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According to McKinsey, K-12 students are five months behind in maths and four months behind in reading due to the pandemic.
As another pandemic year begins, its impact on student learning needs to be analyzed. Without a doubt, the arrival of the Coronavirus and its permanence caused endless challenges for educators and students, as they were forced to adapt an online or hybrid model. Still, it has helped address historical inequalities in education.
To analyze the impact that COVID-19 has had on the learning of K-12 students, the management consulting company McKinsey analyzed the results of US students in the 20-21 school year. Preliminary results showed that, on average, students are five months behind in math and four months behind in reading at the end of the school year. Furthermore, the pandemic widened pre-existing opportunity gaps, affecting disadvantaged people.
Although it is not yet possible to know what all the consequences of the Coronavirus will be, according to McKinsey, one of the most affected areas is mental health. In analyzing her, they found that 35% of families are very or highly concerned about their children’s mental health, threatening their chances into adulthood. This could cause a ripple effect that can undermine your chances of attending college and, in the worst case, a rewarding job. Even so, one of the most fearful ravages that the whole situation has left has been the unfinished education.
Unfinished learning
At the beginning of the US 20-21 school year, only 40% of K-12 students had the option to have in-person classes; by the end of the year, this increased to 98%. This does not mean that the children already returned to classes as they did before the pandemic, but rather that they either went the traditional five days or in some hybrid model like one week yes, another no. During this time, students faced multiple schedule changes, new teachers mid-year, connection issues, zoom fatigue, and more problems in what institutions experienced between virtual, hybrid, and in-person learning. These challenges caused unfinished education for many students.
The research authors describe the term “unfinished learning” to refer to students who did not have the opportunity to complete the learning they would have met in a typical year. This does not precisely mean that they abandoned their studies, simply that they learned less than they would have learned in a year without a pandemic. When they move on to the next grade, unprepared, and do not master the subjects necessary to be successful in the next school year, it creates a domino effect that can lead to them not finishing high school or earning a college degree. They are at risk of leaving school without the skills, behaviors, and mindset to succeed in college or the workforce.
To assess learning, McKinsey analyzed the results of more than 1.6 million elementary school students in more than 40 states published in Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready. On the tests, students were ten points behind in math and nine points behind in reading, compared to the previous year’s results for the same grade.
“Although there is no perfect way to make this translation, we can get a sense of how far students are behind by comparing the levels students attained this spring with the growth in learning that usually occurs from one grade level to the next. We found that this cohort of students is five months behind in math and four months behind in reading, compared with where we would expect them to be based on historical data,” they said.
Their results showed that unfinished learning did not vary significantly between elementary grades, although online classes were more challenging for students at this level. They hypothesized that they received more support from either parents or older siblings than students in the upper elementary grades.
However, a study published by Curriculum Associates suggests that more first and second graders have finished the school year below expectations than in any year. Typically, they are proficient in reading in these school years and have a good critical understanding of what they read, which is key to later academic success.
According to observations by McKinsey researchers, when schools closed in the spring of 2020, students quickly fell behind in math, learning almost nothing remotely. They learned at a slower pace in the 20-21 school year, resulting in months of unfinished learning. In reading, however, the story is somewhat different. When educational institutions closed, their progress continued in online classes, only at a slower pace, and in the following school year, it increased slightly. This resulted in four months of unfinished apprenticeship.
“Put another way, the initial impact on reading was less severe, but improvements in remote and hybrid learning appear to have had less of an impact on reading than math.” the authors explained.
Although this seems to represent an optimistic scenario, they only take the results of those students who took tests in person, excluding those who remained in online classes for the entire school year.
The damage goes beyond academics
Beyond losing months of learning during the pandemic, many students lost family members or loved ones, saw their caregivers lose their source of income, and experienced social isolation.
Mckinsey decided to survey 16,370 families with children in all grades across the United States to learn how the Coronavirus has affected students beyond learning. In total, approximately 80% have had some level of concern about their children’s mental health or social and emotional health and development since the pandemic began. More specifically, 35% of respondents said they are very or highly concerned about their children’s mental health and social and emotional well-being. Still, the number of mental health screenings and tests given to children is 6.1% less than in 2019, the steepest decline in screening and testing rates of any age group.
Those who saw a significantly greater delay in their children’s learning reported being very or extremely concerned about the mental health of their students. This shows that general well-being is not independent of academics; Trauma and other mental health issues can influence children’s attendance, their ability to complete assignments, and the way they learn.
Researchers found that chronic absenteeism for students ages 8-12 has increased by 12% in the survey. While 42% of those who are new to truancy don’t even attend their classes, according to their families. Still, it’s unclear whether those missing pandemic-related issues will drop out of school altogether; some may choose to return once
online classes are restored. Researchers estimate that between 617,000 and 1.2 million students will not return to the classroom if an effort is not made to include them.
Regarding attending university, 17% of those interviewed in their last year of high school responded that they had planned to continue their education but abandoned that dream with the arrival of COVID-19. The majority saw it as more important to join the workforce or because college costs were too high.
The effects of the pandemic with unfinished learning and chronic absenteeism can affect an entire generation of students in the long term. To address this incomplete learning and other educational issues caused by the pandemic, education leaders created the Council of Chief State School Officials (CCSSO).
Find out next week what are the actions proposed by the CCSSO.
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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