The effects of the pandemic on school-age children across the country are continuing to be seen, this time in a new study that found more evidence that distance learning heavily impacted test scores.
The study, published in the journal American Economic Review: Insights, examined data from 11 state standardized tests for grades 3-8. It found that passing rates on the tests declined significantly from 2019 to 2021.
On average, the study found that the decline was 12.8% in math and 6.8% in English language arts.
The study points to time spent out of the classroom and in a distance learning format as the reason for the increase in failure rates. It based that on a comparison between schools that went remote-only and those with fully in-person learning.
“Offering fully in-person learning, rather than fully virtual learning, reduced pass rate losses by approximately 13 percentage points in math and approximately 8 percentage points in” English, the study says.
Schools that offered hybrid instruction even saw better results, reducing educational losses by 7% in math and 5-6% in English, compared to fully online schools, the study found.
The study warns that these results and measurements should be taken into account if another pandemic arises or if anything else could disrupt learning.
“Our analyses demonstrate that hybrid or virtual schooling modes cannot support student learning in the same way as fully in-person instruction can, at least during this elementary and middle school period,” the study concludes. “As such, educational impacts of schooling mode on students’ learning outcomes should be a critical factor in policy responses to future pandemics or other large-scale schooling disruptions.”
The study comes after last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress report that found the pandemic wiped out nearly two decades of improvement in math and reading scores among students.
It also comes after a Wirepoints report from earlier this year found that at 55 Chicago public schools, students could not do math or reading at their grade level.
In total, the report found that 22 Chicago schools had zero students who could read at grade level, while 33 reported the same for math. But the issue goes beyond Chicago, as 30 schools throughout the state reported zero students could read at grade level, and 53 had the same for math.
Last month, the National Center for Education Statistics released a report that found, on average, American public schools had 49% of their students behind by a grade level at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year. Before the pandemic, that number was 36%.
Now, the newest study continues to point to the dangers of pushing learning outside of the classroom.
The study shares that the data should “serve as a starting point for education leaders and policymakers as they weigh where to target funding moving forward in order to support student learning.”
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