Closing Schools Should Be the Last Option in a Pandemic
A new study shows how disastrous Covid-related shutdowns were for students, especially the poor.
Now we know: This was a mistake.
Photographer: Ethan Miller/Getty Images North AmericaSo now we know: Pandemic-related restrictions were devastating to the project of educating our kids. The Education Department dropped the news last week that America’s experiment with remote learning has reduced young children’s standardized test scores to levels not seen in two decades. Although performance fell in every demographic group, the losses were greatest among minorities and the poor.
The announcement has been greeted with a great and astonished wringing of hands, but no one should be surprised. Parents who opposed school closings knew what was coming. In her thoughtful new book “The Stolen Year,” Anya Kamenetz of NPR puts the point this way: “The danger that children would be harmed by prolonged school closures in 2020 was clear from the beginning.”