reading assesses the student’s ability to understand written texts, including both factual and literary content. The test in spelling asks the student to write down a series of words, demonstrating that the student has mastered the spelling rules. Reliability on these tests is excellent: Composite achievement scores correlate above 0.80 for an individual across 2 study years ( SI Appendix , section 5.3 ).

As an alternative outcome we also assess students’ performance on shorter assessments of oral reading fluency in Fig. 5 ( SI Appendix , section 3.1 ). This test consists of a set of cards with words of increasing difficulty to be read aloud during an allotted time. In the terminology of the test producer, its goal is to assess “technical reading ability”—likely a mix of reading ability, cognitive processing, and verbal fluency. We interpret it as a test of learning readiness. Crucially, comprehension of the words is not needed and students and parents are discouraged to prepare for it. As this part of the assessment does not test for the retention of curricular content, we would expect it to be less affected by school closures, which is indeed what we find.

Parental Education.

Data on parental education are collected by schools as part of the national system of weighted student funding, which allocates greater funds per student to schools that serve disadvantaged populations. The variable codes as high educated those households where at least one parent has a degree above lower secondary education, as low educated those where both parents have a degree above primary education but neither has one above lower secondary education, and as lowest educated those where at least one parent has no degree above primary education and neither parent has a degree above lower secondary education. These groups make up, respectively, 92, 4, and 4% of the student body and our sample ( SI Appendix , section 5.1 ). We provide a more extensive discussion of this variable in SI Appendix , sections 3.2, 5.3, and 5.4 .

Other Covariates.

Sex is a binary variable distinguishing boys and girls. Prior performance is constructed from all test results in the previous year. We create a composite score similar to our main outcome variable and split this into tertiles of top, middle, and bottom performance. School grade is the year the student belongs in at the time of testing. School starts at age 4 y in The Netherlands but the first three grades are less intensive and more akin to kindergarten. The last grade of comprehensive school is grade 8, but this grade is shorter and does not feature much additional didactic material. In matched analyses using reweighting on the propensity of treatment and maximum-entropy weights, we also include a set of school characteristics described in SI Appendix , section 3.2 : school-level socioeconomic disadvantage, proportion of non-Western immigrants in the school’s neighborhood, and school denomination.

Difference-in-Differences Analysis.

We analyze the rate of progress in 2020 to that in previous years using a difference-in-differences design. This first involves taking the difference in educational achievement prelockdown (measured using the midyear test) compared to that postlockdown (measured using the end-of-year test): Δ y i 2020 = y i 2020 − end − y i 2020 − mid , where y i is some achievement measure for student i and the superscript 2020 denotes the treatment year. We then calculate the same difference in the 3 y prior to the pandemic, Δ y i 2017 − 2019 . These differences can then be compared in a regression specification,

where Z i is a vector of control variables, T i is an indicator for the treatment year 2020, and ϵ i j is an independent and identically distributed error term clustered at the school level. In our baseline specification, Z i includes a linear trend for the year of testing and a variable capturing the number of days between the two tests. To assess heterogeneity in the treatment effect, we add terms interacting each student characteristic X i with the treatment indicator T i ,

where X i is one of parental education, student sex, or prior performance. In addition, we estimate Eq. 1 separately by grade and subject. In SI Appendix , section 3.2 , we provide more extensive motivation and description of our model and the additional strategies we use to deal with loss to follow-up. Throughout our analyses, we adjust confidence intervals for clustering on schools using robust standard errors.

Effect Size Conversion.

Our effect sizes are expressed on the scale of percentiles. In educational research it is common to use standard-deviation–based metrics such as Cohen’s d ( 67 ). Assuming that percentiles were drawn from an underlying normal distribution, we use the following formula to convert between one and the other:

where δ is the treatment effect on the percentile scale, and Φ − 1 is the inverse cumulative standard normal distribution. Generally, with “small” or “medium” effect sizes in the range d ∈ [ − 0.5 , 0.5 ] , this transformation implies a conversion factor of about 0.025 SD per percentile.

Propensity Score and Entropy Weighting.

Moreover, we match treatment and control groups on a wider range of individual- and school-level characteristics using reweighting on the propensity of treatment ( 68 ) and maximum-entropy balancing ( 69 ). In both cases, we use sex, parental education, prior performance, two- and three-way interactions between them, a student’s school grade, and school-level covariates: school denomination, school disadvantage, and neighborhood ethnic composition. Propensity of treatment weights involves first estimating the probability of treatment using a binary response (logit) model and then reweighting observations so that they are balanced on this propensity across comparison and treatment groups. The entropy balancing procedure instead uses maximum-entropy weights that are calibrated to directly balance comparison and treatment groups nonparametrically on the observed covariates.

School and Family Fixed Effects.

We perform within-school and within-family analyses using fixed-effects specifications ( 70 ). The within-school design discards all variation between schools by introducing a separate intercept for each school. By doing so, it eliminates all unobserved heterogeneity across schools which might have biased our results if, for example, schools where progression within the school year is worse than average are overrepresented during the treatment year. The same logic applies to the within-family design, which discards all variation between families by introducing a separate intercept for each group of siblings identified in our data. This step reduces the size of our sample by approximately 60%, as not every student has a sibling attending a sampled school within the years that we are able to observe.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary file, acknowledgments.

We thank participants at the 2020 Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) & Jacobs Center Workshop “Consequences of COVID-19 for Child and Youth Development,” as well as seminar participants at the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, the OECD, and the World Bank. We also thank the Mirror Foundation for working tirelessly to answer all our queries about the data. P.E. was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life, and Welfare (FORTE), Grant 2016-07099; Nuffield College; and the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science, The Leverhulme Trust. A.F. was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. M.D.V. was supported by the UK ESRC and Nuffield College.

The authors declare no competing interest.

*Although the school closure lasted for 8 wk, one of these weeks occurred during Easter, which leaves 7 wk × 5 = 35 effective school days.

† The World Bank’s “optimistic” scenario—schools operating at 60% efficiency for 3 mo—projects a 0.06 SD loss in standardized test scores ( 46 ). The European Commission posits a lower-bound learning loss of 0.008 SD/wk ( 34 ), which multiplied by 8 wk translates to 0.064 SD. Both these scenarios are on the same order of magnitude as our findings if marginally smaller.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

See online for related content such as Commentaries.

This paper is a winner of the 2021 Cozzarelli Prize .

This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2022376118/-/DCSupplemental .

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