Learning Loss Was a Problem Even Before the Pandemic
As both Democrats and Republicans have lost interest in school reform, America’s students have paid the price.
Looking to regain lost ground.
Photographer: Olivier Touron/AFP
It’s well known that US education has only partially recovered from the learning loss induced by the pandemic and associated school closures. Less well-known is that America’s students were losing ground even before Covid-19.
What went wrong? New research from Stanford economists points the finger squarely at the obscure Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which passed in 2015 with little public debate by a huge bipartisan vote. The bill, as critics noted at the time, represented a major retreat from the ambitions of the previous effort at education reform: Another law known by its four-letter acronym, 2001’s No Child Left Behind Act.