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‘It was an unmitigated disaster’: COVID lockdown and distance learning has scaled kids ‘to some GRADES’ and shrunk social skills in younger students, education expert says
- COVID lockdowns and distance learning seriously harmed children, with reading test scores falling by five points and math by seven points
- The Department of Education called it the biggest drop in reading scores since 1990
- As for math, it was the first time they ever recorded a lower mean
- Former education director Tony Kinnett said students are now returning to personal learning ‘several grades behind’
- Some experts suggest the downturn started before the pandemic, but the long lockdowns and lack of in-person classes made matters worse
- A DOE study further found that 84 percent of public school officials said the pandemic negatively impacted students’ behavioral development
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COVID lockdowns and distance learning were highly damaging to children, with one expert saying it affected everything from reading and writing to basic social skills.
The National Center for Education Statistics conducted a survey of 9-year-old college students during the two years since the start of the pandemic. They found that reading test scores dropped five points, while math dropped seven points.
The U.S. Department of Education called this the largest drop in reading test scores since 1990, while maths marked the first time they had a lower average.
Tony Kinnett, a former director of education at Chalkboard Review and Indianapolis Public Schools, said students are now going back to personal learning “several grades behind” and called it an “outright disaster.”
Kinnett told Fox news Thursday: ‘It’s not like these kids come back and pick up where they left off. They have deteriorated because they haven’t had any academic discipline for the past year, a year and a half.’
COVID lockdowns and distance learning were very harmful to children, with one expert saying it affected everything from reading and writing to basic social skills
Reading test scores for 9-year-old students fell from 220 (on a 500 scale) to 215 in 2022 during lockdown
Mathematics test scores for 9-year-old students fell from 241 (on a scale of 500) to 234 in 2022 during the lockdown. It’s the first major drop in math scores in the 50 years they’ve been recorded
Some experts suggest the downturn started before the pandemic, but the lengthy lockdowns and lack of in-person classes made matters worse.
Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Educational Policy at The Heritage Foundation, said: “I think that’s probably another one of those negative consequences if schools are closed unnecessarily for years in some cases.”
A DO research further found that 84 percent of public school officials said the pandemic negatively affected students’ behavioral development and more than a third said it caused more fighting, bullying and threats of violence.
Tony Kinnett, a former director of education at Chalkboard Review and Indianapolis Public Schools, said students are now going back to personal learning “different levels of learning behind.” and called it an ‘outright disaster’
Some experts suggest the downturn started before the pandemic, but the long lockdowns and lack of in-person classes made matters worse
Erika Sanzi, director of outreach at Parents Defending Education, pointed out that children learn important behavioral development from schools in addition to reading and writing.
She said, “All these things have taken such a huge blow and it doesn’t really seem like a lot of the powers are talking about that.”
Kinnett argued that the first step is for school districts to admit closing schools was a mistake.
He said: ‘If you don’t really indicate where the gap is, you won’t get any further. So many want to say that, hey, it’s not a learning loss, it’s basically structural racism or non-affirmation or well, kids are just stressed out, you know, COVID was really tough on them mentally. There’s so much of it that it’s hard to say, okay, the problem is, they learned nothing for a year and were on their phones for a whole year.”