One devastating aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic was the shutting of many schools across our nation. This disrupted the education of students and the lives and routines of their families.
The results of this action are now clear. The federal education department’s first look at test scores since the pandemic began reveals the worst drop in elementary school reading and math scores in decades. It is estimated that two decades of progress were erased during this two-year period.
By the fall of 2020 the United States was a global outlier in keeping many of its schools shuttered. Most European nations had sent their children back to school. Sweden never closed their schools. The results of this approach validate its decision as students did not experience any learning loss.